My Favorite Martian Image: the Ridges of ‘South Stah’ NASA’s Mars Exploration Program – NASA Mars Exploration

NASAs Perseverance rover captures a geologic feature with details that offer clues to the areas mysterious past.

Ask any space explorer, and theyll have a favorite photograph or two from their mission. For Jorge Nez, an astrobiologist and planetary scientist working on the science team of NASAs Perseverance rover, one of his current favorites is a rovers-eye panorama of the South Stah region of Mars Jezero Crater. Exploring the geologic unit was among the major objectives of the teams first science campaign because it may contain some of the deepest, and potentially oldest, rocks in the giant crater.

Just like any excited tourist approaching the end of a major road trip, we stopped at a lookout to get a first view of our destination, said Nez, who is based at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. This panorama is spectacular because you feel like you are there. It shows not only the incredible scale of the area, but also all the exploration possibilities South Stah has to offer. With multiple intriguing rocky outcrops and ridgelines, each one is seemingly better than the last. If its not a field geologists dream, its pretty close.

Composed of 84 individual enhanced-color images that were later stitched together, the mosaic was taken on Sept. 12 (the 201st Martian day, or sol, of the mission) by the Mastcam-Z camera system as the rover was parked on an elevated overlook just outside its entry point into South Stah. Perseverance had just completed a record 190-yard (175-meter) drive the previous sol.

The mosaic was taken at the highest magnification and stretched to allow subtle color differences in the rocks and soil to be visible to the naked eye. Left of center and halfway up the image are the gray, darker gray, and Swiss-coffee-colored rocky outcrops of the ridge nicknamed Faillefeu (after a medieval abbey in the French Alps). The distinctly thin, at times tilted layering evident in several of Faillefeus rocks would have been high on the science teams list of things to explore, because tilted layering suggests the possibility of tectonic activity. But similar features along with other compelling geology were visible on another ridgeline that the missions science team opted to explore instead.

The Martre Ridge (named after a commune in southeastern France) is like Faillefeu except three times as big. It contains not only low-lying flat rocks near the base of the ridge, but also rocky outcrops with thin layering at the base and massive caprocks near and at the ridges peak. The caprocks are usually made of harder, more resistant material than those stacked below them, suggesting potential differences in how the material was deposited.

Another cool thing about this image is that one can also see in the background, on the right, the path Perseverance took as it made its way to South Stah, said Nez. And finally, there is the peak of Santa Cruz far in the distance. Were currently not planning on going there; its too far out of our way. But it is geologically interesting, reinforcing just how much great stuff the team gets to pick and choose from here at Jezero. It also looks cool.

More About Perseverance

A key objective for Perseverances mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planets geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASAs Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance:

mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ and nasa.gov/perseverance

DC AgleJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-393-9011agle@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Alana JohnsonNASA Headquarters, Washington301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

Read the rest here:

My Favorite Martian Image: the Ridges of 'South Stah' NASA's Mars Exploration Program - NASA Mars Exploration