The Science Team directed Perseverance to Airey Hill, the parking spot chosen for Solar Conjunction. Although there will be a pause on data during conjunction, team members still analyze all the images taken on the drive before Perseverance parked and data delivery was paused. While all returned images and data are exciting, these post-drive images showed an interesting rock that stood out t...

After scraping away the top few layers of stone using its abrading bit, the Perseverance rover has revealed a network of thin, white veins. Could these hold clues about ancient life? Geological veins are mineral deposits that form when a pre-existing fracture within a rock is filled with a new mineral. They are exciting to planetary scientists because they often provide evidence of past wate...

Over 230 members of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Science Team gathered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA during June 2022 for a week of in-person science discussions, rover operations, and instrument team meetings. For many, it had been over 3 years since we’d seen each other face-to-face. For others, including many of our early career students and post-docs who joined ...

Who hates deep sand traps more than golfers?  Mars rover drivers (and probably Fremen too). When your vehicle is well over 50 million kilometers away from the nearest tow company, getting your wheels stuck in sand can be a mission-critical problem. Such a predicament ended the Spirit rover’s mission in 2009. Yet Perseverance is currently winding her way through the maze of towering san...

Imagine if there was a layer of ice as tall as a 13-story building underneath the entire state of Texas. We have found a layer of ice that big under a region of Mars called Arcadia Planitia. I am a graduate student in the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona and I study ice under the surface of Mars. The structure of Martian impact craters, it turns out, can tell us...

On Friday, Sanjeev Gupta, a Participating Scientist on the Mars Science Laboratory mission, woke up in Pasadena and walked past his apartment complex's swimming pool to the parking garage. He got in his car, turned the ignition, and wheeled onto the 210 freeway, squinting through the California sun glinting off the car in front of him. Gupta drove past the 90,000-seat Rose Bowl stadium, past ...

On Friday, Sanjeev Gupta, a Participating Scientist on the Mars Science Laboratory mission, woke up in Pasadena and walked past his apartment complex's swimming pool to the parking garage. He got in his car, turned the ignition, and wheeled onto the 210 freeway, squinting through the California sun glinting off the car in front of him. Gupta drove past the 90,000-seat Rose Bowl stadium, past ...

Following an intensive period of soil scoop testing, Curiosity has begun to use its new capability to feed on-board scientific instruments samples from the martian surface. Recent scoop payload was distributed to the CheMin instrument for X-Ray Diffraction analysis, and the camera teams have been measuring grain size distributions. And now, the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument is gear...

Following an intensive period of soil scoop testing, Curiosity has begun to use its new capability to feed on-board scientific instruments samples from the martian surface. Recent scoop payload was distributed to the CheMin instrument for X-Ray Diffraction analysis, and the camera teams have been measuring grain size distributions. And now, the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument is gear...

As Curiosity continues its romp through the martian sandbox - scooping up sand and sifting it into different size fractions - scientists are eagerly anticipating a new data set. But not all instrument teams are sitting on their hands. The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) is playing a central role in the scooping effort, serving as a key link between scientists and engineers. [[IMAGE||GALLER...