Scientists
studying initial on-the-scene images relayed from NASA's Opportunity Mars rover at Victoria
Crater are elated.
The
enormous impact crater has been the six-wheeled robot's long-term destination
for the past 21 Earth months.
"For
the first day or two after we saw the initial images we were just overwhelmed,"
said Steve
Squyres, lead Mars Exploration Rover scientist from Cornell University in
Ithaca, New York.
The
far side of the crater is about one-half mile (800 meters) away from where the Mars machine is positioned.
"Now
that the reality of the scene has sunk in and the features have started to
become familiar, we're beginning to think carefully about the science and about
our plan of attack," Squyres told SPACE.com.
Clockwise or counterclockwise
Rover
handlers back here on Earth are in the process of acquiring sweeping Panoramic
Camera (Pancam) shots of the crater. After that, the plan is to drive
Opportunity to a spot called "Cape Verde" - a large promontory and a spot for
taking more Pancam imagery.
Squyres
said that a partial circumnavigation of the crater is on tap. "We haven't
decided yet whether we'll head clockwise or counterclockwise," he added.
A
future decision is whether or not to steer Opportunity into Victoria Crater.
"We
want very much to drive into the crater, because that's where the geology is!
Whether or not we'll do it, though, depends on an assessment of how steep the
slopes are," Squyres noted.
To
help determine whether Opportunity will make tracks and take on that daring
maneuver, long-baseline stereo images are needed. These are produced as Pancam
images taken from two different locations on the crater's rim. Doing so would
generate a good model of the terrain, Squyres advised.
"We're
not going to make any decisions about driving in or not driving in until we understand
the slopes a lot better than we do now," Squyres emphasized.
Die at any moment
Could
Victoria be a final resting spot for Opportunity?
Scientists
on the rover team clearly view Victoria Crater as impressive real estate. And
given the wide open spaces surrounding Victoria at Meridiani Planum of less
scientific interest, perhaps the robot should spend its final days at the site.
"Victoria
could be the final resting spot for Opportunity," Squyres said, just like Low
Ridge could be the final resting spot for the Spirit Mars rover, also busy at
work at Gusev Crater, another exploration zone on the red planet.
"These
rovers are so far past their design lifetime that they could die at any
moment," Squyres pointed out.
"Every
sol [a day on Mars] could be our last. We're going to use every capability that
Opportunity has to understand this crater and the story it has to tell as well
as we can. That's going to take a long time. If the rover's still alive once
we're done, then we'll see what we see," Squyres concluded.
Eye-popping size
The
sightseeing on Mars from Opportunity's vantage place is staggering, explained
William Farrand, a research scientist at the Space Science Institute in
Boulder, Colorado and a member of the Mars Exploration Rover science team.
"I
think the thing that most impresses me is the sheer size of Victoria Crater and
the associated outcrops compared with things we've seen thus far in the
mission," Farrand told SPACE.com.
In
the images transmitted from the rover, sometimes blocks and boulders at first
appear really big, Farrand said. But when scientists actually figure out the
actual scale, those objects turn out to be not that large - only a meter or a
couple of meters in size.
"Victoria
crater is actually pretty darn big," Farrand said, adding that the feature
that's an eye-popping 2,428 feet (740 meters) in diameter. "It's about three
quarters of the size of Meteor Crater in Arizona...and if you've been there...you
know it is pretty big," he said.
Whole new mission
Farrand
said that first looks at Opportunity images of Victoria show that outcrops
exposed in the rim are large in size. Victoria crater, in map view, consists of
a number of promontories and incut regions which Mars researchers are, at least
for now, referring to as "capes" and "bays".
Currently,
Opportunity is at "Duck Bay", Farrand explained, named after a site visited by
Portuguese maritime explorer, Ferdinand Magellan and his crew. To the north of
the rover is a promontory now named "Cape Verde" - another spot visited by
Magellan and a huge block, roughly 33 feet (10 meters) or so high.
"With
regards to what the rocks will tell us or whether it is what we expected, it is
just too early to say. We have a lot of work ahead of us to understand
the crater and its outcrops," Farrand stressed. 'It is like a whole new
mission."
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