“Independence” Panorama

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Caption:

Click on the image for "Independence" Panorama (QTVR)

This is the Spirit "Independence" panorama, acquired on martian days, or sols, 536 to 543 (July 6 to 13, 2005), from a position in the "Columbia Hills" near the summit of "Husband Hill." The summit of "Husband Hill" is the peak near the right side of this panorama and is about 100 meters (328 feet) away from the rover and about 30 meters (98 feet) higher in elevation. The rocky outcrops downhill and on the left side of this mosaic include "Larry's Lookout" and "Cumberland Ridge," which Spirit explored in April, May, and June of 2005.

The panorama spans 360 degrees and consists of 108 individual images, each acquired with five filters of the rover's panoramic camera. The approximate true color of the mosaic was generated using the camera's 750-, 530-, and 480-nanometer filters. During the 8 martian days, or sols, that it took to acquire this image, the lighting varied considerably, partly because of imaging at different times of sol, and partly because of small sol-to-sol variations in the dustiness of the atmosphere. These slight changes produced some image seams and rock shadows. These seams have been eliminated from the sky portion of the mosaic to better simulate the vista a person standing on Mars would see. However, it is often not possible or practical to smooth out such seams for regions of rock, soil, rover tracks or solar panels. Such is the nature of acquiring and assembling large panoramas from the rovers.

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