All dusted off and nowhere to go. The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is still stuck in her current position west of the low plateau called “Home Plate”, with the MER team at JPL still trying to devise a way to get her moving again. The sands on the slopes of Home Plate have proven…
Tag: rover
Photo Op
A grainy black-and-white image of the underside of Opportunity, taken over the past couple of days. Unretouched, out of focus, slightly underexposed. In terms of its scientific value, a throw-away. But…..I like it. A lot. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Badge of Honor
While waiting for the Mars Exploration Rover team to get it unstuck from its current position, the Spirit rover turned its camera onto itself, highlighting the badge it proudly displays on its solar panel. With all of the spacecraft that have been launched into the heavens over the past half century or so, this…
Destination: Endeavour
The Exploration Rover Opportunity, moving steadily across the low dunes of the Meridiani Plains while its sister Spirit is mired in soft sands half a planet away (temporarily we hope!), takes a photo of its eventual destination: the 14-mile-wide crater Endeavour, still several miles away. The mountainous northern rim of the crater is visible…
Devil in the Skies
Spirit captures a dust devil in the distance on camera in this image from a few days ago. I colorized it to enhance detail (and make it a little more “Mars-y”) from the original raw file. Dust devils are common this time of year at Spirit’s location. They are cause by warmer air near…
Waves of Sand
Like rust-colored ocean waves frozen in mid-motion, miniature sand dunes sit at the base of Pioneer Mound in this panoramic image, taken by the Spirit rover last month and assembled here by James Canvin. Spirit has recently started traveling again after a two-week hiatus while engineers on the MER team tried to diagnose some…
On The Road Again
The Mars Exploration Rover Spirit resumed driving this past Thursday after over two weeks of inactivity at its position northeast of Home Plate. The image above shows a small hill informally known as “Von Braun”, and will be investigated more in the months ahead. Spirit has been behaving erratically this month, resetting itself, forgetting…
Down the RAT Hole
Opportunity takes a moment to survey its recent work: a circular etching made upon an outcropping of rock amongst the dunes of Meridiani Plains. Both rovers are equipped with a robotic arm that holds three important diagnostic tools mounted on a swiveling “fist”. A microscopic imaging camera, a spectrometer and a rock abrasion tool –…
You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby
Opportunity’s tracks disappear into the dunes in this raw photo image taken in February, 2009. After landing on Mars in January of 2004, Opportunity and its sister rover Spirit have been exploring and transmitting data and photos like these for over 5 years now – much longer than their expected “warranty”. Although there…
Little Devil
What looks to be a swirling dust devil is caught on camera in this raw image from the Mars rover Spirit. Dust devils on Mars are common, caused by heated air near the surface rising rapidly upwards in spinning columns, picking up dust and sand and propelled by the Martian winds. Although relatively gusty…
A Rusty Vista
I combined five color images from the Spirit rover to make this panoramic view eastwards of its current position on the northwest edge of “Home Plate” (not visible here). The red Martian sands stretch on to the horizon, where a distant ridge rises. Raw image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Tearin’ Up the Tracks
White silicate-rich soil has been exposed beneath a rusty-red top layer by Spirit’s tires in this photo, taken last month while the rover tried to find a navigable path in the soft Martian sands. Silicate material like this hints at the presence of liquid water in the region’s past. The color here is as it…
Lights in the Dark 