Success at Mars! Perseverance Sends First Photos

Members of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team watch in mission control as the first images arrive moments after the spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. Besides looking for past Martian life, the rover study local geology and become the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and soil. NASA / Bill Ingalls

Nice work! The success of today's mission reverberated across the country, offering cheery relief from the drumbeat of COVID-19. At the same time the powered descent vehicle lowered the rover to the Martian surface, my friend Sam carefully lowered himself down an icy waterfall on a frozen creek. Although our icy hike precluded watching the landing, I kept careful track of the time so I could follow those seven dicey minutes in my imagination.  

Isn't this just classic Mars? This is the first photo sent back from Perseverance moments after landing on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021. NASA

Perseverance sent back two black and white images of a boulder-strewn plain from two of its hazard-detection cameras. These were still capped with dust-protection filters, so the photos aren't great, but they clearly show that the rover landed safely. They'll also help NASA pinpoint exactly where it touched down in the landing zone. 

This photo was taken by another hazard camera from the rear of the rover. Future photos will be much sharper once the protective dust filters are removed. NASA

Hopefully, we'll soon have images of the landing itself that were beamed up to the European Mars Odyssey orbiter. And I can't wait for the sound recording of Perseverance touching down. I love Earth but a piece of me badly wants to vacation on Mars.

The icon marks the spot where Perseverance landed on Feb. 18. It's not far from the center of the landing zone on the ancient delta in Jezero Crater about 1.2 miles (2 km) from the cliffs (at left). NASA

NASA has just released a landing site map that identifies the location of the rover and allows you to interactively explore the region. Click the link and zoom around for a better look.

This high-resolution still image is part of a video taken by several cameras as NASA’s Perseverance rover touched down on Mars on Feb. 18.  A camera aboard the descent stage captured this shot. NASA / JPL-Caltech

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No Bull — Mars Double-Aligns in Taurus Tonight

Image
Mars shines from Taurus, an ancient constellation that represents the Greek god Zeus disguised as a bull. Tonight, April 3, Mars, Aldebaran and Elnath will form a straight line at the same time the planet, Aldebaran and the Pleiades outline a right triangle.  Stellarium I've had my eye on Mars the past two weeks. The planet is passing through the constellation Taurus the bull, which dominates western sky at nightfall in early April. This zodiac constellation is host to two of the brightest and most familiar star clusters in the sky, the V-shaped Hyades, located 151 light-years away, and the dipper-shaped Pleiades, 444 light-years distant. Taurus also boasts the first magnitude, orange giant star Aldebaran, which appears to belong to the Hyades but in truth is a foreground star. The bull's fiery eye lies just 65 light-years from us along the same line of sight as the cluster. Straight up from the Hyades, which outlines the bull's face, you'll find two stars representing
Read more

Groovin' with the Moon and Zubenelgenubi

Image
The half-moon will shine just above the bright double star Zubenelgenubi in Libra tonight (August 14), making for a stellar sight in binoculars.  Stellarium It's fortunate that stars have such cool names: Nunki, Aldebaran, Rigil Kentaurus, Betelgeuse just to name a few. One of the most fun to say out loud is Zubenelgenubi (zoo-BEN-el-je-NEW-bee), which also goes by the more prosaic moniker Alpha Librae. It forms part of the outline of the diamond-shaped Libra the Scales, a zodiac constellation which represents weighing scales.  In this 16th century globe created by Gerard Mercator Libra is shown both as a balance and the scorpion's claws. Public domain In ancient times, the Babylonians and Greeks alternatively pictured Libra as the Claws of the Scorpion, and included it as part of the neighboring constellation Scorpius. Its brightest stars still bear Arabic names that refer to the arachnid's pincer-like claws. Zubenelgenubi means "northern claw"; Zubeneschamali (z
Read more

Joy at Northern Nights Star Fest 2021

Image
A participant at Northern Nights Star Fest uses a filtered computer to monitor the progress of a photo taken through his telescope. Red filters preserve night vision. No white lights are allowed on the observing field during the event. Ben Huset   Last weekend I attended the 10th annual Northern Nights Star Fest  (NNSF) held by the Minnesota Astronomical Society (MAS). Members flee light-polluted backyards and head north to Long Lake Conservation Center in north-central Minnesota to revel in dark skies. I spoke at the event and had the time of my life. We've all been a little starved of company the past year and a half because of COVID-19 fears. Getting together with other amateur astronomers for face-to-face conversation and to share the night sky was balm for all. I'm grateful the MAS provided the opportunity. MAS member Jerry Jones speaks Friday night about the work of Edward Pickering and the women at Harvard College Observatory to elucidate the properties of stars through
Read more