NASA Rover Sends First High-Resolution Panorama Image

SNASA Rover’s persistence has been on Mars in the Jazero Crater for eight days now – and it is already clear that the US Space Agency (NASA) Provides impressive data content for the public in addition to its scientific program. Jim Bell of Arizona State University described the mission, which was equipped with 23 cameras, as a “feast for the eyes” at a NASA press conference Thursday evening, which presented the first high-resolution panorama image of the rover was.

Bell’s team developed a 3D double camera used for it, the Mastcam-Z device that can be rotated 360 degrees on the mast. Depending on the distance of the object depicted, optics equipped with the zoom function can resolve details in the vicinity a few millimeters and a few centimeters in the middle. Especially within a short distance it is much better than any instrument operated on Mars till date. Perseverance can identify such a fly on a football field. In the future, the rover will particularly benefit from this capability when scientifically promising rock samples are selected for further investigation and sampling.

Panorama 142 from personal images

The panorama image is based on a technically complex assembly of 142 individual images, for which more than 5000 command parameters had to be set in two years of preparation work – inter alia, so that attention was corrected at all points. Reported team member Elsa Janssen. The results of several experiments on Earth were included – and experiences made with previous Curiosity Rover.

First, a ring was composed of images along the horizon, the panorama of which was then completed to the rover itself. A reef at the edge of the Jezero Crater and the East River Delta can be seen some distance away – which was one of the reasons for the selection of the landing site. A colored sticker on the rover will eventually be used to check the rover’s cameras in relation to the corresponding light radiation.

Persistence is able to see not only more clearly, but more widely than humans: with the help of eleven spectral filters in addition to broadband filters, cameras can evaluate the chemical details of the environment. The panorama picture was taken on Sunday, the transfer of data volume takes some time. “Unfortunately we don’t have a high-speed Internet connection to Mars,” Jim Bell said. There is still some development potential.