Perseverance Spends 2026 in a 'Wild West Frontier' West of Jezero

Perseverance has spent 2026 exploring the “Lac de Charmes” area, a landscape of valleys and ridges west of the Jezero crater rim that the mission update calls a “wild west frontier” for the rover.

The appeal is age. The rocks in this area are among the oldest the rover has encountered — which is the promise inside the frontier label. Valley-and-ridge country beyond the rim is where the material gets old enough to be interesting, and old material is what a rover drives to.