[meteorite-list] Opportunity Passes Small Crater and Big Milestone

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2011 17:25:38 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201106030025.p530Pd94010567_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-170

Opportunity Passes Small Crater and Big Milestone
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
June 02, 2011

A drive of 482 feet (146.8 meters) on June 1, 2011, took NASA's Mars
Exploration Rover Opportunity past 30 kilometers (18.64 miles) in total
odometry during 88 months of driving on Mars. That's 50 times the
distance originally planned for the mission and more than 12 times the
distance racehorses will run next week at the Belmont Stakes.

Opportunity has passed many craters on its crater-hopping tour. One of
the youngest of them is "Skylab" crater, which the rover passed last
month. Rocks scattered by the impact of a meteorite surround the
resulting crater in a view recorded by Opportunity on May 12. The view
is at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14132 , and in 3-D
stereo at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14133 .

This crater, informally named after America's first space station, is
only about 9 meters (30 feet) in diameter. Opportunity passed it as the
rover made progress toward its long-term destination, Endeavour crater,
which is about 22 kilometers (14 miles) in diameter.

The positions of the scattered rocks relative to sand ripples suggest
that Skylab is young for a Martian crater. Researchers estimate it was
excavated by an impact within the past 100,000 years.

Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, completed their three-month prime
missions on Mars in April 2004. Both rovers continued for years of
bonus, extended missions. Both have made important discoveries about wet
environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting
microbial life. Spirit has not communicated with Earth since March 2010.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project
for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. More information
about the rovers is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers .

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

2011-170
Received on Thu 02 Jun 2011 08:25:38 PM PDT