From correspondents in Washington
September 28, 2006 08:43am
Article from: Reuters
THE Mars Rover Opportunity has arrived at the rim of a big crater that scientists never thought it could reach, NASA said today.
Geologists controlling the golf cart sized robot hope it can explore the depths of Victoria Crater to find out more about the history of the red planet - especially whether water still exists there.
So far it has taken pictures of rugged walls with layers of exposed rock and a floor blanketed with dunes, the US space agency said.
"This is a geologist's dream come true," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University in New York, the principal investigator for NASA's twin rovers Opportunity and Spirit.
"Those layers of rock, if we can get to them, will tell us new stories about the environmental conditions long ago. We especially want to learn whether the wet era that we found recorded in the rocks closer to the landing site extended farther back in time."
Opportunity has lasted 10 times as long as the 90 days NASA originally projected. It has been exploring Mars since January 2004 and driven more than nine km.
"We're so proud of Opportunity, the rover that 'takes a lickin' but keeps on tickin'," said Cindy Oda, a Mars rover mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
"It continues to overcome all challenges despite its aging parts and difficult terrain."
Spirit, the other rover, is hibernating through winter on the other side of Mars.
You just cant stop the little devils, they are really works of art.
I read an article somewhere that they have now supplied geologists with enough data to keep them quiet for at least another ten years.
Simply awesome, amazing stuff - those pics that Opportunity is still sending back are unbelievable! But my old back is beginning to get strained from being on the edge of my seat for so long in anticipation of some little scrap of life evidence. I've been around since those first missions to Mars and I've been glued to NASA ever since. But with the discoveries being made fast and furious with the other planets and their moons, I can't help but wonder if our chances of finding evidence for at least past life are better with Titan or Saturn's moon Enceladus where they detected water geyers.
1) This view of "Victoria crater" is looking southeast from "Duck Bay" towards the dramatic promontory called "Cabo Frio." The small crater in the right foreground, informally known as "Sputnik", is about 20 meters (about 65 feet) away from the rover, the tip of the spectacular, layered, Cabo Frio promontory itself is about 200 meters (about 650 feet) away from the rover, and the exposed rock layers are about 15 meters (about 50 feet) tall. This is an approximately true color rendering of images taken by the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity during the rover's 952nd sol, or Martian day, (Sept. 28, 2006) using the camera's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 430-nanometer filters.
2) This view of Victoria crater is looking north from "Duck Bay" towards the dramatic promontory called "Cape Verde." The dramatic cliff of layered rocks is about 50 meters (about 165 feet) away from the rover and is about 6 meters (about 20 feet) tall. The taller promontory beyond that is about 100 meters (about 325 feet) away, and the vista beyond that extends away for more than 400 meters (about 1300 feet) into the distance. This is an enhanced false color rendering of images taken by the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity during the rover's 952nd sol, or Martian day, (Sept. 28, 2006) using the camera's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 430-nanometer filters.
3)
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity reached the rim of "Victoria Crater" on Sept. 27, 2006, during the 951st Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work in the Meridian Planum region of Mars. Opportunity drove 9.28 kilometers (5.77 miles) in the explorations that took it from "Eagle Crater," where it landed in January 2004, eastward to "Endurance Crater," which it investigated for about half of 2004, then southward to Victoria.
This map of Opportunity's trek so far is overlaid onto images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. Victoria is about 800 meters (one-half mile) in diameter, or about five times wider than Endurance and 40 times wider than Eagle. The scale bar at lower right shows the length of 800 meters (0.50 mile). North is up.
The Martian sol dates in the annotated image are as follows:
sol 58 was March 24, 2004
sol 315 was December 12, 2004
sol 446 was April 26, 2005
sol 654 was November 25, 2005
sol 833 was May 28, 2006
sol 898 was August 3, 2006
sol 952 was September 28, 2006
I've been around since those first missions to Mars and I've been glued to NASA ever since. But with the discoveries being made fast and furious with the other planets and their moons, I can't help but wonder if our chances of finding evidence for at least past life are better with Titan or Saturn's moon Enceladus where they detected water geyers.
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Ya just can't keep a good Rover down 
