APOD: 2021 August 7 - Jezero Crater: Raised Ridges in 3D

Good afternoon, Rallypoint. Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is titled "Jezero Crater: Raised Ridges in 3D." In most Slavic languages (at least according to the Internet), the word "jezero" means 'lake.' So would it be reasonable to assume that Jezero Crater may have contained water in the past? Turns out the answer is yes. Jezero was selected as the landing site for the Perseverance rover in part based on spectral data returned by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). This data suggests that water carried clay minerals from the surrounding area into the crater. Conceivably, microbial life could have lived in Jezero at some point in the distant past. If so, signs of their remains might be found in lakebed or shoreline sediments.

Hence the interest in the raised ridges shown here. On Earth, similar fractures in desert environments provide clues to past liquid water activity and thus past habitability. Ingenuity snapped the photos used to produce this stereo image during its 10th flight at Mars on July 24, 2021. The imagery of this geologic feature was produced at the request of the Mars Perseverance science team for planning some of its initial activities.