Emily Chan
So far, Perseverance has finished four campaigns on Mars. It first reached the crater in February 2021.
The journey to the top—the crater’s rim, which stretches about 1,000 feet above the basin floor—has been slow, but a lot more progress was made after the rover reached a flatter expanse of land.
“As we start the Crater Rim Campaign, our rover is in excellent condition, and the team is raring to see what’s on the roof of this place,” said Art Thompson, the Perseverance project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Freya Castle is not the only interesting rock from the Jezero crater. In June, Perseverance captured images of an oddly light-colored boulder near the crater’s Mount Washburn.
In July, NASA saw photographs of a leopard-spotted rock. These recent rock discoveries show that Mars is more geologically diverse than previously thought.
