14 DAY TRIAL // Taking advantage of a very low Sun angle at its current location, the NASA Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity snapped an impressive view of Endeavour Crater, its target for the past three years.
Mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California, waited for just the right time to snap this image, so that the view was just right. Endeavour is the largest crater in the Martian surface that was close enough for Opportunity to drive towards.
The rover landed on the Red Planet in January 2004, for a 3-month mission that entailed a 600-meter (2,000-foot) drive. Instead, it has spent more than 8 years on Mars, and has driven for 34.4 kilometers (21.4 miles), breaking record after record.
When mission managers saw that the small robot could endure the harsh conditions of the Martian winter, they decided to try to reach Endeavour Crater. The drive was very long, and multiple stops were made along the way, to analyze various space rocks and landscape features.
Eventually, the rover reached its destination in August 2011, and has been conducting investigations at its rim – particularly on an outcrop called Greeley Haven – ever since. This is also where the robot spent its fifth Martian winter.
The new image it snapped was collected from the western rim of Endeavour, as Opportunity was looking eastward. The view catches the entire crater basin, which has a diameter of 22 kilometers (14 miles), as well as the machine's own shadow.
Scientists plan to continue using the rover to conduct geological surveys on the Martian surface. They have already instructed it to investigate a patch of windblown dust located close to Greeley Haven, in hopes of finding out more about the Red Planet's distant climate past.
According to statistics, Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, collected vast amounts of data, which would have otherwise required at least 20 other similar missions to compile. Their extreme longevity gives credit to the engineers who designed and built them.
NASA plans to continue funding the MER mission for as long as Opportunity can drive. At the same time, this August will see the touchdown of its new Martian rover, Curiosity, on the slopes of Mount Sharp, inside Gale Crater.