Perseverance Views Slippery Terrain

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover used its navigation cameras, or navcams, to capture this scene while driving up to Jezero Crater's rim on Nov. 11, 2024, the 1,326th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The sandy terrain seen here, along with a 10-degree average slope, meant it was a slippery drive.

Rover tracks trail off behind Perseverance in this image. Far in the distance is the floor of Jezero Crater.

A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA's Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance: science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/