NASA calls this newly released photo of Mars “the next best thing to being there”

  Photo of Mars

 

 

 

Once in a great while, NASA's Opportunity rover will catch a glimpse of itself in a photograph of the Martian surface, but the photo featured up top — just released by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory — offers an even rarer view of the Martian landscape, one that the Agency calls "the next best thing to being there."

What you see here is a small portion of a vast panorama — a composite image that combines a total of 817 photographs, taken between Dec. 21, 2011 and May 8, 2012, that features the rover and its surroundings during the most recent Martian winter. Taken together, they provide us with one of the most detailed views of Mars' ancient Endeavour Crater ever recorded. Click here for the full image in very, very high-resolution.
According to NASA:

"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."

Did you catch that? Opportunity has been on Mars for over 3,000 days — not bad at all for a little rover whose original mission called for a mere 90 days of exploration. [NASA | JPL]

'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, 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.
Later this year, the car-sized Curiosity Rover will land on Mars.
Unlike earlier rovers, Curiosity carries equipment to gather samples of rocks and soil, process them and distribute them to onboard test chambers inside analytical instruments.
It has a robotic arm which deploys two instruments, scoops soil, prepares and delivers samples for analytic instruments and brushes surfaces.
Its assignment is to investigate whether conditions have been favorable for microbial life and for preserving clues in the rocks about possible past life.
The goal of the mission is to assess whether the landing area has ever had or still has environmental conditions favorable to microbial life.
Curiosity will land near the foot of a layered mountain inside Gale crater, layers of this mountain contain minerals that form in water.
The portion of the crater floor where Curiosity will land has an alluvial fan likely formed by water-carried sediments.
Curiosity will also carry the most advanced load of scientific gear ever used on Mars’ surface, a more than 10 times as massive as those of earlier Mars rovers.
Curiosity is about twice as long and five times as heavy as NASA’s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, launched in 2003.

• Download the full-screen image from NASA's website