The Mars helicopter Ingenuity keeps speeding around over the Martian surface, as of late finishing its 11th flight and taking photographs as it went. In some of these photographs, caught on August 4, the helicopter snapped its rover mate Perseverance in the South Séítah region of the Jezero Crater.
“Ingenuity’s aerial images are awesome — but even better when you get to play ‘Where’s Perseverance?’ with them,” said Robert Hogg, Deputy Mission Manager for the Mars 2020 program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Once you find our rover and zoom in, you can make out some details, like the wheels, remote sensing mast, and the [Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator] on the aft end.”
In case you’re cooperating at home, check whether you can detect the rover. You can see the shadow of Ingenuity in the center-bottom, and up from this, around the top of the picture, only a bit of bit to one side, there’s a white spot. That is Perseverance, as seen from 1,600 feet away and 39 feet noticeable all around.
Having satisfied its function as a technology demonstration — basically demonstrating that flying a helicopter on another planet is conceivable — Ingenuity is currently assisting Perseverance by exploring ahead to photo scientifically interesting features. Its most recent flight took it to another staging region from where it will investigate the South Séítah region.
An all the more clear picture of the rover was likewise caught during a similar flight, showing Perseverance dealing with its mission of scanning Mars for proof of antiquated life there. Recently, the rover attempted to gather its first rock sample, despite the fact that it didn’t end up working out. It appears to be that the Martian rock in this area is acting somewhat better than anticipated — a recognizable issue that has messed up different Mars explorers like the InSight lander previously.
However, fortunately the issue is with the rock, not with the rover’s sample collection system, so Perseverance ought to have the option to gather samples from different regions successfully.
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