NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has used its Mastcam-Z instrument to collect 152 images of Belva Crater, a large impact crater within the far larger Jezero Crater. The images have been stitched together to provide a mosaic that offers insights into the interior of Jezero. Impact craters like Belva can provide a type of natural roadcut, allowing scientists to view rock layers and other geological features not visible at the surface. The science team suspects the large boulders in the foreground are either chunks of bedrock exposed by the meteorite impact or that they may have been transported into the crater by the river system. Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life.
