NASA’s Perseverance rover has been on a Mars exploration mission for the past two years. Since landing in February 2021, the Mars rover has not only taken spectacular photos of the barren planet, but also discovered beautiful structures and formations on the red planet. The Perseverance Rover collected rock samples, analyzed the terrain, and looked for evidence of previous microbial life on Mars. Now the rover has made another amazing discovery by capturing clouds drifting across the Martian sky.
the picture is release by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory yesterday and it was captured by one of the navigators camera on the Perseverance self-driving vehicle. The beautiful clouds were captured just before sunrise on March 18, 2023, the 738th day of the Mars mission. According to NASA, the clouds on Mars are made up of dry ice that condenses on red dust particles suspended in the atmosphere.
To study these carbon dioxide-based clouds, NASA launched a citizen science project called Cloudspotting on Mars. By understanding the formation and appearance of these clouds, scientists hope to better understand the structure of Mars’ atmosphere.
NASA’s Sample Return Program
NASA’s Mars Sample Return is a series of missions to collect scientific samples of Mars collected by the Perseverance probe. One of the most ambitious space missions ever planned, Mars The Sample Return Mission will allow scientists to study those samples using the most advanced technology on Earth. Most samples will be rocks; However, researchers also want to examine regolith – broken rock and dust – not just for what it can teach us about geological and environmental processes on Mars.
The sampling lander will launch to Mars in 2028, carrying a NASA-led Mars rocket and a pair of small Mars helicopters that will land near Perseverance’s landing site in Jezero Crater. The journey from Mars to Earth has been long enough, and NASA is doing everything it can to ensure that scientific samples from Mars reach Earth safely.
