NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has captured over 2200 photographs of Mars

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The helicopter is providing scientists with information about Mars, reaching places the Perseverance rover cannot traverse



Space



8 March 2022

By Chen Ly

NASA’s Perseverance rover captured this image of the Ingenuity helicopter

NASA’s Perseverance rover captured this image of the Ingenuity helicopter

NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

NASA’s helicopter Ingenuity has taken more than 2200 photographs of Mars since arriving on the planet just over a year ago.

Ingenuity was designed to scout out potential routes for the six-wheeled Perseverance rover to travel across Mars’s 45-kilometre-wide Jezero crater, while it searches for signs of ancient microscopic life.

Ingenuity is fitted with two cameras, a 0.3-megapixel black-and-white navigational camera and a 13-megapixel colour camera that is similar to the average smartphone camera.

By its 18th flight …