The Persistence Rover suspended two meters from the ground just before its landing, the surface of Mars in color: NASA published several new paranormal images on Friday, the next day after the arrival of its new mission to the red planet.

During the final phase of its landing, at a distance of the last 20 meters, the vehicle was slowly placed on the ground, suspended by three stages – a machine equipped with eight retro-rockets that it carried on its own. Slowing down the descent.

The photo, unpublished, was taken from beneath this original stage, and thus the top of the rover, with its six wheels deployed and below it, depicts Martian soil.

“You can see the dust picked up by the engines,” stunned Adam Steltzner, Chief Engineer of Perseverance, unveiling the snapshot at a press conference.

Another image, this time taken by the MRO probe in orbit around Mars, captured the descent just before this stage: we can see, zoom in, the rover has moved its giant capsule into the atmosphere Slowed down, slowed down completely by his huge supersonic parachute, completely inflated.

In a third photo, the first color sent by the fixture from the surface of Mars, the shadow of the vehicle is drawn to the ground, where some rocks are, and in the distance on the horizon, a relief – like a shadow of rock.

Looking at these images, “the teams were sold out,” said Pauline Hwang, in charge of operations at the Martine surface. “A group of science team messages caught fire, they were saying + Look at this +, + Look at this +!”

In a fourth image, also in color, we can see one end of one of the vehicle’s six wheels, and the surface of the red planet – rather yellow, though the color still needs to be slightly fixed.

There are 3.8 and 3.7 billion years old honeycomb rocks on the ground, which are of particular interest to NASA.

“One question we’re going to ask ourselves first is whether these rocks are of volcanic or sedimentary origin,” said Katie Stack Morgan, associate scientist for the project. “We could land on a lava flow!”

Two pictures were already made public on Thursday, from the front and rear of the rover, but of lower quality and taken in black and white.

NASA is also unable to confirm whether it may be the Mars sound recorded by the microphone for the first time. Adam Steltzner said confirmation would be “later this week or early next week”.