[meteorite-list] Opportunity Rover Will Spend 7th Birthday at Stadium-Size Crater

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-002  

Rover Will Spend 7th Birthday at Stadium-Size Crater
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
January 04, 2011

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured a Dec. 31, 2010, view of the Mars
Exploration Rover Opportunity on the southwestern rim of a
football-field-size crater called "Santa Maria."

Opportunity arrived at the western edge of Santa Maria crater in
mid-December and will spend about two months investigating rocks there.
That investigation will take Opportunity into the beginning of its
eighth year on Mars. Opportunity landed in the Meridiani Planum region
of Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time (Jan. 24, Pacific Time) for a
mission originally planned to last for three months.

The new image is online at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/multimedia/gallery/pia13754-anno.html
and http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/releases/oppy-santa-maria.php .

Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, which passed its seventh anniversary
on Mars this week, both have made important discoveries about wet
environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting
microbial life.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and
Mars Exploration Rover projects for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the orbiter.
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the HiRISE camera, which was
built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo.

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2011-002