                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
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                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2021 August 28

                             Mars Rock Rochette
                       Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech

   Explanation: Taken on mission sol 180 (August 22) this sharp image from
   a Hazard Camera on the Perseverance rover looks out across a rock
   strewn floor of Jezero crater on Mars. At 52.5 centimeters (21 inches)
   in diameter, one of the rover's steerable front wheels is at lower left
   in the frame. Near center is a large rock nicknamed Rochette. Mission
   planners don't want to avoid Rochette though. Instead Perseverance will
   be instructed to reach out with its 2 meter long robotic arm and abrade
   the rock's surface, to determine whether it has a consistency suitable
   for obtaining a sample, slightly thicker than a pencil, using the
   rover's coring bit. Samples collected by Perseverance would be returned
   to Earth by a future Mars mission.

                  Tomorrow's picture: large rocks in space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.


