Perseverance’s upcoming targets: sand ripples, rocks, and a lot of dust
Cool image time! The photo to the right was one of ten color images taken by Ingenuity on its twelfth flight on August 15, 2021. This photo is one of two images looking the same area from slightly different positions in order to create a stereoscopic view, with the other image found here.
The ground the helicopter was scouting, dubbed South Seitah, is an area that the Perseverance team hopes to send the rover. Ingenuity’s images from this flight will not only tell them whether the terrain is safe to traverse, it will allow them to map out a route that will avoid problems while effectively targeting the most interesting rocks.
The photo shows a lot of Martian dust, with a good portion forming small sand dune ripples. The rocks appear to be bedrock pavement stones, which because these are on the floor of the crater and the lowest elevation, likely hold the oldest geology that Perseverance will see on its journey in Jezero Crater. For this reason the science team is spending a lot of time studying that floor, and will make probably several drilling attempts to obtain samples.
The terrain in general looks entirely safe for the rover to travel. I expect the science team will thus continue north, crossing to North Seitah, rather than backtrack and travel over already traversed ground. Initially they had decided to avoid this ground because they feared it might be too rough for the rover. I suspect they were just being overly cautious at the start of the mission, and will now work past that fear.
Cool image time! The photo to the right was one of ten color images taken by Ingenuity on its twelfth flight on August 15, 2021. This photo is one of two images looking the same area from slightly different positions in order to create a stereoscopic view, with the other image found here.
The ground the helicopter was scouting, dubbed South Seitah, is an area that the Perseverance team hopes to send the rover. Ingenuity’s images from this flight will not only tell them whether the terrain is safe to traverse, it will allow them to map out a route that will avoid problems while effectively targeting the most interesting rocks.
The photo shows a lot of Martian dust, with a good portion forming small sand dune ripples. The rocks appear to be bedrock pavement stones, which because these are on the floor of the crater and the lowest elevation, likely hold the oldest geology that Perseverance will see on its journey in Jezero Crater. For this reason the science team is spending a lot of time studying that floor, and will make probably several drilling attempts to obtain samples.
The terrain in general looks entirely safe for the rover to travel. I expect the science team will thus continue north, crossing to North Seitah, rather than backtrack and travel over already traversed ground. Initially they had decided to avoid this ground because they feared it might be too rough for the rover. I suspect they were just being overly cautious at the start of the mission, and will now work past that fear.