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NASA's Perseverance rover, the parachute that helped it land and the descent stage have been spotted on Mars by the European Space Agency's (ESA) ExoMars orbiter.
The rover first landed on the Red Planet on February 18 after a hair raising '7 minutes of terror' descent to the Martian surface that saw it slowed down by the parachute.
Observations by the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars satellite, in orbit around the Red Planet, captured the location of the rover, descent stage, heat shield and parachute.
The pieces of landing gear helped Perseverance survive its 12,000 mile per hour descent to the surface and were spread over a 5km wide area in the Jezero crater.
© Provided by Daily MailThis is a false colour image from the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars satellite, made to resemble the orange of the Martian surface. It captured the location of the rover, descent stage, heat shield and parachute
© Provided by Daily MailA day after landing, NASA was able to collect Perseverance's first images of Mars. An image shot by the sky crane that shows Perseverance, nicknamed Perky, slung beneath and attached to mechanical bridles - moments before making landfall
This is a tiny proportion of the entire Jezero crater, which had a diameter of about 49km and is where Perseverance will search for signs of ancient life on Mars.
Among the discarded items was a heat shield that protected Perseverance from temperatures of 1,300 degrees C as it flew through the atmosphere.
ESA said as well as capturing images of the landing site, it also helped relay data about the landing back to NASA mission control in California.
'The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter provided significant data relay services around the landing of Perseverance,' the European agency said in a statement.
They said this included 'supporting the return of the videos and imagery taken by the mission's onboard cameras during the descent of the rover to the surface of Mars.'
NASA has taken its own satellite images of Perseverance and its landing detritus using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which also acts as a data relay for both Curiosity and Perseverance.
ExoMars will continue to help provide data relay support between Earth and Mars for various NASA surface missions - including InSight, Perseverance and Curiosity.
It will also help in the next stage of the ExoMars mission, which will see Europe land a rover on the Red Planet to search for signs of ancient Martian life.
This is the Rosalind Franklin rover, built in the UK, along with the Russian-built Kazachok surface platform, both launching from Earth in 2023.
This lander mission was postponed, it was due to launch in summer 2020 at the same time as the NASA, Chinese and United Arab Emirates missions.
It was postponed due to delays in testing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The primary objective is to land the Rosalind Franklin rover at a site with high potential for finding well-preserved organic material, particularly from the very early history of the planet.
© Provided by Daily MailNASA's Mars Reconnaissance orbiter also captured amazing images of Perseverance, showing it attached to the sonic parachute moments after shooting through the Martian atmosphere like a comet
© Provided by Daily MailNASA shared an image laying out where certain features landed on Mars during Perseverance decent or 'seven minutes of terror' from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
The rover will establish the physical and chemical properties of Martian samples, mainly from the subsurface using a drill to take samples.
Underground samples are more likely to include biomarkers, since the tenuous Martian atmosphere offers little protection from radiation at the surface.
'At the same time, the Trace Gas Orbiter continues its own science mission, focusing on analysing the planet's atmosphere with a special emphasis on searching for gases that may be linked to active geological or biological processes,' ESA said.
The ESA has a long history of cooperation with NASA, and the two space agencies are due to work together to bring samples of Mars rock back to Earth by 2030.
© Provided by Daily MailCaptured in stunning HD, it was taken by the rover's Mastcam-Z, a dual-camera system equipped with a zoom function to help it focus on distant objects
© Provided by Daily MailIn this image, the colours have been stretched to emphasise the compositional diversity of the surface. Among the discarded items was a heat shield that protected Perseverance from temperatures of 1,300 degrees C as it flew through the atmosphere
Over the course of its time on Mars, Perseverance will gather up rock samples and place them in small tubes that it will leave on the surface.
At some point int he next decade a ESA Fetch rover will land on Mars and follow in Perseverance's tracks to pick up the tubes and fly them back to Earth.
Jezero crater is thought to be an ideal location to search for evidence of long extinct life on the Red Planet as it was flooded and dried out multiple times over the billions of years of Martian history.
'Perseverance will explore the Jezero Crater region of Mars, which is thought to have once hosted a lake, searching for signs of past microbial life,' ESA said.
'It will collect and cache samples of martian rocks and soil for subsequent missions to collect and return to Earth as part of the joint ESA-NASA Mars Sample Return campaign.'
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