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 Perseverance Rover Updates

These updates are provided by self-selected Mars 2020 mission team members who love to share what Perseverance is doing with the public. Dates of planned rover activities described in these blogs are subject to change due to a variety of factors related to the Martian environment, communication relays and rover status.

A Tough Drill at Witch Hazel Hill
2 min read

Written by Alex Jones, Ph.D. candidate at Imperial College London  After a busy few months exploring the outer slopes of the Jezero crater rim at an area named “Witch Hazel Hill,” the Perseverance Science Team was eyeing another sample of…

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Searching for Spherules to Sample
2 min read

Written by Denise Buckner, Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center  Over the past few weeks, Perseverance has been investigating some curious spherules peppered across the “Witch Hazel Hill” region along the rim of Jezero crater. A striking cluster…

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Searching for the Dark in the Light
2 min read

Written by Eleanor Moreland, Ph.D. Student Collaborator at Rice University  Perseverance has been busy exploring lower “Witch Hazel Hill,” an outcrop exposed on the edge of the Jezero crater rim. The outcrop is composed of alternating light and dark layers,…

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Origins Uncertain: ‘Skull Hill’ Rock
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Written by Margaret Deahn, Ph.D. Student at Purdue University Last week, NASA’s Mars 2020 rover continued its journey down lower ‘Witch Hazel Hill’ on the Jezero crater rim. The rover stopped along a boundary visible from orbit dividing light and…

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Visiting Mars on the Way to the Outer Solar System
3 min read

Written by Roger Wiens, Principal Investigator, SuperCam instrument / Co-Investigator, SHERLOC instrument at Purdue University Recently Mars has had a few Earthly visitors. On March 1, NASA’s Europa Clipper flew within 550 miles (884 kilometers) of the Red Planet’s surface…

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Shocking Spherules!
3 min read

Written by Alex Jones, Ph.D. candidate at Imperial College London Last week the Perseverance Science Team were astonished by a strange rock comprised of hundreds of millimeter-sized spheres… and the team are now working hard to understand their origin.  It…

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Navigating a Slanted River
3 min read

Written by Denise Buckner, Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center  Perseverance is hard at work on Mars, overcoming obstacles for scientific exploration! Just a few sols after successfully sealing the challenging Green Gardens core, Perseverance roved on to…

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Sealing the Deal
2 min read

Written by Melissa Rice, Professor of Planetary Science at Western Washington University  This week, the Perseverance team faced a stubborn engineering challenge. After successfully collecting a core called “Green Gardens” from the “Tablelands” location, the rover struggled to seal the…

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Smooshing for Science: A Flat-Out Success
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Written by Henry Manelski, Ph.D. student at Purdue University The Perseverance team is always looking for creative ways to use the tools we have on Mars to maximize the science we do. On the arm of the rover sits the…

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Gardens on Mars? No, Just Rocks!
2 min read

Over the past week, Perseverance has been parked at a location called “Tablelands,” an area containing the “Serpentine Lake” abrasion patch acquired a few weeks ago. The Mars 2020 team has been diligently analyzing the data from the abrasion patch,…

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