You think the picture above is a remote area of the Atacama desert in Chile, or maybe you’ll be forgiven as you’ve found in parts of Utah. However, you have to go further to get to this landscape – in fact, it will take at least seven months of continuous travel.
NASA’s Perseverance Rover, launched in July 2020 and landed on Mars in February 2021, is tasked with finding microbial life on the Red Planet and further promoting the Space Agency’s goal of figuring out whether humans can live there. On May 26, Perseverance captured a 360-degree panoramic view of the area NASA calls “Falbreen” using its Mastcam-Z camera.
Wanderers took this image on the 1,516th day of Earth or Mars. In one of the clearest panoramas taken on this mission, Perseverance articulates a clear day in the landscape, which is often covered by rusty dust.
Thanks to some perceived curved digital colors, the stunning composite image shows the landscape of Mars under the bright blue sky. “The relatively dust-free sky gives a clear view of the surrounding terrain,” Jim Bell, lead researcher at Arizona State University in Tempe, said in a statement. “In this particular mosaic, we enhance the color contrast, which highlights the differences between the terrain and the sky.” ”
It is not difficult to imagine enjoying this view along a hiking trail outside the frame. Reminders in the form of debris from the rover equipment and white spots on the ground, called wear patches, leave a “tool mark” after interacting with the rock surface.
In another image processed with real colors, the scene looks rather monochromatic, reflecting what we see there. However, the color-enhanced image suggests that Mars may actually be (even if only a little bit) to place. (via PETAPIXEL)
