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Science

Mars: Perseverance sends back first color images

February 19, 2021

After touching down on Thursday, the Mars rover has already sent back a few early high-resolution color images from the planet.

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An image of the Perseverance rover taken from above as it lowers to the ground
The rover's descent was captured on film, but the footage is still being relayed to EarthImage: NASA/AP Photo/picture alliance

NASA's Perseverance rover sent a small set of color images of the red planet back to the engineers and scientists at mission control in Southern California, the exploration program website revealed on Friday.

The photos came less than one day after the rover landed on Mars. A health report also indicated that everything seemed to be working as it should.

Perseverance was able to capture a video of its descent. The footage is still in the process of being sent to Earth via relays over other spacecraft, but a still from the video was already received on Friday.

Image of the wheel of the Perseverance rover on Mars' rocky ground
This photo, taken by one of the vehicle's hazard cameras, shows one of the wheels on Mars' rocky groundImage: NASA/JPL-Caltech/AP Photo/picture alliance

The images shared by NASA also include high-resolution photos captured by the hazard cameras on the front and rear of the vehicle.

'Awestruck'

Scientists and engineers working on the mission reacted with excitement when they saw the first images of Mars sent by the Perseverance rover.

"This is something that we've never seen before,'' flight system engineer Aaron Stehura told reporters.

"It was stunning, and the team was awestruck. There's just a feeling of victory that we were able to capture these and share it with the world," he said.

Photo of a flat Martian landscape from the Perseverance rover
This is the first color image of the red Martian landscape sent by the rover after it landedImage: NASA/JPL-Caltech/AP Photo/picture alliance

Pauline Hwang, strategic mission manager for surface operations, described the situation when the first photos came through: "The team went wild."

"We were just kind of like on cloud nine ... this weird dreamlike state, we can't actually believe this is what we're seeing," she said.

Next steps

The mast of the rover is expected to be raised on Saturday allowing several other cameras to start recording images.

The navigation cameras, used for driving, are located close to two science cameras — a zoomable Mastcam-Z and a laser instrument called SuperCam.

A satellite image of the Perseverance rover landing on Mars
This photo, taken from a satellite, shows Perseverance landing on Mars with its parachuteImage: NASA/Jpl-Caltech/PA Media/dpa/picture alliance

The cameras allow the scientists and engineers to get an even better view of our neighboring planet than previous expeditions, but as they explained over a live broadcast, the signals sent from the control team to the rover can take between five and 20 minutes.

That means that the team has to send a series of instructions to Perseverance at the beginning of the day and wait a while to see what happens.

The mission aims to collect rock samples which will be collected by subsequent missions in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA).

It is hoped that Perseverance will pave the way for future human exploration of the red planet.

ab/sri (AP, dpa, AFP)