Click on the image for Opportunity's 'Rub al Khali' Panorama (QTVR)
This panoramic image, dubbed "Rub al Khali," was acquired by NASA's Mars
Exploration Rover Opportunity on the plains of Meridiani during the period
from the rover's 456th to 464th sols on Mars (May 6 to May 14, 2005).
Opportunity was about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) south of "Endurance Crater"
at a place known informally as "Purgatory Dune."
The rover was stuck in the dune's deep fine sand for more than a month.
"Rub al Khali" (Arabic translation: "the empty quarter") was chosen as the
name for this panorama because it is the name of a similarly barren,
desolate part of the Saudi Arabian desert on Earth.
The view spans 360 degrees. It consists of images obtained in 97
individual pointings of the panoramic camera. The camera took images with
five camera filters at each pointing. This 22,780-by-6,000-pixel mosaic
is an approximately true-color rendering generated using the images
acquired through filters admitting light wavelengths of 750, 530, and 480
nanometers.
Lighting varied during the nine sols it took to acquire this panorama,
resulting in some small image seams within the mosaic. These seams have
been smoothed in sky parts of the mosaic to better simulate the vista that
a person would see if able to view it all at the same time on Mars.
Opportunity's tracks leading back to the north (center of the panorama)
are a reminder of the rover's long trek from Endurance Crater. The deep
ruts dug by Opportunity's wheels as it became stuck in the sand appear in
the foreground. The crest and trough of the last ripple the rover crossed
before getting stuck is visible in the center. These wind-formed sand
features are only about 10 to 15 centimeters (4 to 6 inches) tall. The
crest of the actual ripple where the rover got stuck can be seen just to
the right of center. The tracks and a few other places on and near ripple
crests can be seen in this color image to be dustier than the undisturbed
or "normal" plains soils in Meridiani. Since the time these ruts were
made, some of the dust there has been blown away by the wind, reaffirming
the dynamic nature of the martian environment, even in this barren,
ocean-like desert of sand.