Size Comparison, Mars Science Laboratory and Mars Exploration Rover
An artist's concept of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (left) serves to compare it with Spirit, one of NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rovers. Mars Science Laboratory is in development for a launch opportunity in 2009, a landing on Mars in 2010 and investigation of that planet's past or present ability to sustain microbial life.
The images of Spirit and the more advanced rover are both superimposed by special effects on a scene from Mars' "Columbia Hills," photographed by Spirit's panoramic camera on April 13, 2005, and presented here in false color (see Next Stop: Methuselah [PIA07855]).
