Ingenuity helicopter spies intriguing features on Mars during record-breaking flight - CNN

This aerial excursion, lasting two minutes and 26 seconds, provided the best look yet at challenging terrain that would be difficult for Perseverance to travel, as well as science targets that the rover won't reach for a while.

Surprisingly, this terrain was tough for Ingenuity to negotiate as well, even from the air.

Ingenuity is much closer, flying about 33 feet above the ground, and its cameras can capture much more detailed images.

"Once a rover gets close enough to a location, we get ground-scale images that we can compare to orbital images," said Ken Williford, Perseverance deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a statement.

As Ingenuity flew over the dune field, it took images of rock features that the scientists have nicknamed "Raised Ridges." These ridges are part of a fracture system where water may have once flowed underground.

While the rover has an AutoNav feature, which allows for autonomous driving based on artificial intelligence algorithms, human drivers on Earth can still identify hazards and help Perseverance avoid them to prevent an early end to the mission.

Sand traps have ended other Martian missions, like NASA's Spirit rover in 2011.

Ingenuity's images have shown the Perseverance team that the Séítah dune field is indeed too sandy for the rover to explore.

While Perseverance circumnavigates the field, it may be able to make a "toe dip" -- something the rover team uses to refer to as temporary short paths when they spy something worth investigating.

"The helicopter is an extremely valuable asset for rover planning because it provides high-resolution imagery of the terrain we want to drive through," Toupet said.

That's great information for us; it helps identify which areas may be traversable by the rover and whether certain high-value science targets are reachable."

Perseverance is on a schedule; it will be exploring as much of the crater and the ancient river delta that fed into Jezero for the next two years.

On Wednesday, the rover team will share the first science results gathered by Perseverance -- and prepare to collect its first Martian sample.