Sunday, April 4, 2010

Meanwhile on the other side of Mars...

Oppy keeps running, and running toward Endeavour crater off in the distance.   Little Oppy now has 12.58 miles on the odometer and keeps on going.

3 comments:

Dave said...

Those shiny tracks sure look like wet sand to me. Has JPL issued any statements explaining their appearance? My uneducated guesses would be either CO2 frost or a lighter colored soil being uncovered by the wheels.

Tom said...

I figure that it's kind of similar to these tracks on the moon. I always thought these looked strange.

http://tinyurl.com/ygv8qe7

Dave said...

True ... I had forgotten about those Lunar Rover tracks. I seem to recall the Apollo astronauts commented that the lunar soil was lighter underneath the rocks ... perhaps due to being protected from solar winds. I suppose the tracks in the Apollo picture could be the effect of low Sun reflecting off of the fine compacted material. (Think of Buzz's boot print.)