The view from the Spirit Mars Rover as it climbs Husband Hill.
CREDIT: NASA/JPL/Texas A&M
The Mars rovers are still going strong. The
above image shows the view looking backwards as the Spirit rover closes on the summit of Husband Hill on Sol 581. You can just make out the solar panels in the bottom right and you should be able to see a couple of dust devils on the horizon. Husband Hill has two summits - Summit 1 and Summit 2 - and the rover team chose to visit the first. They initially thought Summit 1 was smaller, but now that they are almost at the top, they realise that it is higher. On 17th August Spirit was only six vertical metres below the summit, so there should be great panoramas of the view from the top, soon.
Steve Squyres - principal investigator for the Mars Rover mission - has a good
Mission webpage which gives lots of detailed information about what each rover has been doing.
Posted in
astro blog by Stuart on Monday 22nd Aug 2005 (
24:00 UTC) |
5 Comments |
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Comments: Martian Hillwalking
I broke the clock. This entry seems to have been added at exactly 24:00 UTC!
Posted by Stuart on Tuesday 23rd Aug 2005 (00:09 UTC)
That's one awesome shot. I hope they do a full color hi res pan from the top!
Posted by Rob Kosinski on Tuesday 23rd Aug 2005 (07:50 UTC)
I hope the top doesn't turn out to be wide and flat, otherwise it might reduce the view.
Here is a plan view of the local terrain covered by Spirit up to Sol 536.
Posted by Stuart on Tuesday 23rd Aug 2005 (09:41 UTC)
That is one way cool image. Spirit does seem to be seeing an awful lot of willy-willy's compared to Opportunity (6 events between Sols 525 to 568).
See here for images and animations.
I wonder if they will aim the camera back at Earth on the evening of September 27, then the Earth and Venus will be together just under Scorpius, with Jupiter on the horizon.
Posted by Ian Musgrave on Tuesday 23rd Aug 2005 (11:34 UTC)
NICE!
Posted by Tom on Tuesday 23rd Aug 2005 (16:13 UTC)