NASA's Perseverance Rover Is Tweeting From Mars and It's Both Hilarious and Educational

Posted on : 02/23/2021
NASA's Perseverance Rover Is Tweeting From Mars and It's Both Hilarious and Educational
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NASA’s Perseverance rover

On Feb. 18, NASA successfully landed the Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars. Its mission, NASA says, is to "seek signs of ancient life and collect samples of rock and regolith (broken rock and soil) for possible return to Earth." It's a mission anyone can follow along with, too, thanks to the rover's ridiculously well-curated social media feed.

Since its landing just a few days ago, the Perseverance rover has sent more than 400 tweets to its 2.2 million followers. That includes links to more than 100 images already taken of the Red Planet by the rover and released by NASA.

"The moment that my team dreamed of for years, now a reality. Dare mighty things," the rover team tweeted after landing on Feb. 19.

The rover then sent back the first black and white images almost immediately and followed it up with color images just a few days later.

color image of land on Mars

"Hello, world. My first look at my forever home," the rover team tweeted with the black and white image.

"I love rocks. Look at these right next to my wheel. Are they volcanic or sedimentary? What story do they tell? Can't wait to find out," the team shared with a color image shortly after.

If the tweets read like a kid waking up on Christmas morning each and every day, it's because that's really how the scientists and engineers at NASA feel about the success of their latest endeavor.

"The team is overwhelmed with excitement and joy to have successfully landed another rover on the surface of Mars," Adam Steltzner, the rover's chief engineer, shared with CNN. "When we do such investments, we do them for humanity, and we do them as a gesture of our humanity."

The feed is likely also about to include a whole lot more than just pictures. NASA announced it plans to also share the very first video taken by the rover. While the space agency's previous rover sent back a stop-motion video, which is a video of photos stitched together, the Perseverance relayed actual video of its landing, which is still being transmitted from Mars, which sits some 131 million miles away from NASA's base here on Earth. That video is expected to be made available sometime on Feb. 22.

Stay tuned to the official Twitter account so you can see your favorite martian influencer drop their latest hit.

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