May 20, 2023
Nasa has released a video of Mars land by its adventurous Perseverance Rover showing the vast plains, alongside other pictures which it captured earlier and sent to Earth.
The task of Nasa’s Perseverance Rover is to find traces of life on Martian soil. It roamed and took 152 images overlooking the Belva crater, which Nasa stitched together into an expansive mosaic, and also posted in the form of a video.
Katie Stack Morgan, a deputy project scientist of the Perseverance mission, said in a statement that "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."
The red planet is full of craters that are often created by objects crashing into it. Belva is also a similar kind. Mars mission has revealed several craters allowing scientists to think about the presence of water in the past.
In an explanation, Nasa said: "Downward sloping rocks could be evidence of a past Martian sandbar, deposited by a major river. And the boulders in the foreground could have been thrown there by the dramatic impact, or may have been transported into the crater by the river system."
Apart from the caters, Nasa’s Perseverance rover had also captured detailed images of a once deep "rollicking river," which existed billions of years ago when Mars was warmer, wetter, and insulated by a thicker atmosphere.
Scientists have wondered and studied the phenomena further about whether life existed on Mars in these wet riverine places. Scientists are continuing the traces of life millions of miles afar Earth.