NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured 152 images in the Belva Crater, which is an impact crater within the larger Jezero Crater. These images were then stitched into a panoramic mosaic, revealing multiple locations of exposed bedrock and a region where sedimentary layers angle steeply downward.
The large boulders you see are either bedrock exposed by an ancient meteorite impact or transported into the crater by the river system. What’s next for Perseverance? It will continue caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life and characterize the planet’s geology as well as past climate. This will pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet.
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Mars rover missions usually end up exploring bedrock in small, flat exposures in the immediate workspace of the rover. That’s why our science team was so keen to image and study Belva. Impact craters can offer grand views and vertical cuts that provide important clues to the origin of these rocks with a perspective and at a scale that we don’t usually experience,” said Katie Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist of Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
