The European Space Agency has published a new animation based on data collected by the Mars Express mission. It allows us to imagine what a flight over the Jezero crater would look like.
The Jezero crater is located in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars on the border of the ancient region of Terra Sabaea and a younger impact basin called the Planitia basin. Its diameter is 45 km. In the distant past, a river delta was located inside it, which left behind powerful layers of sedimentary deposits. Because of this, Jezero was chosen as the landing site of the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter drone.
The video begins with a flyby of the Jezero crater. Then the camera approaches the shock formation and we see the outflow channel stretching from it. Then two channels become visible in the northwestern part of the crater. Their branches form an ancient river delta, which is the landing site of Perseverance.
The animation was created on the basis of images taken by a high-resolution stereo camera installed on the Mars Express spacecraft. Since 2004, it has mapped over 90% of the surface of the Red Planet. This huge amount of information was necessary to select safe and scientifically important landing sites for Martian missions, including Perseverance.
Recall that at the end of this decade, NASA and ESA plan to launch the Mars Sample Return mission. It will have to deliver samples of Martian soil collected by Perseverance to Earth. But recently, the mission has begun to go beyond its budget, which can jeopardize the implementation of other NASA interplanetary projects.
According to https://www.esa.int
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