Follow the bouncing heat shield.

Imagery taken by the Opportunity Mars rover at Meridiani Planum has yielded this near true-color mosaic of discarded hardware that fell onto the red planet on January 24, 2004. Also in view is the impact crater produced by the falling entry shield.

During Opportunity’s entry, descent and landing, the heat shield was released far above Mars’ surface. It slammed into the Martian landscape at high speed, striking the ground south of “Endurance Crater”.

The panoramic camera sweep of the debris site shows, on the left, that the main heat shield piece is inverted. A metallic insulation layer glints in the sunlight. This main piece of wreckage stands about 3.3 feet (1 meter tall) and about 43 feet (13 meters) from the rover.

Strewn about the landscape is another large, flat piece of debris near the center of the image.

The circular feature on the right side of the image is the artificial crater made by the heat shield's impact. It is about 9.2 feet (2.8 meters) in diameter but only about 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) deep.

The impact excavated a large amount of reddish subsurface material. Darker materials cover part of the crater's flat floor and have formed a streak or jet of material pointing toward the two largest heat shield fragments.

Smaller fragments and debris are scattered all around the impact site. Opportunity conducted up-close camera studies of the heat shield refuse, allowing spacecraft engineers to inspect the hardware and assess how well it performed its entry duties.

A larger version of this image can be found by clicking here.