A Martian Day's End
Explanation:
A Day or "Sol" on Mars is only 40 minutes longer than an Earth day
-
and
Pathfinder's first
day on Mars, Sol 1 according to its local calendar, was
an eventful one.
Still,
late in the martian afternoon of Sol 1,
the camera on board
the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft recorded this panorama of
the ancient floodplain Ares Vallis.
Two of the three landing petals lie in the foreground
at the edges of this scene surrounded
by deflated and partially gathered airbags.
The martian soil near the spacecraft has been disturbed by the
airbag retraction.
The petal holding the undeployed
robot rover Sojourner is at the left.
One of Sojourner's planned routes to the surface will be
down the ramp
seen rolled up at the petal's edge.
Mission teams have overcome some
rover communications problems and
are proceding carefully with plans to roll the Sojourner
out onto the martian surface.
NASA has announced that the Pathfinder station on Mars will be renamed
in honor of astronomer Carl Sagan.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
