NASA's Perseverance rover has captured a stunning image of Martian rocks spread across a swathe of barren land. Some of the rocks appear covered by sand, suggesting it was quite windy just before the rover captured the image.
"Making some accidental zen art as I drive. Mars may be desolate, but it has a certain charm," the rover tweeted from its official handle.
According to NASA, the photo was voted by public as the "image of the week" for April 24 to 30. It was captured by Perseverance's Right Mastcam-Z camera.
Mastcam-Z, a pair of cameras placed on the rover's mast, can take colour images and video, 3D stereo images, and has a powerful zoom lens. These cameras are placed next to each other and point in the same direction, providing a 3-D view similar to what human eyes would see, only better.
Several Twitter users referred to the "very sandy" environment on Mars and asked whether it's windy as well.
Another user commented on the fine sand on the Martian surface.
One user was curious if the white marks on the rock, which were visible in the image, were caused by the rover.
Another uses, too, echoed a similar view, and asked why the rover drove “over the rock instead of around it”.
According to NASA, dust storms are prevalent on Mars, especially during the southern hemisphere spring and summer. They could last for a few days.
These images give scientists an insight into how dust particles move and with what force, and whether they could fill the atmosphere or impact the equipment on Mars.
In January this year, a large dust storm covered the southern hemisphere of Mars, leading to some of NASA probes on the Martian surface hitting a pause. In fact, the Insight lander had to put itself to "safe mode" to conserve battery power after the storm prevented the sunlight from reaching its solar panels. And Perseverance's partner the Ingenuity helicopter had to postpone flights until conditions improved.
While Perseverance and Ingenuity are primarily focused on finding signs of ancient microbial life on the Red Planet, the rover is collecting soil samples to send them back to Earth during a future human mission so that scientists here can study them.
