Mapping the Pink Planet with the facility of open science

MR MBR 3 days agoLast Updated: June 28, 2024

0 1 minute read

This picture of the again of the Perseverance rover sitting upright on the floor of Jezero Crater was taken from a top of 26 ft (8 meters) by NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter throughout its twenty sixth Mars mission on April 19, 2022.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mars rovers can solely make thrilling new discoveries if human scientists make cautious selections about the place to go subsequent. The Mars 2020 mission goals to discover the geology of Jezero Crater and seek for indicators of historic microbial life on Mars utilizing the Perseverance rover. Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California used new mapping methods to information each the rover and the Ingenuity helicopter, which flew to Mars aboard Perseverance — they usually did all of it utilizing open-source instruments.

JPL mapping specialists Dr. Fred Calf III and Dr. Nathan Williams used geospatial evaluation to assist the scientific neighborhood and NASA science management choose Jezero Crater because the touchdown website for the Perseverance and Ingenuity rovers. Earlier than rovers reached Mars, they helped create maps of the terrain utilizing knowledge from satellites orbiting round Earth.

“The maps and pictures present a typical language between completely different individuals – scientists, engineers, administration,” Williams stated. “They assist be certain that everyone seems to be on the identical web page transferring ahead, in a united entrance to attain the perfect science we are able to.”

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