ESA - Mars Express Mission patch.
Feb. 17, 2021
Flyover movies, elevation maps, 3D views and detailed colour scenes: ESA’s Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter missions have provided imagery of Jezero Crater and the surrounding region in support of NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landing on 18 February 2021.
Jezero Crater delta
This image shows the remains of an ancient delta in Jezero Crater, which NASA's Perseverance Mars rover will explore for signs of fossilized microbial life. The image was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA's Mars Express orbiter. The image was featured by NASA in September 2020.
Jezero landing ellipse
This image shows a portion of the landing ellipse (circled) for NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, which is expected to land within Jezero crater on 18 February 2021. The complete landing ellipse is 7.7 x 6.6 km, and is centered on an ancient river delta near the rim of Jezero that could hold clues about whether or not Mars was able to harbour life at some point during its ancient past. Jezero crater itself was once the site of a lake, and Perseverance will explore this region looking for signs of fossilized microbial life.
ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO)
The image was taken by the CaSSIS camera on the ESA-Roscosmos Exomars Trace Gas Orbiter as part of an imaging campaign of the rover's future neighbourhood.
Jezero crater flyover
NASA’s Perseverance rover is expected to arrive at Jezero impact crater, the site of a former lake on Mars, on 18 February 2021. The High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express has provided important context for the landing site and its surrounds. A taste of this imagery is provided in this short video clip.
Jezero Crater neighbourhood – 3D
A portion of a crater (left) and rough terrain outside the crater at the boundary between the Syrtis and Isidis regions of Mars, south of the landing site foreseen for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover in Jezero Crater. Use red-blue stereo ‘3D’ glasses to best enjoy this view. It was created from a stereo pair taken by the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) onboard the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter on 29 December 2018. The image is centred at 20.73ºN/79.27ºE and measures about 7 km on the short side.
Jezero crater and surrounds
Jezero crater, the touchdown site for NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, in context of its surroundings. It is situated between highlands, an impact basin, a volcanic province and an ancient river delta. The dark bluish-black areas are layers of ancient volcanic ash that is widely dispersed by the wind, often piling up into impressive dune fields. This image was created from the red, green and blue channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express, combined with high-resolution data from its nadir channel, which is directed perpendicular to the surface of Mars. The high resolution of the data processed for this image allows for greater enlargement, enabling a closer look at individual details of the landscape. Small gaps in the image mosaic were interpolated.
Jezero crater and surrounds (annotated)
Jezero crater, the touchdown site for NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, in context of its surroundings. It is situated between highlands, an impact basin, a volcanic province and an ancient river delta. The dark bluish-black areas are layers of ancient volcanic ash that is widely dispersed by the wind, often piling up into impressive dune fields. This image was created from the red, green and blue channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express, combined with high-resolution data from its nadir channel, which is directed perpendicular to the surface of Mars. The high resolution of the data processed for this image allows for greater enlargement, enabling a closer look at individual details of the landscape. Small gaps in the image mosaic were interpolated.
Flight over the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover landing site
This video shows Jezero crater, the landing site of the NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance rover on the Red Planet, based on images from ESA’s Mars Express mission. The planned landing area is marked with an orange ellipse.
Scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida on 30 July 2020 on board an Atlas V rocket, the Perseverance rover will land on 18 February 2021 in Jezero crater. An impact crater with a diameter of about 45 km, Jezero is located at the rim of the giant Isidis impact basin. Morphological evidence suggests that the crater once hosted a lake, some 3.5 billion years ago.
Jezero possesses an inlet- and an outlet channel. The inlet channel discharges into a fan-delta deposit, containing water-rich minerals such as smectite clays. Scientists believe that the lake was relatively long lived because the delta may have required 1 to 10 million years to reach its thickness and size. Other studies conclude that the lake did not experience periods of important water-level fluctuations and that it was formed by a continuous surface runoff. This makes Jezero crater to a prime target for the search for potential signs of microbial life, because organic molecules are very well preserved in river deltas and lake sediments.
A recent study of the ancient lakeshores, diverse minerals and violent volcanism of Jezero crater based on data from ESA’s Mars Express mission is available here: Mars Express helps uncover the secrets of Perseverance landing site.
Mars Express
The animation was created using an image mosaic made from four single orbit observations obtained by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on Mars Express between 2004 and 2008. The mosaic combines data from the HRSC nadir and colour channels; the nadir channel is aligned perpendicular to the surface of Mars, as if looking straight down at the surface. The mosaic image was then combined with topography information from the stereo channels of HRSC to generate a three-dimensional landscape, which was then recorded from different perspectives, as with a movie camera, to render the flight shown in the video.
Topographic map of Jezero crater and surrounds (annotated)
This elevation map of Jezero crater and its surrounds shows the topography of the broader region, from the highlands (red and browns) to the lower lying floor of the Isidis impact basin (green). The height difference in this area of 1.5 million square kilometres is over 6800 metres, with the floor of Jezero crater lying at an elevation of approximately minus 2600 metres below the ‘Mars Areoid’, a notional plane of equal gravitational attraction, analogous to sea level on Earth.
Jezero crater, the landing site of NASA’s 2020 Perseverance rover mission, is marked on the map. It hosts two river deltas from inflow channels that once brought water into Jezero, which is thought to have once hosted a lake.
This elevation map was created from ESA Mars Express data. The High Resolution Stereo Camera’s nine sensors, arranged at right angles to the north-south flight direction, record the surface of Mars from different angles and in four colour channels. From the four inclined stereo channels and the nadir channel, which is directed perpendicular to the surface of Mars, scientists at the DLR Institute of Planetary Research and the Freie Universität Berlin compute digital terrain models, which assign elevation information to each pixel. The high resolution of the data processed for this image allows for greater enlargement of the images for a closer look at individual details of the landscape.
Topographic map of Jezero crater and surrounds
This elevation map of Jezero crater (inset) and its surrounds shows the topography of the broader region, from the highlands (red and browns) to the lower lying floor of the Isidis impact basin (green). The height difference in this area of 1.5 million square kilometres is over 6800 metres, with the floor of Jezero crater lying at an elevation of approximately minus 2600 metres below the ‘Mars Areoid’, a notional plane of equal gravitational attraction, analogous to sea level on Earth.
Jezero crater, the landing site of NASA’s 2020 Perseverance rover mission, is close to the centre of this image. Click here for an annotated version. It lies close to two river deltas from inflow channels that once brought water into Jezero, which is thought to have once hosted a lake.
This elevation map was created from Mars Express data. The High Resolution Stereo Camera’s nine sensors, arranged at right angles to the north-south flight direction, record the surface of Mars from different angles and in four colour channels. From the four inclined stereo channels and the nadir channel, which is directed perpendicular to the surface of Mars, scientists at the DLR Institute of Planetary Research and the Freie Universität Berlin compute digital terrain models, which assign elevation information to each pixel. The high resolution of the data processed for this image allows for greater enlargement of the images for a closer look at individual details of the landscape.
The Mars Webcam images NASA rover's landing region
NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is due to land on the Red Planet at 21:43 CET on 18 February 2021. Various instruments on ESA's Mars Express spacecraft are supporting the landing by monitoring conditions on Mars in the weeks before. The spacecraft’s Visual Monitoring Camera – also known as the ‘Mars Webcam’ – is providing additional wide context views of the landing region like this one acquired on 1 February 2021, with the region including the landing site, Jezero Crater, circled in yellow.
New topographic map of Jezero Crater – Mars 2020’s future home
On 18 February 2021, NASA’s Mars 2020 spacecraft will touch down on the surface of Mars. The mission, which launched in July of this year and is carrying a rover named Perseverance on board, will seek signs of ancient life on the Red Planet, and collect samples of rock and soil so that these can later be returned to Earth by ESA and NASA.
Mars 2020 will land in Jezero crater, the intriguing feature shown in this new topographic map from ESA’s Mars Express. The landing zone for the mission is highlighted by the black ellipse. This map was created using observations from Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), and shows the topography of the landscape (as indicated by the coloured bar to the right of the frame, and the associated elevation graph to the bottom). Regions of higher elevation are shown in reds and oranges, while lower dips and depressions are highlighted in blues and greens.
Jezero is an impact crater of roughly 45 kilometres in diameter, and is thought to have once hosted an ancient lake. Evidence of this can be seen in the features scattered across the crater basin: deltas, inlet valleys (marked by solid black lines that wind into the crater to the upper left), channels, and a smoother topography along the northern crater rim (where material was swept up by flowing water) than the southern (where these materials were later deposited). Jezero also hosts a large outlet channel, as seen to the right of the frame (east) in shades of pale blue, and marked by a solid black line. In order to carve such a substantial valley, the crater must have once been replenished by a relatively constant supply of water. This is an exciting prospect in our hunt for life on Mars, as the carbonates and clay minerals thought to still be present in Jezero – which formed in the presence of ancient water – may have locked up signatures of past life.
Mars 2020 will explore the history and chemistry of Jezero to characterise such ancient lakeshore environments in detail – an essential step towards better understanding what early Mars was really like. One of Mars 2020’s key objectives is to collect samples for future return to Earth. This endeavour will require cooperative robotic missions from both NASA and ESA. Current plans for ESA-NASA Mars Sample Return rely on ESA’s small Sample Fetch Rover collecting the samples cached by Mars 2020’s Perseverance rover, before these are launched into Mars orbit by NASA. A further ESA mission, the Earth Return Orbiter, will then swoop in to collect the basketball-sized container of rock and soil samples and return these safely to Earth.
This map comprises observations gathered during Mars Express orbits 5252 and 5270, and covers an area of the martian surface located at approximately 18° N, 77° E.
The ancient lakeshore of Jezero crater on Mars
An elevation map of Jezero Crater on Mars, the landing site for NASA's 2020 Mars Perseverance rover. Lighter colours represent higher elevation. Two recent studies based on ESA's Mars Express observations of Jezero crater have shed light on how and when this intriguing area formed – and identified the regions most likely to reveal signs of ancient life.
The crater rim stands out clearly in this colour map, making it easier to spot the shoreline of a lake that dried up billions of years ago. The oval indicates the landing ellipse, where the rover will be touching down on Mars. Scientists are interested in studying this shoreline because it may have preserved fossilised microbial life, if any ever formed on the Red Planet.
This image was created using data from a combination of instruments and spacecraft: NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and its Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA); NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and its Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) and Context Camera (CTX); and the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on ESA's Mars Express. It was originally published in November 2019.
Related articles:
NASA’s Next Mars Rover Is Ready for the Most Precise Landing Yet
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/02/nasas-next-mars-rover-is-ready-for-most.html
Mars Perseverance landing - In the Jezero neighbourhood
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2021/02/mars-perseverance-landing-in-jezero.html
Related links:
ESA & ROSCOSMOS ExoMars: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Exploration/ExoMars
ESA Mars Express: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express
NASA Mars Perseverance rover: https://nasa.gov/perseverance
Images, Videos, Text, Credits: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO/Animation: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO ; Music: Björn Schreiner; Soundtrack logo: Alicia Neesemann/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHU-APL/ESA.
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