Overview

• Perseverance stitched 96 Mastcam-Z images on Sol 1516 to create its sharpest 360° panorama at the Falbreen site.
• Enhanced-color processing presents a deceptively blue Martian sky under dust-free conditions, while natural-color mosaics retain the planet’s true reddish tones.
• The high-resolution view reveals float rocks atop sand ripples, a contact between olivine-rich and clay-bearing units, and distant hills extending up to 40 miles across what may be some of Mars’s oldest exposed crust.
• The panorama captures the rover’s 43rd rock abrasion patch, which exposes subsurface material for chemical analysis ahead of core sampling and the Mars Sample Return campaign.
• Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy hailed the panorama as a preview of views astronauts will one day experience, linking Perseverance’s findings to Artemis lunar missions and future crewed expeditions to Mars.