Mars Rover Gets Up-Close and Personal With Meteorite

By Space.com Staff
published

A stunning new photo yields anup-close view of a Mars meteoritediscovered by NASA's Opportunity rover while exploring the Red Planet.

The iron meteorite, called OleanRuiadh, is the sixthspace rock Opportunity has found on Mars since it firststarted exploring theplanet in 2004. The rover's cameras first picked up the meteorite Sept.16.

Scientists christened the meteoriteOlean Ruiadh in honor ofthe Gaelic name for an island off the coast of Ireland.

Opportunity took this new photo withits panoramic cameraSept. 24. The rover stuck with the rock for a few days, inspecting itstextureand composition.

Opportunity departed the meteoritesite Sept. 28, resumingits longtrek toward Endeavour Crater, which is still about 6 miles(10 kilometers)away.

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Space.com Staff
Space.com Staff
News and editorial team

Space.com is the premier source of space exploration, innovation and astronomy news, chronicling (and celebrating) humanity's ongoing expansion across the final frontier. Originally founded in 1999, Space.com is, and always has been, the passion of writers and editors who are space fans and also trained journalists. Our current news team consists of Editor-in-Chief Tariq Malik; Editor Hanneke Weitering, Senior Space Writer Mike Wall; Senior Writer Meghan Bartels; Senior Writer Chelsea Gohd, Senior Writer Tereza Pultarova and Staff Writer Alexander Cox, focusing on e-commerce. Senior Producer Steve Spaleta oversees our space videos, with Diana Whitcroft as our Social Media Editor.