Figure A

Stitched together from 56 images from NASA's Perseverance Mars rover, this natural-color mosaic looks downstream of the Neretva Vallis river channel, which fed Jezero Crater with fresh water billions of years ago. The rover captured the images with its Mastcam-Z camera on May 17, 2024, the 1152nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission.

"Mount Washburn" is to the far left (north is to the left; southeast is to the right), about 660 feet (200 meters) away. Approximately quarter-mile (400 meters) wide with sand dunes and ripples, Neretva Vallis is at the center of the image. Prior to entering the channel, Perseverance had driven for several months along a boulder-filled route just beyond the camera view on the right of this mosaic. Perseverance's ultra-high-frequency antenna is visible right of center in the foreground.

Figure A: In this enhanced-color version of the mosaic, the color bands of the image have been processed to improve visual contrast and accentuate color differences.

Arizona State University leads the operations of the Mastcam-Z instrument, working in collaboration with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, on the design, fabrication, testing, and operation of the cameras, and in collaboration with the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen on the design, fabrication, and testing of the calibration targets.

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, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/