Onwards – to Odyssey!

Having spent the best part of three years being the martian equivalent of a racing car, Oppy is now settling back into her original role, as a field geologist. There are new rocks beneath her feet, a new crater up ahead, and a wealth of magical minerals to study all around. The days of dashing 120m or more in one go are behind her; she will now drive much more slowly, wandering from one tasty science target to the next. She may well spend weeks, if not months, standing still, painstakingly examining a particularly interesting part of the landscape. So, time for everything to slow down.

Here’s Oppy’s latest position, as she edges towards Odyssey crater…

…and here’s her latest view, chopped off at the top a bit, but still pretty impressive…

You might not think that shows much new at first glance, but that’s not the case. We can now see that big rock on the farside of Odyssey a lot better. Here’s a 3D view…

There’s something VERY interesting on that image… there’s a strikingly bright rock over there on the right…

It stands out pretty well on a plain old black and white image too…

Oh, I hope we get a closer look at that… 🙂

So, Oppy is now well and truly AT Endeavour Crater. Cape York is beneath her wheels, and she’s heading towards yet another crater in her seven year long tour of Meridiani Craters. I understand that the mega-zoom spy satellite HiRISE camera of the Mars Reconaisance Orbiter probe will soon be taking a picture of Oppy, showing her on Cape York… but I thought I’d have a go at making an image of my own, showing what that HiRISE image might look like. So, click on the next image, look down to the left of Odyssey Crater, and you’ll see Opportunity, at what I think is pretty much the correct scale, too…

I wonder how close I am… guess we’ll know soon enough! 🙂

And finally for this time, just as a contrast, let’s go back a week or so and take another look at “Gibraltar”, the last exposed bedrock plate Oppy took a look at before climbing up onto Cape York…

More soon.