NASA’s intrepid investigative robot Opportunity snaps a few pictures — including a self-portrait.
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity catches its own late-afternoon shadow in this dramatically lit view east across Endeavour Crater on Mars. The rover used the panoramic camera (Pancam) between about 4:30 and 5 p.m. local Mars time to record images taken through different filters and combined into this mosaic view. Most of the component images were recorded during the 2,888th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars on March 9. At that time, Opportunity was spending low-solar-energy weeks of the Martian winter at the Greeley Haven outcrop on the Cape York segment of Endeavour's western rim. In order to give the mosaic a rectangular aspect, some small parts of the edges of the mosaic and sky were filled in with parts of an image acquired earlier as part of a 360-degree panorama from the same location. Opportunity has been studying the western rim of Endeavour Crater since arriving there in August 2011. This crater spans 14 miles in diameter, or about the same area as the city of Seattle. This is more than 20 times wider than Victoria Crater, the largest impact crater that Opportunity had previously examined. The interior basin of Endeavour is in the upper half of this view. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ./NASA Buy Photo