NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover

This SuperCam Remote Micro Image (RMI) acquired on August 2, 2025 has been colour enhanced and contrast stretched to highlight the details on this small target. Several other targets close to the rover were imaged with the RMI camera today, maybe to see which targets should be investigated with other instruments. Watch this space :)

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/IRAP

It was only a 4 minute drive, traversing just 2.75 m (9ft), but the point-to-point distance less than half a meter (18 inches). The main image is a 4-tile end-of-drive NavCam image checking out the area in front of the rover that is in reach of the tools and cameras located on the rover's robotic arm. I've also included the drive details.

Image assembled from 4 NavCam tiles acquired at the end of the drive at site 77.4816 (July 29, 2025). The camera is pointing west-northwest. Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A simple screen grab from the mission map updated by JPL after each drive

Source - https://mars.nasa.gov/maps/location/?mission=M20

Note the record tilt at the end of the drive. It's only half a degree more than the previous max tilt, and well within the rover's stability limits

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Source data from JPL

The duration may look a little long, but the rover did pause this drive at about the half way mark. As it can't drive at night, and it needed to recharge it's batteries for another long drive on the second sol.

Data is taken from JPL's json URLs that is updated by JPL shortly after each drive. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The path of the drive is highlighted by the yellow line. The one white dot in the middle of the yellow line is where the drive was paused to charge the batteries overnight.

The total duration of the drive is very close to 28 hours, but most of that time was sending data home, or charging the batteries overnight. I estimate the actual time driving was less than 6 hours. Image credits for the map: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

The drive to the south was over 2 sols, but needing only one command from the rover team.

The drive ended with a good tilt for the rover of 18.63°, this can be seen in the rotation of the pair of distant hills on the horizon.

There was also a good climb during the drive of 22.8 m (74.8 ft).

There's been a third drive on sol 1578. That looks shorter, but we have little data on that at the moment, so I'll report on that as more data is received

Post Drive Tiled NavCam Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Looks like a long drive on Sol 1576, from site 77.1512 to site 77.3142, the drive ending asides some older tracks. Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Awaiting details of the drive and an updated map (watch this space for the details)

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kevin M. Gill

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmgill/54673813781

A patch of a small rock checked out during the daytime, and again at night using the SHERLOC WATSON camera with its UV LED lighting on sol 1572.

I feel that unlikely to be fluorescent minerals, more likely to be a reflection of the UV light off the recently exposed surface of the rock, but as usual, we'll have to wait for the official word from the team.

Fluorescence is one of two kinds of photoluminescence, the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. When exposed to ultraviolet radiation, many substances will glow with colored visible light. The color of the light emitted depends on the chemical composition of the substance.

Perseverance rover acquired these image using its SHERLOC WATSON camera, located on the turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm.

The images were acquired on July 22, 2025 (Sol 1572) at the local mean solar time of 13:34:42 & 22:39:18

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

9-tile processed post-drive NavCam of Perseverance's new workspace [3853x2894px] Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Only about half of the post drive images have arrived (as I make this post), the remainder should be down in the next 24 hours. However, the drive data and traverse map has not been released to the public at this time. I'll post those after I see them

The abrasion bit and the target boulder/large cobble clearly slipped during the operation, and we only have 13 minutes worth of frames for this animation, so I'm sure the abrasion ended prematurely. Later frames, however, show that some powder/tailings were generated during the operation, so it should be interesting to see what the partial abrasion patch looks like.

UPDATE: Now using the animation (with timestamps) provided by Paul Hammond in this thread.

NASA/JPL-Caltech assembled from 16 tiles

Screen capture with annotations of JPL's official map

Data from JPL

This is a post-drive image was assembled / processed from 12 HazCam tiles.

No map or drive details at this time, I'll post that data once I have it

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It's amazing to see so many clear pictures of Mars, but I have one question, why is the surface so smooth and easily traversable? I'd thought it would have been far more rocky than it appears to be. Or is the lander in this area of Mars because it is smooth?

Perseverance rover acquired this image using its SHERLOC WATSON camera, located on the turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm.

This image was acquired on July 12, 2025 (Sol 1562) at the local mean solar time of 15:53:57.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech