Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Astonishing Picture of Victoria Crater

Wow! The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) team just released a picture of Victoria Crater taken by the HiRISE camera. The picture can be seen at http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/TRA/TRA_000873_1780/

The picture of Victoria crater, seen in Figure A below, is the destination of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.

Figure A. MRO picture of Victoria Crater
(click picture to enlarge)

For purposes of comparison you may want to check out the picture of Victoria Crater that I created from a Mars Global Surveyor MOC Narrow-Angle Camera image at http://www.marsartgallery.com/victoriacrater.html

What makes the MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) picture truely astonishing is that the rover Opportunity can be seen in the picture. Even more astonishing is that the shadow from the PanCam mast can be seen in the full resolution version. The image resolution is 27 centimeters per pixel.

Figure B. Closeup of Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity

(click picture to enlarge)

More about this detailed view of Opportunity is available at http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/TRA/TRA_000873_1780/opportunity.html

For more information, the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) home page is at http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/ and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter home page is at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/.

Way to go MRO.