NASA’s Curiosity rover has been getting all the attention these last few days as it celebrates its 13th year on Mars, but its younger sibling, Perseverance, is also hard at work on the Martian surface.
The space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is overseeing the Perseverance Mars mission, recently shared an astonishingly clear panorama of the rover’s surroundings, taken during a rare period when the Martian dust settles on the ground. You can see a larger version of the image on JPL’s website, and even zoom into it for a closer look.
“Mars is a dusty place — but every two years, the dust settles,” JPL said in a post on X. “The Perseverance rover’s imaging team took advantage of this moment to capture one of the sharpest panoramas of its mission so far!”
Mars is a dusty place – but every two years, the dust settles. The Perseverance rover’s imaging team took advantage of this moment to capture one of the sharpest panoramas of its mission so far!
Explore the full image: https://t.co/C3JAXzc5Eg pic.twitter.com/MkNZ1urFEh
The striking panorama comprises 96 images taken from a spot JPL calls Falbreen. In the foreground we can see a white area created by Perseverance after it drilled into the rock to collect a sample, while the image also shows hills as far as 40 miles (65 kilometers) away. Also, to the far right of the photo, you can see tire tracks made by Perseverance as it made its way to Flabreen.
Also note the prominent large rock that rests on a dark, crescent-shaped sand ripple not far from Perseverance. It’s known as a “float rock” as it probably formed somewhere else before being transported to its current location. “Whether this one arrived by a landslide, water, or wind is unknown, but the science team suspects it got here before the sand ripple formed,” JPL said.
Commenting on the panorama, acting NASA chief Sean Duffy said, “Our bold push for human space exploration will send astronauts back to the moon. Stunning vistas like that of Falbreen, captured by our Perseverance rover, are just a glimpse of what we’ll soon witness with our own eyes. NASA’s groundbreaking missions, starting with Artemis, will propel our unstoppable journey to take human space exploration to the Martian surface. NASA is continuing to get bolder and stronger.”
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.