In the tradition of Universe Today’s “Where in the Universe” series, here’s a little space exploration-based photo trivia for you: what is pictured in the above image? It’s something that many of you are already familiar with, and it’s not outside of our solar system…..but that’s all the clues I’m giving! 🙂
I know one person who should really know the answer, let’s see if they respond!
If you have a guess, post it in the comments here. I’ll update with the answer later this week. It’s actually pretty cool. And like Nancy Atkinson always says, give yourself extra points if you can guess the spacecraft responsible for the image, but don’t give overly-detailed explanations or links so everyone has a chance to guess. Good luck!
Answer:
Most of you were on the right planet, and those of you who guessed Mars rover – congratulations! This is indeed a photo of Opportunity on the edge of Santa Maria crater, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera on December 31, 2010. I zoomed in quite a bit, so it’s hard to make out much detail on the rover but I’m thinking that we can see sunlight on the rover’s three right wheels as well as the dark-colored solar panel in the image above. Below is the original image, labeled by the HiRISE team at the University of Arizona.
And for updated images from Opportunity be sure to visit The Road to Endeavour, Stuart Atkinson’s dedicated blog documenting the rover’s ongoing trek across the Martian plain. Thanks for participating in LITD’s first Photo Trivia, I’ll do another one again soon!
Lights in the Dark 
Mars Rover at brink of Santa Maria Crater taken from Overhead by Cassini and magnified many times.
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The lunar landing on the moon.
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lunar lander sorry for the error.
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I agree with Noel, except the imager is on a particular spacecraft still in orbit around Mars (not mentioning which imager or spacecraft so there’s a tiny bit of fun left this week)
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I’ll probably post the answer tomorrow….is everyone happy with their guesses? 🙂
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Mars Rover arrived at Santa Maria quite some time ago and they get the data back here pretty quick, I will stick with Mars Rover taken by Cassini on the brink of Santa Maria Crater. The ‘Rover” has been there now for well over 1 week. I understand it is only 40 minutes to pass data back and 40 minutes forth. I believe that is about it
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Of course, stoopid iriot I yam, It is not Cassini (I rock further out) but Mars Odyssey and Mars Exploration Orbiter that took the photo of Mars Rover at Santa Maria. I apologise for my erratta, I just checked the actual original photograph taken by the ORBITER at Santa Maria and & will put a dime that is where & what it is. Noel
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I think it looks a little like the face found on Mars
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the stoooopid picture is in like 0 resolution, but da answer is like
high quality
seriously??!!
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And yet a couple of people guessed it correctly! Seriously! 🙂
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