A cable-tie no more than several centimeters (a few inches) long, resembling the wires used to fasten bags around loaves of bread, has remained in place on the deck of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit since landing day. It is the light-toned squiggle shape against a dark background near the lower right corner of this low-resolution image taken by Spirit's navigation camera on Jan. 4, 2004, a few hours after landing. Since then, the tie has left a trail of tracks where dust has accumulated on the rover, apparent in an image taken one year later [see PIA07268 ]. Because the martian atmosphere is so thin, even high-speed winds are not expected to dislodge the tie from its present location. This image of the spacecraft deck also shows parts of the rover's solar arrays.
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 | Atmosphere, Dust, Grayscale | |
Acquisition Date | ||
Release Date | 2005-01-20 | |
Date in Caption | 2004-01-04 | |
Image Credit | NASA/JPL | |
Source | photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07267 | |
Identifier | PIA07267 |