Tag Archive for 'SuperCam'

Mastcam-Z landscape and multispectral images of light-toned float rocks atop the Jezero crater Margin Unit near the Hans Amundson Memorial workspace (Sol 912) demonstrating the spectral diversity of this material. Image credit: Broz et al., doi: 10.1038/s43247-025-02856-3.

Mars Was Warmer, Wetter Millions of Years Ago, Planetary Scientists Say

Dec 3, 2025 by News Staff

NASA’s Perseverance rover has discovered several thousand small, light-toned rock fragments, or float rocks, with some exhibiting spectral signatures...

Detection of electric discharges in dust devils by the SuperCam instrument on board NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars. Image credit: Nicolas Sarter.

Perseverance Detects Triboelectric Discharges during Martian Dust Devils and Storms

Dec 1, 2025 by News Staff

Using data captured by the SuperCam microphone aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover over two Martian years, planetrary scientists have detected 55 triboelectric...

Maurice et al. find that the speed of sound is slower on Mars than on Earth and that, mostly, a deep silence prevails. Image credit: Maurice et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04679-0.

Perseverance Characterizes Acoustic Environment of Mars

Apr 4, 2022 by News Staff

NASA’s Perseverance rover first recorded Martian sounds on February 19, 2021, the day after its arrival. These sounds fall within the human audible spectrum,...

The Flame Nebula is the large feature on the left half of the central, yellow rectangle. The smaller feature on the right is the reflection nebula NGC 2023. To the top right of NGC 2023, the iconic Horsehead Nebula seems to emerge heroically from the ‘flames.’ The three objects are part of the Orion cloud, a giant gas structure located between 1,300 and 1,600 light-years away. The different colors indicate the velocity of the gas. The Flame Nebula and its surroundings are moving away from us, with the red clouds in the background receding faster than the yellow ones in the foreground. Image credit: ESO / Thomas Stanke / J. Emerson / VISTA / Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit.

Radio Astronomers Take Close Look at Flame Nebula

Jan 5, 2022 by News Staff

Using the recently-installed SuperCam instrument on ESO’s Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) in the Atacama Desert, Chile, astronomers have produced...

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter (above center to the right) is viewed by one of the hazard cameras aboard the Perseverance rover during the helicopter’s fourth flight on April 30, 2021. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Listen to NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter in Flight

May 7, 2021 by News Staff

NASA’s Perseverance rover used a microphone on its SuperCam laser instrument to listen as the Ingenuity helicopter flew for the fourth time on April...

This mosaic (upper right) shows a close-up view of the rock target named ‘Yeehgo’ from the SuperCam instrument on NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars. The component images were taken by SuperCam’s Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) on March 7, 2021. To be compatible with the rover’s software, ‘Yeehgo’ is an alternative spelling of ‘Yéigo,’ the Navajo word for diligent. The target is 3.325 m (10.9 feet) from the rover. Each of the two images in the mosaic shows a field of view 6.2 cm (2.5 inches) in diameter. Perseverance’s Navigation Cameras (Nav Cam) and Mastcam-Z instrument also took images of that area at the same time to provide multiple views of the rock target. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / LANL / CNES / CNRS / ASU / MSSS.

Perseverance Records Sound of Its Rock-Zapping Laser Instrument

Mar 12, 2021 by News Staff

Early data from the SuperCam instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover — including the first audio of laser zaps on another planet — are...