‘Spirit Point’ Vista from Opportunity, in Stereo

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This stereo scene shows the view from where NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity first arrived on the rim of Endeavour crater, an impact crater about 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. The scene appears three dimensional when viewed through red-blue glasses with the red lens on the left.

The location of Opportunity's arrival at Endeavour is informally named "Spirit Point," as a tribute to Opportunity's rover twin, Spirit, which stopped communicating in March 2010 after more than six years of work on Mars.

The scene encompasses nearly a full circle, from northeast at the left, around to straight north at the right. The small crater on Endeavour's rim near the left edge of the scene is informally named "Odyssey," as a tribute to the Mars Odyssey orbiter, which has served as the communications relay for nearly all of the data sent by Opportunity and Spirit since they landed on Mars in January 2004.

Orbital observations suggest that the rim of Endeavour crater will offer Opportunity access to rocks from an earlier, less-acidic wet environment than the ancient wet environment that left its signature in rocks Opportunity has examined so far. "Cape York" is the Endeavor rim fragment that encompasses Spirit Point and Odyssey crater at its southern end, and extends about half a mile (800 meters) to the northeast. The next rim fragment counterclockwise around Endeavour begins at "Solander Point," on the horizon to the south, near the center of this view.

The tracks left by Opportunity's wheels as the rover arrived at the rim are visible on the right. For scale, the distance between the two parallel tracks is about 3.3 feet (1 meter).

Opportunity's navigation camera took the images that are combined into this mosaic. Some of the component images were taken on the 2,681st Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars (Aug. 9, 2011). That was the sol that the rover completed a three-year journey of more than 13 miles (21 kilometers) from its last previous major destination, Victoria crater. The rest of the component images were taken the next sol.

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