#Mastcam Z

[legends-expo]

Today is the 4th anniversary of the Perseverance rover landing on Mars! Our executive director's real job is on this mission, which she has been involved with since 2016. A highlight of her time on the mission has been clean room testing for the Mastcam-Z instrument (pictured) where she sent commands to the cameras and could hear the filter wheel turning in real time. No one would ever hear that sound again when the cameras were attached to the rover and sent to Mars. After years of sending instrument commands to a similar camera on the Curiosity mission, she loved seeing and hearing the cameras work in person!

There was some "hurry up and wait" time in the clean room, and she was allowed to sanitize and bring in challenge coins for photos, and one that she picked was a Mara Jade coin (based on DS-62409 of Garrison Corellia) as that is her favorite character and costume, hence her Internet handle being "Martian Mara."

Legends Expo is a fan-run convention celebrating the books, comics, games, and other media that built the original Expanded Universe, and will be held on September 13 & 14, 2025 at the Burbank Marriott Convention Center.

Tickets available [here]

[ermatmblr]

Mars2020 - Sol 1356 - MastCam-Z da Kevin Gill Tramite Flickr: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Kevin M. Gill

[lonestarflight]

The Ingenuity Rover's Helicopter, nicknamed Ginny, is broken and alone

"In this most recent photo of Ingenuity, the dual-rotor 'copter can be seen motionless on a sandy dune in the background, as a barren, rocky Mars landscape fills the foreground.

The photo was taken on Feb. 4, 2024, at 1:05 p.m. local mean solar time, a little over two weeks since it suffered its mission-ending damage.

NASA and JPL's Ingenuity helicopter on the surface of Mars as seen by the Perseverance rover's Mastcam-Z camera on Feb. 4, 2024.

Ingenuity suffered damage to its rotors during a flight on Jan. 18 as it made a landing on a featureless, "bland" patch of sandy Martian landscape. The helicopter usually makes use of landscape features such as rocks to help it navigate, but its 72nd flight found the drone without visual cues.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is still analyzing the damage to Ingenuity's blades, but regardless of what JPL finds, the helicopter's mission has officially come to an end now that it's no longer capable of flight.

Ingenuity landed alongside its robotic companion, the Perseverance rover, on Feb. 18, 2021. When it took to the Martian skies in April 2021, Ingenuity made history by conducting the first flight of a powered aircraft on another planet.

The Ingenuity-Perseverance duo has been exploring an area known as Jezero Crater ever since, discovering signs of ancient bodies of water on the Red Planet that may have once harbored life billions of years ago. Ingenuity served as a scout for Perseverance, identifying areas of interest for the rover to explore.

In recent weeks as NASA and JPL have been coming to terms with the end of Ingenuity's groundbreaking mission, agency leaders have praised the helicopter and the teams behind it.

'We couldn't be prouder or happier with how our little baby has done,' said Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity Project Manager at JPL, during a livestreamed tribute to the helicopter on Jan. 31. 'It's been the mission of a lifetime for all of us. And I wanted to say thank you to all of the people here that gave their weekends, their late nights. All the engineers, the aerodynamic scientists, the technicians who hand-crafted this aircraft.'

Tiffany Morgan, NASA's Mars Exploration Program Deputy Director, added that Ingenuity leaves behind a legacy that could pave the way for future aerial missions on other worlds.

This image, which shows the shadow of a damaged rotor on NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity, was taken after its 72nd and final flight on Jan. 18, 2024 on the Red Planet.

'The NASA JPL team didn't just demonstrate the technology, they demonstrated an approach that if we use in the future will really help us to explore other planets and be as awe-inspiring, as amazing, as Ingenuity has been,' Morgan said during the livestream.

NASA is already developing another drone destined for another world, the nuclear-powered Dragonfly, to someday explore Saturn's largest moon, Titan. The agency expects Dragonfly to launch no earlier than 2028."

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA’s Perseverance Rover to Begin Long Climb Up Martian Crater Rim

Aug. 14, 2024

After 2½ years exploring Jezero Crater’s floor and river delta, the rover will ascend to an area where it will search for more discoveries that could rewrite Mars’ history.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover will soon begin a monthslong ascent up the western rim of Jezero Crater that is likely to include some of the steepest and most challenging terrain the rover has encountered to date. Scheduled to start the week of Aug. 19, the climb will mark the kickoff of the mission’s new science campaign — its fifth since the rover landed in the crater on Feb. 18, 2021.

“Perseverance has completed four science campaigns, collected 22 rock cores, and traveled over 18 unpaved miles,” said Perseverance project manager Art Thompson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “As we start the Crater Rim Campaign, our rover is in excellent condition, and the team is raring to see what’s on the roof of this place.”

Two of the priority regions the science team wants to study at the top of the crater are nicknamed “Pico Turquino” and “Witch Hazel Hill.” Imagery from NASA’s Mars orbiters indicates that Pico Turquino contains ancient fractures that may have been caused by hydrothermal activity in the distant past.

Orbital views of Witch Hazel show layered materials that likely date from a time when Mars had a very different climate than today. Those views have revealed light-toned bedrock similar to what was found at “Bright Angel,” the area where Perseverance recently discovered and sampled the “Cheyava Falls” rock, which exhibits chemical signatures and structures that could possibly have been formed by life billions of years ago when the area contained running water.

It's Sedimentary

During the river delta exploration phase of the mission, the rover collected the only sedimentary rock ever sampled from a planet other than Earth. Sedimentary rocks are important because they form when particles of various sizes are transported by water and deposited into a standing body of water; on Earth, liquid water is one of the most important requirements for life as we know it.

A study published Wednesday, Aug. 14, in AGU Advances chronicles the 10 rock cores gathered from sedimentary rocks in an ancient Martian delta, a fan-shaped collection of rocks and sediment that formed billions of years ago at the convergence of a river and a crater lake.

The core samples collected at the fan front are the oldest, whereas the rocks cored at the fan top are likely the youngest, produced when flowing water deposited sediment in the western fan.

“Among these rock cores are likely the oldest materials sampled from any known environment that was potentially habitable,” said Tanja Bosak, a geobiologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and member of Perseverance’s science team. “When we bring them back to Earth, they can tell us so much about when, why, and for how long Mars contained liquid water and whether some organic, prebiotic, and potentially even biological evolution may have taken place on that planet.”

Onward to the Crater Rim

As scientifically intriguing as the samples have been so far, the mission expects many more discoveries to come.

“Our samples are already an incredibly scientifically compelling collection, but the crater rim promises to provide even more samples that will have significant implications for our understanding of Martian geologic history,” said Eleni Ravanis, a University of Hawaiì at Mānoa scientist on Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z instrument team and one of the Crater Rim Campaign science leads. “This is because we expect to investigate rocks from the most ancient crust of Mars. These rocks formed from a wealth of different processes, and some represent potentially habitable ancient environments that have never been examined up close before.”

Reaching the top of the crater won’t be easy. To get there, Perseverance will rely on its auto-navigation capabilities as it follows a route that rover planners designed to minimize hazards while still giving the science team plenty to investigate. Encountering slopes of up to 23 degrees on the journey (rover drivers avoid terrain that would tilt Perseverance more than 30 degrees), the rover will have gained about 1,000 feet (300 meters) in elevation by the time it summits the crater’s rim at a location the science team has dubbed “Aurora Park.”

Then, perched hundreds of meters above a crater floor stretching 28 miles (45 kilometers) across, Perseverance can begin the next leg of its adventure.

More Mission Information

A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, to help pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and as the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.

NASA’s Mars Sample Return Program, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), is designed to 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 NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

TOP IMAGE: This panorama shows the area NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover will climb in coming months to crest Jezero Crater’s rim. It is made up of 59 images taken by the rover’s Mastcam-Z on Aug. 4. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

CENTRE IMAGE: One of the navigation cameras aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this view looking back at the “Bright Angel” area on July 30, the 1,224th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

LOWER IMAGE: This map shows the route NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover will take (in blue) as it climbs the western rim of Jezero Crater, first reaching “Dox Castle,” then investigating the “Pico Turquino” area before approaching “Witch Hazel Hill.”   Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

[apod]

2023 June 24

3D Ingenuity Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS, ASU

Explanation: The multicolor, stereo imaging Mastcam-Z on the Perseverance rover zoomed in to capture this 3D close-up (get out your red/blue glasses) of the Mars Ingenuity helicopter on mission sol 45. That's Earth-date 2021 April 5. Casting a shadow on the Martian surface, Ingenuity is standing alone on its four landing legs next to the rover's wheel tracks. The experimental helicopter's solar panel, charging batteries that keep it warm through the cold Martian nights and power its flight, sits just above Ingenuity's two 1.2 meter (4 foot) long counter-rotating blades. Thirteen sols later, on April 19, Ingenuity became the first aircraft to perform powered, controlled flight on another planet. It has since gone on to complete more than 50 flights through the thin atmosphere of Mars.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230624.html

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

NASA's Perseverance Rover Sees Solar Eclipse on Mars

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its Mastcam-Z camera system to shoot video of Phobos, one of Mars’ two moons, eclipsing the Sun. It’s the most zoomed-in, highest frame-rate observation of a Phobos solar eclipse ever taken from the Martian surface. Several Mars rovers have observed Phobos crossing in front of the Sun over the past 18 years. Spirit and Opportunity made the first observations back in 2004; Curiosity in 2019 was the first to record video of the event. Each time these eclipses are observed, they allow scientists to measure subtle shifts in Phobos’ orbit over time. The moon’s tidal forces pull on the deep interior of the Red Planet, as well as its crust and mantle; studying how much Phobos shifts over time reveals something about how resistant the crust and mantle are, and thus what kinds of materials they’re made of. The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/SSI

[merelygifted]

Spaceweather.com Time Machine - July 7, 2023

A SUNSPOT SO BIG YOU CAN SEE IT FROM MARS:

A huge sunspot (AR3363)  just emerged over the sun's southeastern limb. Mars rover Perseverance saw it before we did. On July 2nd, the rover's mast-mounted stereo camera (MASTCAM-Z) tilted up to the sky above Jezaro crater and photographed a deep-black dot on the solar disk (1st image).

Perseverance does this all the time.  Using a solar filter, the rover looks at the sun almost every day to check its brightness. When the sun dims, researchers know a dust storm is brewing--one of the most important forms of weather on the Red Planet.                        

Sunspots are  a bonus. A recent study shows that Perseverance sees more than 40% of all sunspots despite the fact that  Mars is 78 million km farther from the sun than Earth and  the rover's camera doesn't put many   pixels across the solar disk. It is able to resolve about 10% of the biggest sunspots into multiple pixels.                        

Perseverance has one big advantage. It can see parts of the sun we cannot. From where Mars is currently located, Perseverance views more than half the sun's farside, giving it a preview of sunspots still hidden from Earth. That's how the rover spotted AR3363 days in advance.                      

Astronomers on Earth saw the sunspot for the first time on July 5th (2nd image).

"A very big sunspot is coming!" says Philippe Tosi of Nîmes, France, who photographed AR3363 and inserted an image of Earth for scale.

Just don't forget, Perseverance saw it first. Daily photos from Perseverance are available  here. Select the date and camera (MASTCAM-Z), then start looking for sunspots.  ...

[dmea]

Fact check: True! These images are from NASA's Perseverance rover, as seen below

Most of the time Phobos gives a partial eclipse most days on Mars, so it's much more generous than the moon. However, the eclipses last about 30s for the moon to completely cross the sun so the eclipses aren't very long, the sun is about 60% as big when seen from Mars, and some of the year Phobos doesn't cast a shadow on Earth at all, like the moon normally does. Something I'd like ask an astronomer to confirm or deny is my calculations imply Phobos can do a kind eclipse we don't get on Earth, where its width (but not other dimensions) is wider than the sun, so the sun appears to be split into two crescents. Would also be curious when's the next time this happens!

Some more details under the cut:

Moon radius (equatorial) : 1738 km

Moon orbital distance (semi-major axis): 384400 km

Moon angular width = 360° * Moon diameter / Orbital Circumference = 2*1738*360° / (2*pi*384400) = ~0.52°

Sun angular width from Earth = ~0.53° by the same calculation

Phobos length: 25.9 km

Phobis width: 18.3 km

Phobos orbital distance: 9234-9518 km

Phobos angular width = ~0.22°-0.321° *

Sun angular width from Mars = ~0.317°-0.37° due to the relatively high eccentricity of Mars' orbit (0.09)

*Note that this gets a lot smaller as you move away from Mars' equator, to the point that Phobos is not visible past 70° north or south.

Sources:

[pacogilgon-blog]

Recorre una pendiente pronunciada hasta el borde del cráter Jezero de Marte en esta imagen panorámica capturada por el Perseverance de la NASA solo unos días antes de que el rover llegara a la ...

[isfeed]

NASA thinks it’s figured out why the Mars helicopter crashed

A color image taken by Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z instrument of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter in April 2023. | Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Ahead of a full technical report that’s expected to be released in the next few weeks, engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and AeroVironment have revealed what’s believed to be the cause of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter’s crash on January…

[insurgentepress]

Avista Rover Perseverance un 'ojo saltón' en cráter Jezero de Marte

Desde su posición en la pared occidental del cráter Jezero de Marte el rover Perseverance de la @NASA avistó recientemente un "ojo saltón" que miraba hacia abajo desde el espacio.

Agencias/Ciudad de México.- Desde su posición en la pared occidental del cráter Jezero de Marte, el rover Perseverance de la NASA avistó recientemente un “ojo saltón” que miraba hacia abajo desde el espacio. La pupila de esta mirada celestial es la luna marciana Fobos, y el iris es nuestro Sol. El evento, captado por la Mastcam-Z del rover el 30 de septiembre, el día marciano número 1,285 de la…

[skycrorg]

Perseverancia captó espeluznante fenómeno durante un eclipse solar en Marte

El evento, captado por la Mastcam-Z del rover el 30 de septiembre, el día marciano número 1285 de la misión Perseverance, tuvo lugar cuando la luna con forma de patata pasó directamente entre el Sol y un punto en la superficie de Marte, oscureciendo una g

Desde su posición en la pared occidental del cráter Jezero de Marte, el rover Perseverance de la NASA avistó recientemente un “ojo saltón” que miraba hacia abajo desde el espacio. La pupila de esta mirada celestial es la luna marciana Fobos, y el iris es nuestro Sol. El evento, captado por la Mastcam-Z del rover el 30 de septiembre, el día marciano número 1285 de la misión Perseverance, tuvo…

[dailyreportonline]

Perseverance Rover Sees Phobos Block the Sun During Martian Solar Eclipse | Daily Reports Online

On 30 September 2024, NASA’s Perseverance rover turned its Mastcam-Z camera towards the Martian sky, capturing a remarkable view of Phobos, Mars’ small, irregularly shaped moon, as it passed in front of the Sun in a partial eclipse. This event, observed on what scientists refer to as Sol 1285 of the mission, showcased the shadowy outline of Phobos—a potato-shaped rock—highlighted against the…

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Perseverance now arriving at Pico Turquino

Perseverance has been continuing its sightseeing tour of the Jezero crater rim, with this week's travel itinerary including an up-close look at Pico Turquino. Here, the team hopes to investigate the history recorded in this approximately 200-meter-long region (about 656 feet) of exposed outcrop.

Such rocks may reveal clues of ancient geologic processes, including those that predate or are related to the violent impact that formed Jezero crater. Recently, the team has been studying a number of outcropping ridges during the rover's ascent of the crater rim, with the goal of characterizing the compositional diversity and structure of these exposed rocks.

After paralleling Pico Turquino about 70 meters (about 230 feet) to the south last week, the team planned a close approach over the weekend that positioned the rover at the southwestern extent of the ridge. Prior to the 107-meter drive (about 351 feet) on sol 1332, the team planned two sols of targeted remote sensing with Mastcam-Z and SuperCam to investigate local regolith and conduct long distance imaging of a steep scarp and 20-meter (about 66 feet) diameter crater to the northwest.

The successful approach drive on sol 1332 allowed the team to come into Monday's planning with the focus of assessing outcrop amenable for proximity science and repositioning the rover for upcoming abrasion activities.

Following our abrasion activities at Pico Turquino, the rover will be hitting the road en route to its next science stop at "Witch Hazel Hill." Orbital views of Witch Hazel Hill suggest the area may contain layered and light-toned bedrock that likely record important information about the planet's ancient climate.

Prior to arriving at Witch Hazel Hill, the rover plans to pass through a high point known as Lookout Hill that will afford the team incredible views looking back into the crater, as well as get a glimpse westward of terrain far beyond Jezero.

IMAGE: NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image following a successful 107-meter (about 351 feet) drive on sol 1332, Martian day 1,332 of the Mars 2020 mission. The rocks in the foreground are part of “Pico Turquino,” a large ridge exposed in the Jezero crater rim that the mission team plans on investigating up-close. The rover acquired this image of the area in front of it using its onboard Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera A, on Nov. 18, 2024 at the local mean solar time of 12:43:14. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

[gaetaniu]

Il rover Perseverance individua un'insolita roccia zebrata su Marte

Il rover Mars Perseverance della NASA ha catturato questa immagine di una roccia a strisce bianche e nere utilizzando la sua fotocamera Mastcam-Z sinistra. La Mastcam-Z è una coppia di fotocamere posizionate in alto sul montante del rover. L’immagine è stata acquisita il 13 settembre 2024 (Sol 1268) alle 12:40:29, ora solare media locale. La settimana scorsa, gli scienziati del team sono rimasti…

[spacenutspod]

Mars: Perseverance (Mars 2020) Perseverance Home Mission Overview Rover Components Mars Rock Samples Where is Perseverance? Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Mission Updates Science Overview Objectives Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Perseverance Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 3 min read A Striped Surprise NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover captured this image of a black-and-white striped rock using its Left Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover’s mast. This image was acquired on Sept. 13, 2024 (Sol 1268) at the local mean solar time of 12:40:29. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU Last week, team scientists and the internet alike were amazed when Perseverance spotted a black-and-white striped rock unlike any seen on Mars before. Is this a sign of exciting discoveries to come? It has now nearly been a month since the rover began its climb up the steep slopes leading to the crater rim, on the hunt for ancient rocks that could teach us about early Martian history. While these tricky slopes made for a slow initial ascent, drive progress has improved greatly in recent days, as Perseverance has cruised along a flatter stretch. From this overlook, the rover can now spot landmarks from earlier in the mission like the iconic ‘Kodiak’ butte on the hazy horizon, thick with dust from nearby dust storms. While driving across unremarkable pebbly terrain, beady-eyed team members spotted a cobble in the distance with hints of an unusual texture in low resolution Navcam images, and gave it the name ‘Freya Castle’. The team planned a multispectral observation using the Mastcam-Z camera in order to get a closer look before driving away. When these data were downlinked a couple days later, after Perseverance had already left the area, it became clear just how unusual it was! ‘Freya Castle’ is around 20 cm across, and has a striking pattern with alternating black and white stripes. The internet immediately lit up with speculation about what this “zebra rock” might be, and we’ve enjoyed reading your theories! The science team thinks that this rock has a texture unlike any seen in Jezero Crater before, and perhaps all of Mars. Our knowledge of its chemical composition is limited, but early interpretations are that igneous and/or metamorphic processes could have created its stripes. Since Freya Castle is a loose stone that is clearly different from the underlying bedrock, it has likely arrived here from someplace else, perhaps having rolled downhill from a source higher up. This possibility has us excited, and we hope that as we continue to drive uphill, Perseverance will encounter an outcrop of this new rock type so that more detailed measurements can be acquired. ‘Freya Castle’ is merely the latest in a series of intriguing rocks found recently; ever since arriving in the vicinity of the crater rim, the team has noticed an increased variety of rocks, such as the diverse collection of boulders at ‘Mount Washburn’. Could these be our first glimpses at ancient rocks uplifted from depth by the Jezero impact, now exposed on the crater rim? Only time will tell… Written by Athanasios Klidaras, Ph.D. student at Purdue University Share Details Last Updated Sep 23, 2024 Related Terms Blogs Explore More 3 min read Sols 4311–4313: A Weekend of Engineering Curiosity Article 40 mins ago 3 min read Sols 4309–4310: Leaning Back, Driving Back Article 4 days ago 2 min read Sols 4307-4308: Bright Rocks Catch Our Eyes Article 6 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, and the seventh largest. It’s the only planet we know of inhabited… All Mars Resources Explore this collection of Mars images, videos, resources, PDFs, and toolkits. Discover valuable content designed to inform, educate, and inspire,… Rover Basics Each robotic explorer sent to the Red Planet has its own unique capabilities driven by science. Many attributes of a… Mars Exploration: Science Goals The key to understanding the past, present or future potential for life on Mars can be found in NASA’s four…