See and Hear the First Videos, Images, Sounds From NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover
Thousands of still images plus video and audio recordings from NASA's Mars Perseverance rover are now publicly available on the agency's website.
Since landing on Mars on Thursday, the rover has taken more than 4,700 images, as well as video and audio. The first audio and video recordings from the rover were released on Monday.
Steve Jurczyk, acting NASA Administrator, said in a statement: "Perseverance is just getting started, and already has provided some of the most iconic visuals in space exploration history."
There are a total of 23 cameras aboard the rover, which include engineering cameras, science cameras, and cameras devoted to capturing the descent and landing.
Footage released by the agency shows the deployment of its parachute, jettisoning of the heat shield, and the crucial skycrane maneuver, which saw the car-sized rover lowered into Mars' Jezero crater via a rocket-powered hovering descent vehicle.
In the video description, NASA said: "The footage from high-definition cameras aboard the spacecraft starts 7 miles (11 kilometers) above the surface, showing the supersonic deployment of the most massive parachute ever sent to another world and ends with the rover's touchdown in the crater."
Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, called the video "the closest you can get to landing on Mars without putting on a pressure suit."
The whole descent was also captured in still shots via seven on-board cameras, which looked above and below. Even the back shell, which covered the top of the descent stage, had a camera equipped to monitor the parachute's deployment.
Audio was not captured during the descent, but the microphone survived and was able to record sounds from the Martian surface on Saturday.
In the audio clip, the rover's own mechanical sounds can be heard most prominently but about ten seconds in a breeze of wind is audible. NASA has released two separate clips of the same recording, one that filters out the noise of Perseverance and one that includes it. The latter can be heard in the clip below.
In addition, the thousands of still images that have been captured of the Red Planet's surface are also available on NASA's Perseverance image gallery.
Most recently NASA released new images of the lander's descent, but there are also photos taken Tuesday from the on-board navigation cameras showing the rover operating on the planet's surface.
NASA is running an 'Image of the Week' feature in which the public can vote on which of Perseverance's images are the best.
The current 'Image of the Week' is the black-and-white photo of the Martian surface that was beamed back to Earth using the onboard 'Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera A' shortly after landing.
As well as beaming images of the otherworldly landscape back to Earth, Perseverance will use its cameras to navigate the surface, check its instruments for damage, and even examine the chemistry of rocks from as far as 20 feet away.
