On the first anniversary of landing at Mars Jezero Crater, the Perseverance rover finally zoomed in on Mars, changing from "strolling" to "running fast", running 320 meters in one day, creating the farthest distance record, far exceeding the speed of the Chinese Zhurong and the American Curiosity.
Previously, perseverance in the days of walking, each Mars day only traveled a few tens of meters, no more than 130 meters, but now after the perfect completion of the first exploration mission, the speed of travel suddenly became faster, about to reach the initial landing site, the question is, why is perseverance in a hurry to return to the landing site?
On February 18, 2021, the Perseverance rover successfully landed on the western part of Mars Jezero Crater, longitude 77.450 degrees, latitude 18.444 degrees, during the first 46 Martian days, Perseverance enjoyed a sun bath, tested scientific instruments, and watched the wonderful performance of the Witty helicopter.
It wasn't until the 47th Martian Day that Perseverance officially embarked on a voyage of discovery to the mysterious Séítah district, which, from above, is a bizarre "V" fault zone with a small "sea of sand" in the middle of which is a small sand dune built up by storms.
Therefore, in the past 200 Martian days, Perseverance carefully traveled along the "V" fault belt, and did not dare to cross the sand sea directly, because it may be trapped in it if it is not careful, but the Witty helicopter that accompanies the Perseverance is different, flying directly over the "sand sea".
Perseverance's first exploration mission can be described as a fruitful harvest, obtaining thousands of precious Mars photos, multiple scientific pictures, and also harvesting 6 Mars samples, Perseverance is prepared, specially prepared 43 sample tubes, just to collect Mars samples.
Perseverance has also encountered a lot of trouble, the witty helicopter flight show has failed many times, almost crashed several times, but so far, it has successfully completed the 19th flight, far more than the design life of 5 flights, it can be said to be very successful.
Perseverance took the first sample, and when all the steps were completed, NASA scientists couldn't wait to see the photos of the sample tubes sent back by Perseverance, and there was nothing inside the sample tubes. It took a few days to figure out why: the rock was too loose to form.
Perseverance's 7th sampling also had an unexpected situation, two pebbles were stuck in the entrance of the wheeled sample, resulting in the sample tube could not be sent into the container stored in the sample tube, perseverance had to turn the sample rotation wheel violently, and the pebbles were directly ejected, and this problem was solved.
In the last few Martian days, perseverance traveled particularly fast, only 4 Martian days, it ran back from the "V" fault zone, you know, when going to use more than 100 Martian days, of course, including the time to stop and explore, there is also the time to take samples.
Why is Perseverance in a hurry to return to the landing site? One is because Perseverance is really getting faster, second to celebrate its first anniversary on Mars, and third because NASA scientists can't wait for Perseverance to explore the most mysterious delta remnants of Jezero Crater.
Recently, the Perseverance rover installed the automatic driving software AutoNav, automatic obstacle avoidance and path-finding, no longer artificial driving, the speed of travel naturally becomes faster, February 14, 2022, that is, 351 Martian days, in order to celebrate the first anniversary in advance, deliberately travel 320 meters a day.
In recent Martian days, Perseverance has been "running fast", and the driving distance has increased rapidly, from 2.83 kilometers at the end of January 2022 to 4.11 kilometers now, if it travels at such a fast speed, in just half a year, it can surpass the Curiosity rover that has been driving on the surface of Mars for 9 years.
Perseverance is about to reach its original landing site and head to the delta remnants northwest of Jezero Crater, once a circular lake more than 40 kilometers in diameter, formed by a large river to the northwest carrying sediment.
If there was ever life on ancient Mars, it would be the area where life was most likely to occur, and scientists can't wait to think of it, perseverance will explore the ruins of the delta, and collect Martian samples, and finally, these samples will be brought back to Earth by another spacecraft. Interesting and informative scientific content, please pay attention to the only WeChat public account: Interesting Exploration