Figure 1
Wheel tracks left by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, and even the
rover itself, are visible in this image from the Mars Orbiter Camera on
NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. North is up in this image. The tracks
and rover are in the area south of a crater informally named "Bonneville,"
which is just southeast of the center of the image. The orbiter captured
this image with use of an enhanced-resolution technique called compensated
pitch and roll targeted observation. It took the picture on March 30,
2004, 85 martian days, or sols, after Spirit landed on Mars. The rover
had driven from its landing site to the rim of Bonneville and was
examining materials around the crater's rim.
In this portion of the plains inside the much larger Gusev Crater, Spirit
created wheel tracks darker than the undisturbed surface, as seen in the
rover's own images showing the tracks (for example, PIA05450). The contrast
allows the tracks to show up in the image obtained from orbit. Also
visible are Spirit's lander, backshell and parachute, and the scar where
its heat shield hit the ground.
The full image covers an area 3 kilometers (2 miles) wide, at 14.8 degrees
south latitude and 184.6 degrees west longitude. Pixel size is about 1.5
meters (5 feet) by one-half meter (1.6 feet). Sunlight illuminates the
scene from the upper left.
Mars Global Surveyor is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a
division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the
NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
