This 360-degree view, called the "McMurdo" panorama, comes from the
panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. From
April through October 2006, Spirit has stayed on a small hill known as
"Low Ridge." There, the rover's solar panels are tilted toward the sun to
maintain enough solar power for Spirit to keep making scientific
observations throughout the winter on southern Mars. This view of the
surroundings from Spirit's "Winter Haven" is presented in exaggerated
color to enhance color differences among rocks, soils and sand.
Oct. 26, 2006, marks Spirit's 1,000th sol of what was planned as a 90-sol
mission. (A sol is a Martian day, which lasts 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35
seconds). The rover has lived through the most challenging part of its
second Martian winter. Its solar power levels are rising again. Spring in
the southern hemisphere of Mars will begin in early 2007. Before that, the
rover team hopes to start driving Spirit again toward scientifically
interesting places in the "Inner Basin" and "Columbia Hills" inside Gusev
crater. The McMurdo panorama is providing team members with key pieces of
scientific and topographic information for choosing where to continue
Spirit's exploration adventure.
The Pancam began shooting component images of this panorama during
Spirit's sol 814 (April 18, 2006) and completed the part shown here on sol
932 (Aug. 17, 2006). The panorama was acquired using all 13 of the
Pancam's color filters, using lossless compression for the red and blue
stereo filters, and only modest levels of compression on the remaining
filters. The overall panorama consists of 1,449 Pancam images and
represents a raw data volume of nearly 500 megabytes. It is thus the
largest, highest-fidelity view of Mars acquired from either rover.
Additional photo coverage of the parts of the rover deck not shown here
was completed on sol 980 (Oct. 5 , 2006). The team is completing the
processing and mosaicking of those final pieces of the panorama, and that
image will be released on the Web shortly to augment this McMurdo panorama
view.
This beautiful scene reveals a tremendous amount of detail in Spirit's
surroundings. Many dark, porous-textured volcanic rocks can be seen around
the rover, including many on Low Ridge. Two rocks to the right of center,
brighter and smoother-looking in this image and more reflective in
infrared observations by Spirit's miniature thermal emission spectrometer,
are thought to be meteorites. On the right, "Husband Hill" on the horizon,
the rippled "El Dorado" sand dune field near the base of that hill, and
lighter-toned "Home Plate" below the dunes provide context for Spirit's
travels since mid-2005. Left of center, tracks and a trench dug by
Spirit's right-front wheel, which no longer rotates, have exposed bright
underlying material. This bright material is evidence of sulfur-rich salty
minerals in the subsurface, which may provide clues about the watery past
of this part of Gusev Crater.
Spirit has stayed busy at Winter Haven during the past six months even
without driving. In addition to acquiring this spectacular panorama, the
rover team has also acquired significant new assessments of the elemental
chemistry and mineralogy of rocks and soil targets within reach of the
rover's arm. The team plans soon to have Spirit drive to a very nearby
spot on Low Ridge to access different rock and soil samples while
maintaining a good solar panel tilt toward the sun for the rest of the
Martian winter.
Despite the long span of time needed for acquiring this 360-degree view
-- a few images at a time every few sols over a total of 119 sols because
the available power was so low -- the lighting and color remain remarkably
uniform across the mosaic. This fact attests to the repeatability of
wintertime sols on Mars in the southern hemisphere. This is the time of
year when Mars is farthest from the sun, so there is much less dust storm
and dust devil activity than at other times of the year.
This is a false-color, red-green-blue composite panorama generated from
images taken through the Pancam's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and
430-nanometer filters.