Published 13:44 IST, February 19th 2021
NASA rover successfully lands on Mars; Perseverance sends home its first pictures
The first-ever pictures taken by NASA's Perseverance rover were released by NASA shortly after the rover landed. See the Perseverance rover first pictures.
The first-ever pictures taken by NASA's Perseverance rover were released by NASA shortly after the rover landed on the surface of Mars. The images show the surface of the planet in black and white and confirmed the rover has successfully landed on the planet.
Perseverance Rover first pictures
SOURCE: NASA PERSEVERANCE TWITTER
The first-ever image taken by the rover shows the horizon of the Mars planet along with the surface and a reflection of its own show. You can see the first pictures attached here. The second image taken was considerably cleaner than the first one, and clearly shows the surface of the planet. However, both of those images came out somewhat blurry, and there were two reasons for this. They were taken by the engineering cameras that are used to steer the rover, and also because they were taken seconds after the landing when the dust from the landing hadn't settled yet.
SOURCE: NASA PERSEVERANCE TWITTER
The Mars pictures arrived on Earth approximately 11 minutes after they were taken because of the delay in transmission of radio waves from the planet of Mars to Earth. In the coming days, much better images of the planet Mars will arrive as Perseverance is equipped with state-of-the-art technology to document its journey on the planet. NASA will be able to see never before seen footage of the landing itself, including the 21 metre parachute opening, as well a point of view of the ground closing as the rover began its landing.
NASA Perseverance Landing
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Perseverance is the most advanced rover NASA has ever sent on the planet Mars. It also became the ninth spacecraft ever to land on Mars and all of them have been from the US. The car-sized perseverance rover landed successfully at the Jezero Crater which was perceived by NASA scientists to be the most difficult part of the process. NASA officials had called it '7 minutes of terror.'
Jezero Crater is a dry river delta full-on unstable pits, cliffs and large rocks. As reported by space.com this crater was home to a large river where water flowed abundantly about 3-4 billion years ago. Scientists believe that if life ever existed on Mars their best bet would be to find evidence at places where water was available in the past. Stay tuned for more news related to NASA's Perseverance.
Updated 13:44 IST, February 19th 2021