In addition to a panoramic photo, you can also marvel at a beautiful short video and sound clips!
It has been five days since NASA’s rover Perseverance landed unscathed on the red planet. And in the meantime, more and more unique images of this beautiful milestone are pouring in. Less than 24 hours after landing, NASA already released the first photo. And now there is more to follow. “We can now finally take a look at the first”seven minutes of terror”Said Michael Watkins, JPL president.
Panorama photo
The first beautiful image on which Perseverance shows off is in the panoramic photo below. This photo, taken by the two navigation cameras attached to the mast, shows the precise landing location of the rover. Also, the Mars rover itself shines in the picture, which is currently undergoing an extensive inspection of all its systems and instruments.
Panorama photo of Perseverance on Mars. Image: NASA
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In addition to the panorama photo, Perseverance also took a nice selfie:
Selfie of Perseverance. Image: NASA / JPL-Caltech
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Video
Even more spectacular is the new video that NASA has released. This video shows the full descent from Perseverance to the Martian surface. For example, you can watch Perseverance deploy his parachute, find a suitable spot and then carefully land in the Jezero crater. The images start when the rover dangles 11 kilometers above the surface and end when the rover has put its wheels in the dusty sand on Mars.
Watch the footage of Perseverance’s landing on Mars in this video.
“This video from Perseverance is the closest you can get to landing on Mars without putting on a space suit yourself,” jokes Thomas Zurbuchen of NASA. The video starts about 230 seconds after the spacecraft entered the upper atmosphere of the red planet at a speed of 20,100 kilometers per hour. The image will be black for a short time, because the recording starts when the camera lens was still in the parachute compartment. The parachute will deploy in less than a second. The small package of only 46 by 66 centimeters transforms in that second into a 21.5 meter parachute; the largest ever sent to Mars.
Landing
Next, the footage shows how the heat shield is shed after successfully protecting Perseverance from the scorching temperatures during its penetration into the Martian atmosphere. As Perseverance approaches the surface, the rover swings gently back and forth. The rover continues its ride to the surface only with its jetpack. This jetpack is equipped with missiles that are used to slow down the rover further and bring it closer to the landing site. Then, 80 seconds and 2130 meters later, the cameras record the last maneuvers. You can see how the dust and small stones are blown up as Perseverance approaches the Martian soil. And then… touchdown! The images end with Perseverance aluminum wheels making contact with the surface.
Watching
Thanks to the video, the whole world can watch as Perseverance lands on another planet. A unique experience. “We have placed the camera system on the spacecraft, not only to better understand the performance of our spacecraft during descent, but also because we want to take the audience on the ride of a lifetime,” said Dave Gruel, chief engineer at JPL.
Sound clips
Even after this stunning video, we are not there yet. Because even the microphones equipped with Perseverance have picked up some short sounds. Unfortunately, the microphones did not collect any useful data during landing. However, the ambient sounds in the Jezero crater have been recorded. On the sound clips below, a Mars breeze can be heard, as well as some mechanism sounds from the rover.
Iconic images
All in all, the cameras and microphones that Perseverance is equipped with have captured the landing on Mars beautifully. “For those wondering how to land on Mars, why it’s so difficult, or how cool it would be to land on the red planet, look no further,” said Steve Jurczyk of NASA. “Perseverance has only just begun, but has already produced some of the most iconic images in the history of space exploration. It demonstrates the remarkably high level of engineering and precision required to build and fly a vehicle to Mars. ”
The team continues to inspect all of Perseverance’s systems. In the coming days, the researchers will check five of the seven instruments. They will also be using it Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzerinstrument to study the weather on Mars. Although we already have a decent collection of photos, videos and sound clips at our disposal, there is more to come. Because Perseverance is supposed to send another 360-degree panorama of the Jezero Crater to Earth this week. We can not wait!
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