Monthly Archives: March 2011

Oppy has now well and truly left Santa Maria behind her. She is now under 6km away from Endeavour, having driven 230m away from the crater’s edge since she rolled down its slope and out onto the surrounding flat plain.  What … Continue reading →

For the past few days the “image pipeline” which carries raw images from Oppy to the various websites which publishes them – Exploratorium, JPL’s own MER page, etc – has been blocked, and nothing new has been available since March … Continue reading →

Yes, it’s true! At last, the news we’ve all been waiting for… Opportunity has finally left Santa Maria, and is now headed for Endeavour crater! I actually heard this news yesterday, when “Tesheiner” from UMSF reported on the forum that … Continue reading →

I know you REALLY like Santa Maria crater – with all those lovely cliffs and exotic, “what’s that?”-coated rocks it turned out to be *much* more interesting than those first HiRISE images suggested, but really, come on, it’s time to … Continue reading →

Big news! I saw two things on t’internet last night that made it clear that Oppy is now FINALLY getting ready to leave Santa Maria and set off for the faraway hills of Endeavour. First, was this simple line of … Continue reading →

As I write this, on Sunday March 20th, Opportunity is still at Santa Maria, taking her last set of photographs, wrapping things up at the crater before heaving her rucksack onto her shoulders and heading for the far horizon, where … Continue reading →

Oppy has moved just a little further around the rim of Santa Maria crater, to take a last batch of images of her home for the past couple of months before turning around and heading for Endeavour. Her new viewpoint … Continue reading →

It must now be only a matter of days until Oppy leaves Santa Maria crater and heads off on what might be the most important leg of her epic trek across Mars – the 6km drive to Cape York, a … Continue reading →

It looks like Oppy took a little side-step shuffle during her latest drive, before taking another series of shots to allow us to make a new panorama… as ever, click on the image below to bring up a full size … Continue reading →

As Oppy prepares to depart from Santa Maria crater – and the latest word is that she’ll be leaving late next week – I thought I’d share a couple of images I’ve made showing the colours of Meridiani, the huge … Continue reading →