This 360-degree panorama shows the vista from the location where NASA's
Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has spent its third Martian
southern-hemisphere winter inside Mars' Gusev Crater.
The view combines a stereo pair so that it appears three-dimensional when
seen through red-blue glasses, with the red lens on the left.
The rover's overwintering location is on the northern edge of a low
plateau informally called "Home Plate," which is about 80 meters or 260
feet in diameter.
The images combined into this panoramic view were taken by Spirit
beginning on the mission's 1,477th Martian day, or sol, (February 28,
2008) and finishing on Sol 1691 (October 5, 2008).
The hill on the horizon at far right is Husband Hill, to the north. Spirit
acquired a 360-degree panorama (see PIA03610) from the summit of Husband
Hill during August 2005). The hill dominating the left portion of the
image is McCool Hill. Husband and McCool hills are two of the seven
principal hills in the Columbia Hills range within Gusev Crater. Home
Plate is in the inner basin of the range.
The northwestern edge of Home Plate is visible in the right foreground.
The blockier, more sharply shadowed texture there is layered sandstone
whose layering is tilted inward toward the edge of the Home Plate
platform. The northeastern edge of Home Plate is visible in the left
foreground. Spirit first climbed onto Home Plate on that region, in early
2006.
Rover tracks from driving by Spirit are visible on Home Plate in the
center and right of the image. These were made during Spirit's second
exploration on top of the plateau, which began when Spirit climbed onto
the southern edge of Home Plate in September 2007.
In the center foreground, the turret of tools at the end of Spirit's
robotic arm appears in duplicate because the arm was repositioned between
the days when the images making up that part of the mosaic were taken. On
the horizon above the turret, to the south, is a small hill capped with a
light-toned outcrop. This hill is called "Von Braun," and it is a possible
destination for Spirit during the upcoming Martian southern-hemisphere
summer. The flat horizon in the right-hand portion of the panorama is the
basaltic plain onto which Spirit landed on January 4, 2004 (Universal
Time; January 3, 2004, Pacific Standard Time).
