File:PIA24765-MarsPerseveranceRover-1stDrillSite-20210728.jpg

English: PIA24765: Perseverance's Office on Mars

CLICK Here For Natural Color Version

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover used its Mastcam-Z camera system to create this panorama of its first drill site. Scientists will be looking for a rock to drill somewhere in this.

Perseverance's team has nicknamed this region the "Crater Floor Fractured Rough" unit. The flat, light-colored stones are informally referred to as "paver rocks" and will be the first type from which Perseverance will collect a sample for planned return to Earth by subsequent missions. Small hills to the south of the rover and the sloping inner walls of the Jezero Crater rim fill the distant background of this view.

The panorama is stitched together from 70 individual images taken on July 28, 2021, the 115th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. This panorama is seen here in natural color (main image) and enhanced color (Figure 1).

The Mastcam-Z investigation is led and operated by Arizona State University in Tempe, working in collaboration with Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, California, on the design, fabrication, testing, and operation of the cameras, and in collaboration with the Neils Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen on the design, fabrication, and testing of the calibration targets.