Sol 1306: Pico Turquino Hills Mastcam-Z Mosaic
This text is based on the NASA/JPL media release for this mosaic, online at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26473
NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover used its Mastcam-Z camera system to capture this panorama of a location nicknamed “Pico Turquino Hills” on Oct. 22, 2024, the 1,306th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This area is located on the rim of Jezero Crater. Perseverance landed on the crater’s floor on Feb. 18, 2021, and has been steadily working its way up and out of the crater since August 2024.
The rocks in Pico Turquino Hills are among the oldest yet found by Perseverance, forming in a different geologic era than almost everything the rover has seen before. They’re likely part of the original surface that existed before Jezero Crater’s formation by a massive asteroid about 3.9 billion years ago.
The rocks here are mostly made up of volcanic minerals like olivine, plagioclase, and pyroxene. In the far-right corner of the panorama is a field of white cobbles. This represents the first time Perseverance has encountered pure quartz rock, which may have been created by a hydrothermal system like hot springs – an environment life could have survived in, if any existed on the Red Planet billions of years ago.
This video is a pan/zoom view into the mosaic. Enjoy!
[Note: The preview images embedded in the text here are low-resolution 1/10 scale JPEGs, because the full-resolution versions of these mosaics would take a long time to load on cell phones or tablets/laptops without high-speed internet access. Full-resolution PNG versions can be downloaded with the hyperlinks below each preview.]
Natural & Enhanced:
Left eye color panorama, natural color (view high resolution PNG)
Right eye color panorama, natural color (view high resolution PNG)
Left eye color panorama, enhanced color (view high resolution PNG)
Right eye color panorama, enhanced color (view high resolution PNG)
Anaglyphs:
Left/Right eye RGB color anaglyph panorama, natural color (view high resolution PNG)
Left/Right eye RGB color anaglyph panorama, enhanced color (view high resolution PNG)
Left/Right eye BLUE channel anaglyph panorama (view high resolution PNG)
Left/Right eye RED channel anaglyph panorama (view high resolution PNG)
October 21, 2024