NASA’s Opportunity rover is exploring a Martian crater large enough to hold several American football stadiums.

Seen here is “Victoria Crater” on Mars with the FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland superimposed to give a sense of the depression’s immense size.  

The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is currently exploring the half-mile (0.8-kilometer) wide crater, the largest crater ever visited by a NASA rover.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter used its High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera to build this view of Victoria. Mission managers then added the FedEx stadium for scale.

Mars mission managers said Victoria, with its depth of up to 200 feet (60 meters), could hold up to five football stadiums.

Opportunity spent nearly 960 Martian days – known as sols – exploring the red planet before reaching Victoria, and will drive along the crater’s rim over upcoming days so rover handlers can identify prospective paths into and out of the crater.

• Red Planet Double Team: NASA Orbiter Spies Mars Rover at Victoria Crater
• Mars Rover Opportunity's Victory at Victoria
• Video: All Eyes on Mars
• Images: Visualizations of Mars
• Mars Probes Continue to Unlock Planet's Mysteries
• Complete Coverage: Mars Rovers
• Red Planet Recon: Complete Coverage of NASA’s MRO Mission to Mars
• All About Mars

-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: FedEx Field: Screenshot (c) Google Inc. and reproduced with permission/
Victoria Crater: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona