NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover

Another day, another drive for Perseverance rover. This short drive was completed during mission sol 1463 (April 1, 2025) to site number 71.160. Attached is one of the tiled end-of-drive left NavCam image. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Site 71.120 - 4-tile NavCam - NASA/JPL-Caltech

This photo was selected by public vote and featured as "Image of the Week" for Week 215 (March 23 - 29, 2025) of the Perseverance rover mission on Mars.

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Left Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover's mast.

This image was acquired on March 27, 2025 (Sol 1458) at the local mean solar time of 11:52:53.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

This photo was selected by public vote and featured as "Image of the Week" for Week 215 (March 23 - 29, 2025) of the Perseverance rover mission on Mars.

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Left Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover's mast.

This image was acquired on March 27, 2025 (Sol 1458) at the local mean solar time of 11:52:53.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

One for the geologists 🙂 Sol 1457 MastCam-Z

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Mars Perseverance Sol 1456: Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera (Hazcam)

NASA/JPL-Caltech/j. Roger

Source: https://fosstodon.org/@[email protected]/114229952649357130

Front right tiled-HazCam - NASA/JPL-Caltech

16-tile Front Right HazCam mosaic. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Drive on sol 1454 (March 23, 2025). A rotated 4-tile end-of-drive NavCam and a 9-tile of its craggy workspace at site 71.56. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Here's the 9 tile mosaic

Drive data (distance & map etc not available at this point)

Mosaic by Kevin Gill

Source (Original size 13975 × 4494px) https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmgill/54404022054/sizes/o/

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Kevin M. Gill

Hi, I am trying to find the Mars Weather on NASA's website but I can't seem to find it. Do you have a link maybe?

Thanks

This photo was selected by public vote and featured as "Image of the Week" for Week 214 (March 16 - 22, 2025) of the Perseverance rover mission on Mars.

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image using its Left Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover's mast.

This image was acquired on March 21, 2025 (Sol 1452) at the local mean solar time of 12:13:44.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Drive data from JPL's JSON feed

5cm 2inch diameter

Perseverance rover acquired this image using its SHERLOC WATSON camera, located on the turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm.

Contrast stretched to highlight the details

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This image is a close-up of the tailings (fine debris) left behind after Percy drilled for the latest successful sampling operation. The sharp contrast in colours seems to reveal a change found with increasing depth of drilling - the nearby abrasion patch, which is much shallower than the coring hole, mainly produced tailings of the duller, darker-toned kind seen surrounding the coring hole, as can be seen in this image comparing the two.

The row of small neat holes on the lighter-toned tailings (upper right) was created by the rover's LIBS laser (the "death-ray" originally made famous by Curiosity), which is used when we want to know what kinds of elements (e.g. iron, magnesium, calcium) the target is made of. This laser analysis was done about four sols after the core sample was originally taken, just before the rover drove off to its next field site.

What will the elemental analysis tell us? For one thing, the science team will know quickly if the change in colours is caused by a sharp difference in composition, that is, if the rock is made of fundamentally different stuff as you drill deeper down. If that is the case, it would show that this old bedrock we're driving over has more than one tale to tell about alteration, with different processes operating over just a few vertical centimetres near the surface. We already know from samples taken higher up the hill that this old crater rim has seen significant water activity... and yet earlier core samples didn't produce these multi-coloured tailings, so something different was happening at this exact spot.

If the lighter-toned tailings have the same basic elemental make-up as the duller stuff, we still learn a lot - it means something other than a change in building blocks is responsible for that notable difference in colour. It's worth noting that the ~35 prior drilling operations on this mission haven't produced more than one shade of tailings... except in the case of the super-intriguing sample #25, from the Neretva Vallis channel. I expect we'll be hearing a lot more about #25 in the next year or two - but as for the bedrock seen above in the latest one, #28, the scientists are pretty intrigued, given that they tried to get a second sample of this stuff, even before this latest laser analysis. Stay tuned!

EDITED to add context about earlier drilling operations.