Web Special: Welcome to Mars’ Victoria Crater
By Ron Cowen
The rim of a Martian crater called Victoria stands out like a scalloped cookie cutter in this high-resolution image taken Oct. 3 by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The new image captures features as small as 81 centimeters across. It shows the rover Opportunity as a speck on the crater’s northwestern edge. The rover is poised to explore the massive cliffs ringing the 800-kilometer-wide crater.
Scientists will use this detailed aerial view to guide Opportunity’s descent into the crater, says rover principal investigator Steve Squyres of Cornell University.