Spirit Celebrates 1000 Sols on Mars

Today, Oct. 26, 2006, is the 1,000th Sol (a Martian day) that the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has spent on Mars. It's hard to believe that the two rovers Spirit and Opportunity continue to operate, having exceeded their rated lifetime of 90 Sols by a factor of more than 10. As a sort of celebration, JPL has today released a panoramic image of Spirit's current location on a small hill called "Low Ridge".

Referred to as PIA01907: 'McMurdo' Panorama from Spirit's 'Winter Haven', a small portion of which can be seen above, the panorama was created from individual pictures taken by Spirit's panoramic camera, commonly referred to as the Pancam. The most interesting component of this panorama is the field of rocks that appears in the center of the image. While the image is impressive, its true beauty can only be seen in the full resolution version (a 28 meg JPEG).