NASA’s Mars Rover Opportunity gained this view during the 2,459th Martian day, or sol of the rover’s work on Mars (Dec. 24, 2010) from the edge of a football-field-size crater informally named “Santa Maria.”
This view is the right-eye member of a stereo pair from Opportunity’s front hazard-avoidance camera.
The rover’s upraised robotic arm, itself out of view, casts a dragon-shaped shadow in the foreground.
Opportunity’s viewpoint for this scene is the position reached by a drive on Sol 2454. Drives on sols 2452 and 2454 brought Opportunity a few meters counterclockwise around the western side of the crater from the place where the rover first approached the crater on Sol 2451 (Dec. 16, 2010).
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech