Although it has only been on Mars for a week, Perseverance has already sent important messages from its new home, Jezero Crater. Among them, in addition to the first photo and video of its landing last Thursday, the rover has sent us the first 360 panorama from the place where it is recharging batteries and doing the tune-up before unraveling the mysteries of our neighboring planet and two audio recordings of the ambient sound of the red planet.
NASA reports that the panoramic image was taken on February 20, captured by the two navigation cameras located on its mast and that will serve as "eyes" to venture to Mars in the coming months.
In the background, you can see what is nicknamed 'Canyon de Chelly'. NASA has used the same name (provisionally) as the United States national monument in Arizona due to the similarity of characteristics between both places: a surface probably fractured by the action of water (or lava) millions of years ago. "It is a very interesting place to approach, since we have been able to observe from the orbiters that its composition surely differs from the rest of the crater," the US space agency explains.
The sounds of Mars
Although the sounds from a microphone connected to the rover could not be used during the descent, the device designed to capture audio from the Martian surface is already operating. And the first results did not take long to arrive, since on February 20 it was able to collect the breeze of the red planet for several seconds, in addition to the sounds emitted by the rover itself during its fine-tuning.
In the coming days, engineers will pore over the rover's system data, update its software, and begin testing its various instruments. In the coming weeks, Perseverance will test its robotic arm and make its first short trip, five meters forward and as many backwards. It will be at least one or two months until Perseverance finds a flat place to allow the Ingenuity helicopter, attached to the 'belly' of the rover, to carry out its first flights, although it is already charging batteries for what will be the first foray of a human vehicle in the skies of another planet.
In the words of Adam Steltzner, Perseverance's chief engineer: "It's a really exciting time and a huge step in space exploration."