PIA12124: Opportunity's Surroundings After Backwards Drive, Sol 1850 (Vertical)
Target Name: Mars
Is a satellite of: Sol (our sun)
Mission: Mars Exploration Rover (MER)
Spacecraft: Opportunity
Instrument: Navigation Camera
Product Size: 4000 samples x 4000 lines
Produced By: JPL
Full-Res TIFF: PIA12124.tif (16.02 MB)
Full-Res JPEG: PIA12124.jpg (1.151 MB)

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Original Caption Released with Image:

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its navigation camera to take the images combined into this 360-degree view of the rover's surroundings on the 1,850th Martian day, or sol, of its surface mission (April 7, 2009).

Opportunity had driven 62.5 meters (205 feet) that sol, southward away from an outcrop called "Penrhyn," which the rover had been examining for a few sols, and toward a crater called "Adventure." In preceding drives, the drive motor for the right-front wheel had been drawing more current than usual, so engineers drove Opportunuity backward on Sol 1950, a strategy to redistribute lubricant and reduce friction in the wheel.

North is at the top of the image; south at the bottom. Opportunity's position on Sol 1850 was about 1.3 kilometers (0.8 mile) south-southwest of Victoria Crater. For scale, the distance between the parallel wheel tracks is about 1 meter (about 40 inches).

This view is presented as a vertical projection with geometric seam correction.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2009-07-15