NASA's Perseverance rover just uploaded a new batch of photos from its adventures on Mars — and one of them looks like it was taken right out of Dune. 2021 has been a busy year for space exploration, and that's been especially true for Mars-related discoveries. Scientists/astronomers have learned incredible information about the planet's interior makeup, made new revelations about possible frozen lakes, and a whole lot more.
One of the robots responsible for so much of this work has been Perseverance. After landing on Mars with the Ingenuity helicopter in February 2021, Perseverance has been tasked with collecting samples around Mars and looking for signs of ancient life. Perseverance recently took a huge step forward in this mission by collecting and sealing its first sample of Martian rock. It'll continue to collect more samples over the coming months and years, and in 2031, those samples will be sent back to Earth for further analysis.
In between collecting samples and traversing the challenging Mars environment, Perseverance also spends a good deal of its time capturing gorgeous pictures. While all of Perseverance's photos are impressive for one reason or another, the one shown above is particularly mesmerizing. It showcases large sandy hills, a bright orange sky, and swirling patterns in the sand on the ground — the entirety of which is covered by rocks of varying shapes and sizes. Similar to so many of the other photos taken by Perseverance, this one was captured by its Right Mastercam-Z camera which sits high up on its mast.
What This Picture Tells Us About Mars
Perseverance and other rovers have captured countless images of Mars over the years since they've been exploring the Red Planet. Even so, that doesn't make new pictures any less exciting. It's well-known that Mars is a dry and barren planet. It's possible it once had an Earth-like environment and was home to small lifeforms, but that was billions and billions of years ago. Today, Mars looks like the picture above. It's filled with rolling hills, sand and rocks are everywhere, and it doesn't look too far off from the world envisioned in Dune (giant sandworms notwithstanding).
According to NASA's latest report, Perseverance is currently exploring the Artuby ridgeline on Mars with plans to dig deeper into the Jezero Crater in the near future. The Jezero Crater is believed to house possible evidence of ancient life that once existed on the planet, making it one of the biggest areas of interest for this current mission. Whatever Perseverance ends up finding there — signs of life or not — expect it to share even more incredible photos all along the way.
Source: NASA