Oppy’s most recent drive was a quite amazing 152 metres! She has now crossed a narrow patch of light bedrock, and is heading towards a pair of small craters. She should reach them sometime over the weekend, I think.
Here’s a chart showing Oppy’s recent progress…
Now, looking at that map you can see Oppy is just short of a rather odd-looking area of light and dark terrain that looks like it’s been raked over, or scraped with a fork. Looking at that you rather get the impression that it is going to look very hilly and hummocky from Oppy’s point of view… lots of ditches with raised ground bordering them… but no, it actually looks rather uninspiring and unimpressive… (click on the next image to see an animation)
…and in 3D you can see just how “Hmmm…” it really is…
But further ahead, up there just beneath the horizon, is something definitely worth looking at – a pair of small craters, the latest waypoints in Oppy’s crater-hopping route to Cape York. Here’s a composite image made of two different pics of the craters, to bring out subtle details…
Of course, they’re nowhere near as impressive as Victoria or Santa Maria, but with Oppy surrounded by mile after mile of nothing, and with vast stretches of more nothing between her and Cape York, anything that rises above ground level, even by just a metre or so, is very welcome! 🙂
More soon.
The Road To Endeavour 