PIA03060: Looking Back at Spirit's Trail to the Summit (Polar)


Looking Back at Spirit’s Trail to the Summit (Polar)

Caption:

Before moving on to explore more of Mars, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit looked back at the long and winding trail of twin wheel tracks the rover created to get to the top of "Husband Hill." Spirit spent several days in October 2005 at this location, perched on a lofty, rock-strewn incline next to a precarious outcrop nicknamed "Hillary." Researchers helped the rover make several wheel adjustments to get solid footing before conducting scientific analysis of the rock outcrop. The rock turned out to be similar in appearance and composition to a rock target called "Jibsheet" PIA07979 that the rover had studied several months earlier and hundreds of meters away.

To the west are the slopes of the "Columbia Hills," so named for the astronauts of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Beyond the hills are the flat plains and rim of Gusev Crater.

Spirit took this 360-degree panorama of images with its navigation camera on the 627th Martian day, or sol, (Oct. 7, 2005) of its exploration of Gusev Crater on Mars. This view is presented in a polar projection with geometric seam correction.

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Mars
System
Target Type Planet
Mission Mars Exploration Rover (MER)
Instrument Host Spirit (MER-A)
Host Type Rover
Instrument Navigation Camera (Navcam)
Detector
Extra Keywords Crater, Grayscale
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2005-10-21
Date in Caption 2005-10-07
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03060
Identifier PIA03060