NASA's Perseverance rover peeks into Mars' Belva Crater | Watch video

 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

This view was captured by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover while peering deep into Belva Crater - a large impact crater within the far larger Jezero Crater. The dramatic mosaic, composed of 152 individual images snapped by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard the rover, not only captivates the eye but also unlocks valuable scientific understanding for the rover's science team.

"Mars rover missions usually end up exploring bedrock in small, flat exposures in the immediate workspace of the rover. That's why our science team was so keen to image and study Belva. Impact craters can offer grand views and vertical cuts that provide important clues to the origin of these rocks with a perspective and at a scale that we don’t usually experience," said Katie Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist of Perseverance at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

While roadcuts on Earth serve as valuable teaching tools for geology students, Martian craters like Belva serve as natural roadcuts, offering scientists a remarkable chance to observe rock layers and other geological features that are typically hidden beneath the Martian surface.

Perseverance captured the images of the interior of Belva Crater on April 22, when it was parked at the west side of Belva Crater's rim on a light-toned rocky outcrop named "Echo Creek."

The crater stretches approximately 0.6 miles wide (0.9 kilometers wide) and reveals multiple locations of exposed bedrock and region where sedimentary layers angle steeply downward.

Perseverance's science team speculates that the large boulders in the foreground may either be chunks of bedrock uncovered by the meteorite impact or transported into the crater by the river system. To unravel this mystery, the team will continue to compare the features found in the bedrock near the rover with the larger-scale rock layers visible on the distant crater walls.

Zooming in on Belva Crater. Places like this, where nature has done the excavating for you, can be great for getting a look at exposed rocks from under the surface. Hooray for meteorites! ☄️See what clues I’m picking up on here: https://t.co/YiNhInhTcd https://t.co/Yi5vPOjUAA pic.twitter.com/9A1b37928z

— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) May 18, 2023