#perseverance-rover

#perseverance-rover

US Congress has rejected plans to slash NASA's science budget, restoring most funding with one notable exception: Mars Sample Return remains cancelled. A joint explanatory statement was released earlier this month, and lawmakers have passed the bill. The legislation, passed with 82 senators voting for it, 15 against, and three abstaining, reverses an earlier proposal that would have cut NASA's overall budget by nearly 25 percent and halved science spending - potentially shutting down many active missions.

NASA has drafted its Mars rover Perseverance to help monitor the sun's activity. Every day for the next two months, the rover will image the sun with its Mastcam-Z cameras, capturing crucial information about sunspots and other large features that can give clues to solar activity. Mars is currently passing behind the sun, giving the rover a view of the star's far sidea perspective we can't see from Earth.

It's fascinated scientists ever since it was first observed in early July. Now, NASA's Mars Perseverance rover has seemingly managed to snap images of the errant visitor as it made its flyby of the Red Planet. Two pictures, shared by the space agency over the weekend after being captured by Perseverance's Right Navigation camera (Navcam), show a singular streak contrasted against the emptiness of space around it.