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Photo shows Perseverance rover as a tiny dot on the desolate Martian surface

Trevor Mogg
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As NASA’s Perseverance rover continues to undertake checks following its successful arrival on Mars last week, we can now see the first image of the car-sized robotic explorer taken from high above by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Captured by the orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) camera as it passed overhead at an altitude of around 180 miles, the rover appears as a tiny dot on the vast and desolate Martian surface.

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NASA’s Perseverance rover on the Martian surface, photographed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA/JPL/UArizona

Another image of the landscape (below) points out the various parts of the spacecraft that helped to get Perseverance safely onto the red planet following a challenging landing procedure known in the industry as the “seven minutes of terror.”

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The satellite picture shows the heat shield, which detached from the spacecraft first during a dramatic descent that was captured in an incredible video. We can also see the back shell and parachute, which helped to slow the speed of the spacecraft on its way down. Finally, a short distance away, we can see the descent stage, which lowered Perseverance to the Martian surface using cables before flying a safe distance away to perform a controlled crash landing.

NASA/JPL/UArizona

The University of Arizona, which operates the orbiter’s HiRise camera, said that while the spacecraft components are easy to spot now, a gradual covering of Martian dust will see the space junk “slowly fade into the background over years.”

The orbiter, meanwhile, will continue to photograph Perseverance as it sets about exploring the planet for signs of ancient life, and gathering rock and soil samples for later return to Earth.

The mission will also see the first helicopter flight on another planet when Ingenuity, a diminutive aircraft currently attached to Perseverance’s underbelly, lifts off in the coming months.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived at Mars in 2006. The spacecraft is operating well beyond initial expectations, with NASA hoping to keep it running at least until the end of this decade.

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The location where NASA’s Perseverance will begin depositing its first cache of samples is shown in this image taken by the Mars rover on Dec. 14, 2022, the 646th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

There are currently a number of rovers, landers, and orbiters exploring Mars, gathering more information than ever before about the planet's environment and its history. But to understand more about this place and particularly whether there was ever life there, we need to bring samples back from Mars to Earth for analysis here. That's what NASA aims to do over the next decade with its Mars Sample Return plan.

As part of that plan, the Perseverance rover is collecting samples of rock and regolith as it explores the Jezero Crater. These samples are then sealed in tubes which are deposited on the martian surface, ready to be collected and brought back to Earth by a future mission.

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Perseverance rover collects its first sample of Martian dirt
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover snagged two samples of regolith – broken rock and dust – on Dec. 2 and 6, 2022. This set of images, taken by the rover's left navigation camera, shows Perseverance's robotic arm over the two holes left after the samples were collected.

NASA's Perseverance rover, currently exploring Mars's Jezero Crater, has collected its first sample of dirt from the Martian surface. The rover has been collecting rock samples up until this point, but this month it has added scooping of the soil from the planet's surface, called regolith, to its collection. The plan is for a future mission to collect these samples and bring them back to Earth for study.
Studying this dusty matter is particularly important for designing tools and equipment for future Mars exploration. “Everything we learn about the size, shape, and chemistry of regolith grains helps us design and test better tools for future missions,” said Iona Tirona of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in a statement.

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover snagged two samples of regolith – broken rock and dust – on December 2 and 6, 2022. This set of images, taken by the rover's left navigation camera, shows Perseverance's robotic arm over the two holes left after the samples were collected. NASA/JPL-Caltech

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