NASA releases composite image of photos from Mars Perseverance lander

Feb. 15 (UPI) -- NASA has created and released a composite of hundreds of images sent back to Earth by the Perseverance Mars rover. The images show the locations of a depots at which Perseverance deposited tubes filled with samples.

"The panorama, stitched together from 368 images that were sent to Earth, captures more than a month of careful placement and mapping of 10 titanium tubes," NASA said in a press release.

"Eight of those tubes are filled with rock and regolith (broken rock and dust), while one is an atmospheric sample and one is a "witness" tube," the release said.

Perseverance was launched in July 2020 and landed on Mars in February 2021. One of the principal objectives of the mission is so-called "astrobiology" -- the search for possible signs of life on the Red Planet.

The mission also carried the Ingenuity helicopter to Mars. The craft is able to fly short distances in Mars' thin atmosphere, which has a density of less than 1% of Earth's. Ingenuity is the first craft to conduct powered flight outside of Earth's atmosphere.

Perseverance has collected numerous samples of Martian soil, dust and rocks, with the intention of eventually returning them to Earth to be studied.

"The depot represents a backup collection of samples that could be recovered in the future by the Mars Sample Return campaign," NASA said.

NASA, in coordination with the European Space Agency, is preparing for an eventual sample return mission, which will see a spacecraft land near the Jezero crater, where Perseverance is conducting its mission, and collect the samples to return them.

That mission still in its planning phase, but NASA said it could be launched as early as 2027, and arrive on Mars by 2028.