Left-eye view of a stereo pair for PIA08776
Right-eye view of a stereo pair for PIA08776
A drive of about 60 meters (about 200 feet) on the 943rd Martian day, or
sol, of Opportunity's exploration of Mars' Meridiani Planum region (Sept.
18, 2006) brought the NASA rover to within about 50 meters (about 160
feet) of the rim of "Victoria Crater." This crater has been the mission's
long-term destination for the past 21 Earth months. Opportunity reached a
location from which the cameras on top of the rover's mast could begin to
see into the interior of Victoria. This stereo anaglyph was made from
frames taken on sol 943 by the panoramic camera (Pancam) to offer a
three-dimensional view when seen through red-blue glasses. It shows the
upper portion of interior crater walls facing toward Opportunity from up
to about 850 meters (half a mile) away. The amount of vertical relief
visible at the top of the interior walls from this angle is about 15
meters (about 50 feet). The exposures were taken through a Pancam filter
selecting wavelengths centered on 750 nanometers.
Victoria Crater is about five times wider than "Endurance Crater," which
Opportunity spent six months examining in 2004, and about 40 times wider
than "Eagle Crater," where Opportunity first landed. The great lure of
Victoria is the expectation that a thick stack of geological layers will
be exposed in the crater walls, potentially several times the thickness
that was previously studied at Endurance and therefore, potentially
preserving several times the historical record.
