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Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Erica Hupp/Dwayne Brown 202-358-1237/1726
NASA Headquarters, Washington
IMAGE ADVISORY: 2006-133 October 25, 2006
NASA Posts Panorama To Celebrate Rover’s 1,000th Martian Day
NASA’s long-lived Mars Exploration Rover Spirit will finish its 1,000th
Martian day Thursday, continuing a successful mission originally
planned
for 90 Martian days.
A color 360-degree panorama released today – produced from the most
detailed imaging yet completed by either Spirit or its twin,
Opportunity
– shows rugged terrain of the robot’s current location amid a range of
hills. The vista, dubbed the “McMurdo Panorama,” comes from Spirit’s
panoramic camera and is available online at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/images/20061025.html .
Spirit has been examining the surroundings for several months while
perched with a tilt to the north for maximum solar energy during winter
in Mars’ southern hemisphere. The rover team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., plans to resume driving the rover in
coming weeks as Martian spring approaches.
Spirit landed inside Mars’ Gusev Crater on Jan. 3, 2004, PST (Jan. 4
Universal Time). Each Martian day is longer than an Earth day, lasting
24 hours, 39 minutes, 35 seconds. That means that in Earth days, Spirit
has been on Mars about 1,026 days.
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
manages NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA’s Science
Mission
Directorate, Washington.