Record op Mars

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6 juni 2011 | Hij zou het zo'n drie maanden doen en enkele honderden meters afleggen. Maar Opportunity rijdt sinds februari 2004 door kraters en over heuvels en blijft maar beelden, data en inzichten leveren. Vorige week legde hij 147 meter af en brak daarmee door de 30 kilometer rondtoeren op Mars.

“A drive of 482 feet (146.8 meters) on June 1, 2011, took NASA’sMars Exploration Rover Opportunity past 30 kilometers (18.64 miles)during 88 months of driving on Mars. That’s 50 times the distanceoriginally planned for the mission,” vertelt de NASA. “Opportunitycontinued for years of bonus, extended missions and madeimportant discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars thatmay have been favorable for supporting microbial life.”

“Opportunity has passed many craters on its crater-hopping tour.One of the youngest of them is “Skylab” crater, which the roverpassed last month. Rocks scattered by the impact of a meteoritesurround the resulting crater in a view recorded by Opportunity onMay 12. The view is at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14132.

This crater, informally named after America’s first spacestation, is only about 9 meters (30 feet) in diameter. Opportunitypassed it as the rover made progress toward its long-termdestination, Endeavour crater, which is about 22 kilometers (14miles) in diameter.

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