(Washington) No Sundy perseverance Suspended two meters from Earth just before landing, the surface of Mars is colored: NASA on Friday published several new exceptional photos the day after the arrival of its new mission on the red planet.
During the final stage of its descent, over the last 20 meters, the vehicle was slowly placed on the ground suspended by three cables from its landing stage – a machine equipped with eight retro missiles that finished slowing it down upon its landing.
The unpublished image was taken from below this landing stage, thus showing the top of the probe, its six wheels spread out, and underneath the Martian soil.
Adam Stillzner, chief engineer at “You can see the dust that the engines are stirring up,” exclaimed. perseveranceBy revealing clichés during a press conference.
Another image, this time taken by the MRO probe in orbit around Mars, captured the landing just before this step: we can see, by zooming in, the probe is protected by its atmospheric entry capsule, slowed by a huge hypersonic parachute, completely inflated.
French Press Agency
This image shows the probe being protected by its atmospheric entry capsule, laden with a massive hypersonic parachute.
In a third photo, the first is colored. I send it perseverance From the surface of Mars, the shadow of the car is drawn to the ground, where there are some rocks, and on the horizon, a relief – like the shadow of a cliff.
Photo by NASA, via Reuters
The first color photo was sent by perseverance From the surface of Mars
“The teams were wild,” said Pauline Huang, in charge of operations on the surface of Mars, upon seeing the images. The group of messages from the science team caught fire, they were saying, ‘Look at this,’ ‘Look at this!’
In the fourth image, also in color, we can see one end of one of the vehicle’s six wheels, and the surface of the red planet – somewhat yellow, although the color still needs a slight correction.
Photo by NASA, via Reuters
One of the spacecraft’s six wheels and the surface of Mars.
On Earth, honeycomb rocks are between 3.8 and 3.7 billion years old, and are of particular interest to NASA.
“One of the questions we’ll ask ourselves first is whether these rocks are of volcanic or sedimentary origin,” said Katie Stack Morgan, a co-scientist on the project. “We could have landed on the lava flow!”
Already released on Thursday, two images were taken from the front and back of the probe, but in low quality black and white.
NASA is also unable to confirm whether Mars’ sound was recorded by microphones for the first time. Adam Stelzner said the confirmation would come “at the end of this week or early next week.”