Opportunity Looks Back After Hop to a New Pad
Date: 8 May 2010

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its navigation camera for this northward view of tracks the rover left on a drive from one energy-favorable position on the northern end of a sand ripple to another. The rover team calls this strategy hopping from lily pad to lily pad.


Opportunity took this image on the 2,235th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (8 May 2010). The tracks are from a 14.87-m (49-foot) drive southward on the preceding sol. Mars' southern hemisphere was in the minimal sunshine period close to the winter solstice, which occurred five days later on 13 May 2010 (Universal Time).


For scale, the distance between the parallel wheel tracks is about 1 m (3 feet).


Last Update: 22 Nov 2011 (AMB)

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech