Sunday, December 5, 2010

Where EXACTLY is Opportunity (the Mars Rover)?

It's deucedly hard to figure out where in location to its targeted destination (Endeavour Crater) the Mars Rover Opportunity is. The JPL Mars Rover site has lots of short-range traverse maps, but they don't have a recent large one that puts its distance to Endeavour Crater in context. Even in September, when they said it was halfway, they didn't put out a map!

It took me a little effort, but I managed to find a few maps that help figure out where it is. Its next major target is probably what appears to be a nice little well-defined crater with its own dune field in the middle, Santa Maria.

1. Opportunity's long and winding road to Endeavour Crater (dated May 5, 2010). That links to this (labeled) image, released April 30, 2010:

PIA13082_fig1

2. This MarsDaily article gives a report on recent progress (mirroring the JPL Mars Rover reports): Opportunity Imaging Small Craters on Way to Endeavour

3. Mars Rovers Exploration Update (September 30, 2010)
This shows Opportunity's position on Sol 2239. It also shows where on the rim of Endeavour Opportunity expects to be. It's now around Sol 2440 or so.

4. This is the image that mentions Santa Maria crater, from the link above.
http://www.planetary.org/image/Opportunity_100_sol_map_2300_ripplemap.jpg
Caption: This image shows Opportunity's position every 100 sols and was created from a background image by JPL's Tim Parker, with the positions and ripple map created by James Canvin. Santa Maria Crater is the little black dot to the right of the 2300 sol position. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / T. Parker / J. Canvin

5. And this is the most recent one I could find, showing where Opportunity was on Sol 2400.
Sol 2400 map

So now I (and maybe you, dear reader) have a better idea of where Opportunity actually is. It looks like Santa Maria crater will be a nice target coming up soon on the way to Endeavour.

Here's a bit more on Santa Maria crater, with a well-developed image:
A closer look at Santa Maria

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