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19 Feb, 6 tweets, 3 min read
This is the first high-definition color image (uncalibrated, screenshot) of Perseverance's landing site, taken after the dust cover was removed. #Mars2020
Another color image from a different camera shows the ground near the rover's wheel. #Mars2020
Mission scientists are already working to figure out if the rocks seen in the foreground are volcanic or sedimentary in origin.
Comparing the initial low-res bw hazcam image with dust cover on and the high-res color version with it off. (Screenshots from presser) #Mars2020
Just a note that these are engineering camera views—they're not the "pretty" science camera views. Those, once Perseverance's "head" is raised and the Mastcams get a look around, will be FANTASTIC.

Patience is the better part of perseverance...
Here's the full color image from Perseverance's hazard camera with the dust cover off, captured after landing—not a screenshot! #Mars2020

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More from @JPMajor

Jason Major Profile picture
19 Feb
These are top-down views of @NASAPersevere's landing site—the white circle—made from a @HiRISE image (uahirise.org/ESP_046060_1985) captured in May 2016. Recolored from greyscale; north on Mars is up. #Mars2020 ImageImage
Séan Doran also made some nice renderings of Perseverance's position after landing from digital terrain data
Here's an even more detailed view of Perseverance's landing area, this one made with the same @HiRISE data (ESP_046060_1985) but run through the HiView software to pull original JP2 resolution. Also colored; the entire area shown is about 300 meters across. #Mars2020 Image
Read 6 tweets
Jason Major Profile picture
18 Feb
Colorized versions of the screen captures of @NASAPersevere's first images after its successful landing on Mars #CountdownToMars ImageImage
I've got some Mars color presets in Photoshop to make greyscale images into something sort of like natural lighting, so I just applied them here to the screen shots.
That little cross thing in the first picture near the top was a cursor on the screen where the image was displayed in JPL mission control.
Read 6 tweets
Jason Major Profile picture
17 Feb
Jezero Crater, the future home of #Perseverance, is about 28 miles (45 km) across. There's an obvious river delta formation inside its western rim, and that's where the rover is going.
Here's a close-up of part of the fascinating landscape within the target #Perseverance landing and exploration area in Jezero, captured by the @HiRISE camera aboard NASA's MRO in July 2014. (Colored cropped and original map-projected monochrome versions.) ImageImage
FYI that ~800-meter-wide crater is named Belva.
Read 6 tweets
Jason Major Profile picture
28 Jan
When you look up at the Moon (today is a full Moon, like the one here from Nov. 29) you can think about the comparative sizes of the moons on Mars, which are much smaller but orbit much closer. These are how Phobos and Deimos would look from Mars' surface, compared to our Moon.
Earth's Moon is 2,158 miles / 3,473 km wide and around 238,000 miles / 383,000 km away.

Phobos is only 16.7 miles / 27 km wide but also only 3,721 miles / 5,989 km away from Mars.

Deimos is 15 km / 9.3 miles at its widest and orbits Mars 14,580 / 23,460 km away.
Here are all of them in one image. (I used this NASA Photojournal article for the reference photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/beta/catalog/P…) Obviously lighting angles are different here on each and it's not an accurate representation of comparative brightnesses.
Read 6 tweets
Jason Major Profile picture
14 Oct 20
There's an estimated 10% chance that two large pieces of orbiting space debris could collide tomorrow night at an altitude of 615 miles and a relative velocity of 32,883 mph.
With a combined mass of over three tons, these two orbiting objects will miss each other by about 40 feet.😬

Let's hope we don't add Kessler syndrome to the list of 2020 fun
These two objects are a Russian nav/com sat and a Chinese rocket stage, according to @planet4589
Read 9 tweets
Jason Major Profile picture
20 Apr 19
Cool 3D rendering of the Milky Way galaxy by @StefanPWinc showing the curve of the galactic plane and dust using data from GAIA (ht @runnymonkey)
The galaxy our Sun and solar system resides within is a barred spiral galaxy about 105,700 light-years across. Its plane is not a perfectly flat disk though; astronomers have found that it has a warped shape. earthsky.org/space/milky-wa…
From Earth the Milky Way is a hazy band of stars with dark clouds of dust stretching across the sky, best visible from dark locations. We can't see the spiral shape because we're inside one of the arms, looking into the plane of it.
Read 5 tweets

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