Opportunity at 'Cook Islands'

The rover had driven half a meter (1.5 feet) earlier on Sol 1825 to fine-tune its location for placing its robotic arm onto an exposed patch of outcrop including a target area informally called "Cook Islands."

On the preceding sol, Opportunity turned around to drive frontwards and then drove 4.5 meters (15 feet) toward this outcrop. The tracks from the SOl 1824 drive are visible in the center foreground of this view. For scale, the distance between the parallel wheel tracks is about 1 meter (about 40 inches). Opportunity had previously been driving backward as a strategy to redistribute lubrication in a wheel drawing more electrical current than usual.

The outcrop exposure that includes "Cook Islands" is in the lower right and left corners of the image. In the upper right, southeast from the rover's position, is a very small crater called "Resolution."

The terrain in this portion of Mars' Meridiani Planum region includes dark-toned sand ripples and lighter-toned bedrock.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
High resolution image




Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This image taken by the front hazard-avoidance camera on Opportunity shows the rover's arm extended to examine the composition of a rock using the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer. Opportunity took this image during the 1,826th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's Mars-surface mission (March 13, 2009).

The spectrometer is at a target called "Penrhyn," on a rock called "Cook Islands." As Opportunity makes its way on a long journey from Victoria Crater toward Endeavour Crater, the team is stopping the drive occasionally on the route to check whether the rover finds a trend in the composition of rock exposures.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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