August 28, 2021
The Earth has carried you around the Sun again, steady as ever, while the stars kept their patient watch.
Mars Rock Rochette
Birthday · August 28, 2021
A little universe, just for you
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Ready to give.
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APOD published August 28, 2021. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
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.