“Valley of Perseverance” is located on the other side of the crater, visible from the left side of the 360-degree panorama.
Opportunity rover has reached the main destination of its two-year extended mission. Now it is located in an ancient valley formed on the inner slope of a large-scale crater edge.
At the beginning of May, the device approached the upper end of the “Valley of Perseverance” and the scientists received the first high-quality images of this site. What he saw led the researchers to delight, as they first looked at this place closely and can now test the hypotheses of its origin.
The valley is located on the edge of the crater Endeavor. A certain process cut it out billions of years ago. But so far no one knows what it could be. Assumptions include flowing water, debris flow (a mixture of dirt, water, stones) or wind erosion. The purpose of the mission is to understand if there is evidence of one of the possible reasons.
First of all, the device must take pictures of the valley from the height of the edge (two different points of view). Such a stereo image will allow to analyze the terrain in a three-dimensional model. A valley in size takes up about two football fields.
The graph shows the route along which the rover explored the valley on the western edge of the crater Endeavor. The map covers an area of 2/3 km wide. Stereo image is used to create a digital elevation map that will help you create the right route for the descent. It will be very difficult to climb, so it is necessary to think about spare passages that will allow you to travel through the whole valley. The main goal is to get to the west of the edge of the crater at the top, before going down.
This is the 150th month of the mission’s work since landing Opportunity in early 2004. From the very beginning, scientists planned to use the device for only 3 months, until they realized that acidic water was flowing through the Martian soil at the very beginning of the planet’s history.
Opportunity worked for 30 months at the top of the edge of the Endeavor crater, until it moved south to a new destination in mid-April. This view shows Cape Tribulation (crater edge)
For almost 69 months, the device investigated the territory on the western edge of the crater, where more ancient stones were found. The crater extends to 22 kilometers in diameter. The rover arrived from the northwest (10 hours per lap). The study valley is located approximately at 8 o'clock (just imagine that the crater is a clock). On May 4, the total mileage of Opportunity reached 44.7 km.
