On Wednesday, NASA released its first high-definition panorama of its Perseverance rover of its landing site, giving the public the first appropriate view of the Martian surface that the new rover will explore. The panorama shows Mars’ Jezero Crater as seen by the Perseverance Mastcam-Z, which can be rotated to capture a full 360 degrees.
This isn’t the first panorama we’ve seen out of perseverance – we got one almost immediately after the rover landed, but it was assembled using low-resolution images captured by the navigation cameras. This new panorama is different because it was captured with Mastcam-Z.
As a result, the images are of a higher resolution, providing more detailed panorama with persistence taking center stage. The Mastcam-Z, as its name suggests, is attached to a mast, and is able to rotate 360 degrees. Navigation cameras likewise captured 360 panorama.
NASA explains that the Mastcam-Z contains two cameras, each of which can be zoomed in and used to capture panoramic colors. In addition to that, this dual camera system also supports 3D photo capture and HD video recording.
NASA has more plans for this camera system than just taking panoramas. The space agency says its zoom and focus capabilities mean that its persistence will be able to capture detailed scans of near objects as well as features further away.
Researchers on the ground will be able to use close-ups to determine where perseverance should spend their time collecting samples, among other things. President To the NASA website To view the HD Mars panorama in full size.
