Nasa’s Mars Perseverance rover has sent back its first colour images from the surface of the red planet.
The space agency also released a dramatic image of the Mars Perseverance rover being lowered onto the surface of the Red Planet during its landing on Thursday.
The image, unveiled during a press briefing on Friday, was taken by the descent stage that placed the vehicle on the ground.
The team also showed two colour pictures the rover had taken after landing safely on Mars.
The first high-resolution colour image to be sent back was taken from the rover’s front hazard camera and shows a barren and dusty landscape and the shadow of the rover across the ground.
Speaking at the briefing, Hallie Gengl, instrument data systems operation lead for the space agency’s Multimission Image-Processing Laboratory, said: “This is our first colour front haz-cam [hazard camera] image and our first colour image from the surface of Mars.”
Another image was of the ground beneath the rover’s front-right wheel and appeared to show yellow rocks.
After the rover, which blasted off from Earth last July, entered the Martian atmosphere there were “seven minutes of terror” as it made its way to the surface.
An open horizon, with so much to explore. Can’t wait to get going. #CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/hAaxeVGs04
Advertisement— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 19, 2021
It took more than 11 minutes for news of the safe landing to reach Earth, arriving at just before 9pm Irish time on Thursday.
The rover – a scientific laboratory the size of a car – is on a mission to search for signs of ancient life and explore and collect samples for future return to Earth from diverse environments on Mars.
