NASA's Perseverance Rover Captured Stunning New 360-Degree View of Mars in a Video

NASA's Perseverance Rover beamed back a stunning collection of images and sounds of the Red Planet since it landed in February. The latest footage is the most entrancing yet that the rover sent to the space agency.

NASA released an interactive 360-degree panorama of Mars that was captured by the rover's Mastcam-Z stereo imaging system, showing the 2.4 billion pixel image of the combined 992 separate images of the Van Zyl Overlook.

The Next Web reported that the images in the interactive 360-degree panorama were taken between April 15 and 26, as the Ingenuity Mars helicopter completes its first flights on Martian jet streams while the Perseverance Rover waited.

The 360-Degree Panorama View of the Van Zyl Overlook

The Perseverance Rover captures the 360--degree panorama view of the Van Zyl Overlook, the place where the rover was parked for 13 days as Ingenuity took its first flights.

According to the NASA Science Mars Exploration Program, an additional version of the panorama labeled as Figure B includes the addition of the deck of Perseverance Rover as seen by its navigation cameras on March 20, 2021, the 31st sol of Mars 2020 mission.

Since some patches of the near-field sand had been covered by some parts of the rover when the right eye Mastcam-Z images were taken, left-eye Mastcam images taken at the same and the same place were used to replace those gaps.

NASA noted that the imaging coverage of the Red Planet's sky was digitally smoothed and expanded to match the actual color of the sky observed as the panorama was captured.

Arizona State University in Tempe collaborated with Malin Space Science Systems in Sand Diego to operate the Mastcam-Z instrument of the rover.

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Perseverance Rover's Mission on Mars

According to NASA, the key objective of Perseverance Rover's mission on Mars is astrobiology, which includes finding signs of ancient microbial life on the Red Planet.

Moreover, the rover is also tasked to characterize the geology of Mars and its past climate to pave the way for human exploration on the planet. It will also collect Martian rock samples as well as regolith, the broken Martian rock, and dust.

Future NASA and ESA Mars missions would involve spacecraft that will collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for an in-depth analysis of its composition and origin.

Perseverance Rover is part of the Moon to Mars exploration approach of NASA, which includes the Artemis mission that will help prepare future human colonies that will stay on the Red Planet.

California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) built and manages the operation of the Perseverance Rover. Here is the video of the 360-degree panorama view of the Van Zyl Overlook captured by the Mastcam-Z imager: