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This story was retrieved from non-copyrighted material
on the NASA website. Neither NASA
nor any other federal agency endorses the Telescope & Sky website. 07.05.12
-- This full-circle scene combines 817 images taken by the
panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover
Opportunity. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona
State Univ. PASADENA, Calif. -- From fresh rover tracks to an impact
crater blasted billions of years ago, a newly completed view from the panoramic
camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows the ruddy terrain
around the outcrop where the long-lived explorer spent its most recent Martian winter.
This scene recorded from the mast-mounted color camera includes the rover's
own solar arrays and deck in the foreground, providing a sense of sitting on top
of the rover and taking in the view. Its release this week coincides with two milestones:
Opportunity completing its 3,000th Martian day on July 2, and NASA continuing past
15 years of robotic presence at Mars. Mars Pathfinder landed July 4, 1997. NASA's
Mars Global Surveyor orbiter reached the planet while Pathfinder was still active,
and Global Surveyor overlapped the active missions of the Mars Odyssey orbiter and
Opportunity, both still in service.
 The new panorama is online at
https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15689.
It is presented in false color to emphasize differences between materials in the
scene. It was assembled from 817 component images taken between Dec. 21, 2011, and
May 8, 2012, while Opportunity was stationed on an outcrop informally named "Greeley
Haven," on a segment of the rim of ancient Endeavour Crater. "The view provides
rich geologic context for the detailed chemical and mineral work that the team did
at Greeley Haven over the rover's fifth Martian winter, as well as a spectacularly
detailed view of the largest impact crater that we've driven to yet with either
rover over the course of the mission," said Jim Bell of Arizona State University,
Tempe, Pancam lead scientist. Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, landed on
Mars in January 2004 for missions originally planned to last for three months. NASA's
next-generation Mars rover, Curiosity, is on course for landing on Mars next month.
Opportunity's science team chose to call the winter campaign site Greeley
Haven in tribute to Ronald Greeley (1939-2011), a team member who taught generations
of planetary science students at Arizona State University. "Ron Greeley
was a valued colleague and friend, and this scene, with its beautiful wind-blown
drifts and dunes, captures much of what Ron loved about Mars," said Steve Squyres
of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for Opportunity and
Spirit. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for the NASA
Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information about Opportunity
is online at: https://www.nasa.gov/rovers
and https://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
. You can follow the project on Twitter at
https://twitter.com/MarsRovers
and on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers . Guy Webster 818-354-6278 Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov 2012-196
Posted July 8, 2012
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