Mars rover snaps pics of dusty craters that may have once roared with water
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover captured this mosaic of an isolated hill nicknamed “Pinestand.” Scientists think sedimentary layers stacked on top of one another here could have been formed by a deep, fast-moving river. NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS In its two years and three months of exploring the Red Planet, NASA’s Perseverance Rover has been one busy moving Martian science lab. It has detected signs of past chemical reactions, begun building a Martian rock depot, and recorded audio of a dust devil for the first time. [Related: Mars’s barren Jezero crater had a wet and dramatic past.] Here are a few of the “six-wheeled scientist’s” most recent highlights this month. New Belva Crater images Perseverance’s Mastcam-Z instrument collected 152 images while looking deep into Belva Crater. Belva is a large impact crater that lies within the far larger Jezero...