NASA’s Perseverance rover has made a huge accomplishment, it has survived 1,500 Martian days (called “Sols”), and it has celebrated this amazing milestone by taking a selfie to send back to Earth. Space exploration is quite the serious business, whether it is people or equipment that have been sent out to explore the confines of space, we expect the upmost professionality. But there is always a time for fun, and in this case the selfie proved to be as much business as it was pleasure, as it managed to capture a dust devil.
First and foremost, Perseverance saw their anniversary from the “Pine Pond,” a spot on the edge of Jezero Crater. The rover is equipped with cameras and a robotic arm that allow it to capture images from Mars, but that in this case came in handy for something else. The robotic arm has been designed to be able to move around and it can eve “hide” the elbow part, which is one of the things that make this new image so compelling and “lifelike”.
When we think about a selfie, we think of only one image that has been taken, but the technology that is up there is not exactly one of our phones. The camera responsible for the photo op was WATSON, which stands for Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering and sits at the end of the rover’s robotic arm. For the image to work, it had to take 59 images that were then stitched together into one big selfie, but since this is the fifth selfie from Perseverance since it touched down on Mars back in 2021, it is not a new experience.
What is a new experience is the dust devil that it also managed to capture
The unintended dust devil that Perseverance found on Mars
Dust devils are quite common both on Mars and on Earth, especially in desert climates. They form when warm air rises and starts spinning, creating a sort of mini tornado in areas where soil is loose and light like sand, but registering one in Mars is still a very exciting happenstance. Although we know they happen, and they are quite common in the Jezero Crater at this time of the year, this is the first time the WATSON camera has ever been able to capture one, and it was a complete accident, which makes it even more special.
The dust devil was pretty big too, roughly 100 meters (328 feet) wide and managed to add some unexpected flair to the photo. But there were also other unexpected landmarks and features captured by the selfie, like for example right in front of the rover is a dark hole surrounded by a halo of gray rock powder, which is the result of its 26th sample drilling. This particular sample is called “Bell Island,” named after a real island in Newfoundland, Canada and what makes this rock interesting is the small spherules inside it. These tiny round features might have formed from ancient volcanic eruptions or possibly from big impacts in Mars’ early history. Later on, the rock was lifted during the huge collision that created Jezero Crater.
This was not a goodbye selfie, as it is not the end of Perseverance’s mission on Mars. The rover will now begin to move again, this time going to a patch of light-colored bedrock known as “Copper Cove.” Once there, the science team wants to figure out how this unit fits into the local geology and when it is done collecting samples that could potentially determine whether “Copper Cove” is older or younger than the rocks previously studied it will continue its path to explore the crater’s outer rim and scout for the next promising science spot.