Two Views of Delta Scarp
This composite image of the "Delta Scarp" in Mars' Jezero Crater was generated using data from two imagers aboard NASA's Perseverance rover. Taken by the rover's Mastcam-Z, the bottom image shows both the base and plateau of the escarpment. The inset above, created from a mosaic of five Remote Microscopic Imager (RMI) pictures, zooms in on a 377-foot-wide (115-meter-wide) portion of the scarp, allowing closer inspection of some of its intriguing geologic features.
Part of the rover's SuperCam instrument, the RMI is able to spot an object the size of a softball from nearly a mile away, allowing scientists to take images of details from a long distance. It also provides fine details of nearby targets zapped by SuperCam's laser.
SuperCam is led by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the instrument's Body Unit was developed. That part of the instrument includes several spectrometers, control electronics and software.
The Mast Unit was developed and built by several laboratories of the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) and French universities under the contracting authority of CNES.
Arizona State University in Tempe leads the operations of the Mastcam-Z instrument, working in collaboration with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego.
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.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.
For more about Perseverance: mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ and nasa.gov/perseverance