one day
this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2026
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NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover
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On the plains of Jezero, the secrets of Mars' past await us! Follow for the latest news, updates, pretty pics, and community discussion on NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's most ambitious mission to Mars!
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one day
I'd love to live to see that...
why does it look like a bird is flying in the very far background?
why does it look like a bird is flying in the very far background?
It's a small group of dead pixels on the left side NavCam camera (L-NavCam)
We only usually see those when that section of the upper left tile of a 4 tile NavCam captures the sky
Here are a pair of raw upper left NavCam tiles from Sols 1833 and 1835 that I have annotated, note the dead pixels in the same location in the sky.
If you go back through the image server you'll find the same dead pixels on L-NavCam images, I've include an example from December 13, 2023 (Sol 1000)
Ugh, imagine getting to Mars and finding out your camera sensor has a couple of dead pixels
Ugh, imagine getting to Mars and finding out your camera sensor has a couple of dead pixels
Several cameras have either dead pixels or some sort of contamination on the CCDs, some of those defects were noticed just before launch in final testing, but it was too late to change the replace the CCD or clean inside of the affected cameras :(
All in all the affect on the images is minimal, and only really noticed when they image monotone areas