Opportunity Rover Tracks at Victoria Crater
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
Opportunity Rover Tracks at Victoria Crater
PSP_004289_1780  Science Theme: Aeolian Processes
This image shows tracks left by the MER Rover Opportunity as it traversed around the rim of Victoria Crater over the past nine months.

The rover's tracks are visible as faint parallel lines punctuated by dots where the rover stopped to perform scientific investigations or turned for course corrections or to facilitate communications. The oldest tracks date from September 2006, and extend from the upper left corner of the image to an embayment called Duck Bay. Opportunity then travelled eastwards along the north rim of Victoria, pausing at many of the crater promontories to examine the layered rocks exposed in the cliffs.

In early April 2007, Opportunity crossed a pair of active wind streaks near the eastern end of the image, leaving bright tracks in the dark wind streaks. Scientists hope to monitor the erasure of rover tracks over time as a way to gauge the activity of wind streaks. Opportunity reached the furthest eastward point of the nine-month traverse on 28 April 2007. The rover performed a test of autonomous driving software at this location that produced an arcuate track, and then quickly drove back towards Duck Bay, keeping far from the crater rim. The Opportunity rover can be seen just to the north of Duck Bay, where it will attempt to enter into the crater.

Written by: Paul Geissler  (5 July 2007)
 
Acquisition date
26 June 2007

Local Mars time
14:58

Latitude (centered)
-2.055°

Longitude (East)
354.509°

Spacecraft altitude
268.7 km (167.0 miles)

Original image scale range
27.3 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects ~82 cm across are resolved

Map projected scale
25 cm/pixel and North is up

Map projection
Equirectangular

Emission angle
10.1°

Phase angle
39.8°

Solar incidence angle
49°, with the Sun about 41° above the horizon

Solar longitude
265.1°, Northern Autumn

For non-map projected images
North azimuth:  97°
Sub-solar azimuth:  333.0°
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POSTSCRIPT
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.