Friday, September 02, 2011

Opportunity Studying 14 Mile Wide Martian Crater


Rover Opportunity, in the seventh year of it's 90 day mission has arrived at the Martian crater Endeavour. The rover's first mission is to study 'compositional differences' of the rocks surrounding the crater. Differences that the rover has not come across in the seven years on Mars. Opportunity drove about 13 miles from it's last crater of exploration, Victoria to reach Endeavour. Victoria was only about a quarter of the size of Endeavour.

Another point of interest is that Opportunity has driven 20.8 miles since landing on Mars. It has been in operation 30 times longer than it was designed to.

Though some scientist have called the findings in error, Both both rovers made discoveries suggesting a wet environments on ancient Mars.

From the article:
  • NASA will launch its next-generation Mars rover, Curiosity, between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011. It will land on Mars in August 2012.
read complete Science Daily article here

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