Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity inside Endurance Crater

IMAGE SPECS: Royalty Free

Description:
This synthetic image of the Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover inside Endurance Crater was produced using Virtual Presence in Space technology. Developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, this technology combines visualization and image processing tools with Hollywood-style special effects. The image was created using a photorealistic model of the rover and an approximately full-color mosaic. The size of the rover in the image is approximately correct and was based on the size of the rover tracks in the mosaic. Because this synthesis provides viewers with a sense of their own virtual presence (as if they were there themselves), such views can be useful to mission teams by enhancing perspective and a sense of scale. Opportunity captured the underlying view of Burns Cliff after driving right to the base of this southeastern portion of the inner wall of Endurance Crater. The view combines frames taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera between the rover's 287th and 294th martian days (November 13 to 20, 2004). This is a composite of 46 different images, each acquired in seven different Pancam filters. It is an approximately true-color rendering generated from the panoramic camera's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 430-nanometer filters. The mosaic spans more than 180 degrees side to side. Because of this wide-angle view, the cliff walls appear to bulge out toward the camera. In reality the walls form a gently curving, continuous surface.