Left-eye view of a color stereo pair for PIA12143
Right-eye view of a color stereo pair for PIA12143
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its navigation camera to
take the images combined into this 360-degree stereo view of the rover's
surroundings on the 1,950th Martian day, or sol, of its surface mission
(July 19, 2009). The view appears three-dimensional when viewed through
red-blue glasses with the red lens on the left. South is in the middle; north at
both ends.
Opportunity had driven 60.8 meters (199 feet) that sol, moving backward as
a strategy to mitigate an increased amount of current drawn by the drive
motor in the right-front wheel. The rover was traveling a westward course,
skirting a large field of impassable dunes to the south.
Much of the terrain surrounding the Sol 1950 position is wind-formed
ripples of dark soil, with pale outcrop exposed in troughs between some
ripples. A small crater visible nearby to the northwest is informally
called "Kaiko." For scale, the distance between the parallel wheel tracks
is about 1 meter (about 40 inches).
The site is about 3.8 kilometers (2.4 miles) south-southwest of Victoria
Crater.
This panorama combines right-eye and left-eye views presented as
cylindrical-perspective projections with geometric seam correction.