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Now: Endeavor
At present, Opportunity continues on a lonely road trip to a huge crater called Endeavor, a trek of about two years.
Endeavour is 22 kilometres [13.7 miles] in diameter, dwarfing Victoria crater, where Opportunity has already been, and which is 750 metres across [just less than half a mile]. The crater is interesting because of the clay minerals there, spotted from orbit. Clays form under wet conditions, rather than the dry harsh conditions that form sulfates – the other kind of rock that Opportunity has seen [Nature].
There’s not much to see on the way to Endeavor, which is why this rock stuck out so much. A possible meteorite, the rock earned the nickname “sore thumb” before NASA scientists gave it the more formal moniker “Marquette Island.”
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Images: NASA/JPL
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June 2nd, 2010 at 6:57 pm
The tracks in the above photo appear to be made in DAMP Sand. There doesn’t seem to be any coment on that.
Anyone who’s moved a wheeled trolley, bike, whateveer, over damp sand or soil, may recall that the sand, or soil, sticks to the treads and falls off as the wheels pass over. In this case, it could perhaps be surface moisture. Its hard to say without actually being there.
Perhaps our friends on Lunar Farside can help us with this mystery.