Wheeling itself about its own litter at Meridiani Planum, NASA’s Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover has been tooling about and inspecting discarded space junk. The hardware is a spent entry heat shield, equipment that was tossed off high above Mars during the rover’s landing over a year ago.

Engineers and scientists are delighted with the images being received. Spacecraft designers are keen on learning just how well the entry shield held up during its fiery plunge through Mars’ atmosphere back in January 2004. Scientists want to study the impact crater made on the planet’s surface, hoping to glean more about the red planet’s soil properties.

In this image, Opportunity has made its way around a portion of its heat shield, which has shattered and strewn springs and other tiny components across the Martian landscape.

The rover is making detailed observations of heat shield leftovers, weather permitting. The robot experienced its first dust storm since landing, which has affected the amount of energy Opportunity gets each Mars day.

Over the last several days, Opportunity drove backward to a site within the debris field dubbed "West Point". There it imaged the heat shield debris field from that vantage point. Earth operators of the rover occasionally drive the rover backward for convenience and to keep the wheel-motor lubrication more evenly distributed.

The Mars machinery also approached the flank portion of the heat shield remains. On impact, the heat shield broke into two main pieces. The flank is the smaller of those portions and has undergone close-up inspection by the rover’s Microscopic Imager.

• Mars Rover Wanders Through Littered Landscape
• Mars Rover Special Report

-- Leonard David

Credit: NASA/JPL