Sodding Great Holes

[major_clanger]

Those of you who saw my Mars 3D talk at Plokta.con may remember I noted that Opportunity Rover (hi opportunitygrrl) was almost at Endurance Crater, a large feature much bigger than the two craters she'd so far seen. Well, just too late for Plokta, JPL has posted a panorama of Endurance (and a 3D version for those who kept their glasses). It's about 120m across, or roughly the size of a football pitch.

Now that's what I call a crater.

MC

Comments

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

What's the scale?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

About 120m across, or the size of a football pitch (post now updated to mention this).

MC

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

huge hole!

[pmcray.livejournal.com]

Damned cool. Will there be a colour image at some point?

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it will take a while as it will have to be taken by the panoramic cameras, which have colour filter wheels but a much smaller field of view. As such it will involve lots more views each with at least three exposures.

Now, Space Daily have what looks like a colour image but in fact it is the original monochrome panorama but colourized in red. This is rather naughty but they've done this with several other MER images, perhaps to try to look like they are first on the scene with colour pix.

MC