NASA's Perseverance rover captures 360-degree view of Mars' Jezero Crater (video)

By Stefanie Waldek published 2 days ago

Project scientist Ken Farley walks us through the scene.

On Dec. 12, 2023, NASA's Perseverance rover reached a milestone — 1,000 Martian days, or sols, on Mars. To celebrate, NASA released a 360-degree mosaic of the rover's current location, as well as a video walkthrough of the scene narrated by Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley.

The composite image comprises 993 individual images taken with Perseverance's Mastcam-Z instrument last year on Nov. 3, Nov. 4 and Nov. 6, and includes a whopping 2.38 billion pixels.

You might notice there's a big difference in color between the team's image included in this article and the video — the image shows the natural colors on Mars as captured by the camera, while the image in the video has been adjusted to Earth-like lighting. According to NASA, "the adjustment allows mission scientists to use their everyday experience to interpret the landscape."

That landscape is Jezero Crater, where a river had flowed into an ancient lake an estimated 3.5 billion years ago. In addition to studying the geology of the crater, scientists are looking for past signs of microbial life.

More:
https://www.space.com/perseverance-rover-360-view-jezero-crater?utm_source=notification