Shishangeni Crater
September 2026 Mastcam-Z “Image of the Month” submitted by Sydney Larriva and the Mastcam-Z Payload Downlink Leads
September 9, 2026
Pit stop! In the middle of a 3-sol (Martian day) drive to a new location called Idubi, the Perseverance rover made a stop to capture this stunning Mastcam-Z mosaic of Shishangeni Crater. Because Perseverance is equipped with auto-navigation capabilities, the Mars 2020 operations team can tell the rover where to stop during its drive to take mosaics like this and can trust the rover to take the images once it determines it’s where it needs to be. In the picture, we can see ejecta from the 25-meter wide crater impact off to the right side. This mosaic is made up of 26 individual frames and has been created with an enhanced-color stretch to show greater visual contrast. [NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS]
Images acquired on sol 1946 (August 10, 2026), in Mastcam-Z sequence zcam09991
The featured image shown here and the PNG from the button below are only 1/4th scale compressed versions of the original, high-resolution panorama, because of size limitations on what can be posted on our site. Please download and view the glorious FULL RESOLUTION PNG version (21600 x 11781 pixels; 210 MBytes) from here: IOM_Sep2026_zcam09991_sol1946_shishangeni_crater.png
Photo credit: [NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS]
September 9, 2026