During four months prior to the fourth anniversary of its landing on Mars,
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity examined rocks inside an alcove
called "Duck Bay" in the western portion of Victoria Crater. The main body
of the crater appears in the upper right of this stereo panorama, with the
far side of the crater lying about 800 meters (half a mile) away.
Bracketing that part of the view are two promontories on the crater's rim
at either side of Duck Bay. They are "Cape Verde," about 6 meters (20 feet)
tall, on the left, and "Cabo Frio," about 15 meters (50 feet) tall, on the
right. The rest of the image, other than sky and portions of the rover, is
ground within Duck Bay.
Opportunity's targets of study during the last quarter of 2007 were rock
layers within a band exposed around the interior of the crater, about 6
meters (20 feet) from the rim. Bright rocks within the band are visible in
the foreground of the panorama. The rover science team assigned informal
names to three subdivisions of the band: "Steno," "Smith," and "Lyell."
This view combines many images taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera
(Pancam) from the 1,332nd through 1,379th Martian days, or sols, of the
mission (Oct. 23 to Dec. 11, 2007). Images taken through Pancam filters
centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers, 535 nanometers and 432
nanometers were mixed to produce this view, which is presented in a
false-color stretch to bring out subtle color differences in the scene.
Some visible patterns in dark and light tones are the result of combining
frames that were affected by dust on the front sapphire window of the
rover's camera.
Opportunity landed on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time, (Jan. 24, Pacific
Time) inside a much smaller crater about 6 kilometers (4 miles) north of
Victoria Crater, to begin a surface mission designed to last 3 months and
drive about 600 meters (0.4 mile).