NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover

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On the plains of Jezero, the secrets of Mars' past await us! Follow for the latest news, updates, pretty pics, and community discussion on NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's most ambitious mission to Mars!

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1257 - New Abrasion Patch (Patch diameter 5 cm / 2 inches) (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago by paulhammond5155 to c/perseverancerover

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R-NavCam tile shows the latest abrasion patch on Mars.

Image acquired earlier today

NASA/JPL-Caltech

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What do these patches tell us?

[–] disguy_ovahea 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The chemical makeup of the rock.

Abrasion patches are created by Perseverance using a drill. Then it uses a laser to vaporize the rock, and sensors to analyze the chemical makeup of the vapor.

https://science.nasa.gov/resource/abrasion-patch-bellegarde/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is that tire patterns in the top left corner?

[–] paulhammond5155 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is that tire patterns in the top left corner?

They are small ripples in the soft sand between rocks, if you look in the NavCam images of the workspace on sol 1254 you can see many more examples.

These ripples are formed by the wind (aeolian process).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Thanks for the clarification, that's what I imagined, but nice to hear it from someone else.