This colorized view reveals a small patch of Martian soil as seen by NASA's
Spirit rover.
The elevation map, as it is called, shows a soil target scientists dubbed "Peak."
It was created from images taken by the microscopic imager located on the rover's
instrument arm. The image reveals the various high and low points of this spot
of soil after the Moessbauer spectrometer, another instrument on the rover’s
arm, was gently placed down on it.
At a press conference yesterday, mission managers likened the maneuver to making
a nose print in the soil.
The blue areas are farthest away from the instrument; the red areas are closest.
The variation in distance between blue and red areas is only 2 millimeters,
or .08 of an inch. The scene is about 3 centimeters across.
Scientists said the soil shows a mix of grain sizes that was likely put together
by wind action and perhaps slightly cemented together buy some unknown process.
The image was acquired on the rover's sol 39, or Feb. 11, 2004 Earth-time.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/USGS
