"Victoria Crater" at Meridiani Planum

This HiRISE image shows "Victoria Crater," an impact crater at Meridiani
Planum, near the equator of Mars. The crater is approximately 800 meters
(about half a mile) in diameter. It has a distinctive "scalloped" shape to
its rim, caused by erosion and downhill movement of crater wall material.
Layered sedimentary rocks are exposed along the inner wall of the crater, and
boulders that have fallen from the crater wall are visible on the crater
floor. The floor of the crater is occupied by a striking field of sand dunes. 

Since January, 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has been
operating at Meridiani Planum. Five days before this image was taken,
Opportunity arrived at the rim of Victoria Crater, after a drive of more than
9 km (over 5 miles). The rover can be seen in this image, at roughly the "ten
o'clock" position along the rim of the crater.

Image TRA_000873_1780 was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science
Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft
on October 3, 2006. Shown here is a portion of the complete image. The
complete image is centered at -2.1 degrees latitude, 354.5 degrees East
longitude. The range to the target site was 269 km (168 miles). At this
distance the image scale is 27 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects ~81
cm across are resolved. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 3:28 PM
and the scene is illuminated from the west with a solar incidence angle of
56.2 degrees, thus the sun was about 33.8 degrees above the horizon. At a
solar longitude of 115.3 degrees, the season on Mars is Northern Summer.

Images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and additional
information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are available online at: 
http://www.nasa.gov/mro or http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu.

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime
contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was
built by Ball Aerospace Corporation and is operated by the University of
Arizona.