(CNN) For the past month, the Perseverance rover has spent much of its time documenting the flights of the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars. In between those events, the rover has also been taking in the local view and spied a multitude of intriguing rocks. Now, Perseverance is gearing up to conduct its primary mission: studying Jezero Crater and searching for signs of ancient life on Mars. Now, rocks strewn across the dry lake bed could help scientists reconstruct the history of this area on Mars and determine whether life ever existed there. The Perseverance rover used its zoomable Mastcam-Z imager to capture this image of "Santa Cruz," a hill about 1.5 miles away on April 29.

Source: CNN May 12, 2021 08:26 UTC