West Meridiani Crater

Scaled Image

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU

About this image

Long before the MER landers were named or launched, the two orbiters at Mars were asked to examine landing sites. Both the Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft have been collecting landing site data for the past two years. The MGS and ODY data were used as part of the decision making process in the final selection of the two landing sites. The types of data collected by the two orbiters included not only images of the surface but also thermal data about the surface composition, atmospheric data about the climate at each location, and the tracking of major dust storms in the region prior to landing. The presence of, and data collected by, the MGS and ODY orbiters proved invaluable in MER mission planning.
This image was captured on 23 August 2003, while the Opportunity rover was already on its way to Mars. This image is to the west of Opportunity's projected landing spot.

Please see the THEMIS Data Citation Note for details on crediting THEMIS images. 

Context

Image ID: 
V07491001 (View data in Mars Image Explorer)
-2.0795
351.706
7491
2003-08-22 21:23
Wed, 2004-01-21
VIS
1024 pixels (18 km)
3648 pixels (64 km)
0.017702 km/pixel
0.017831 km/pixel

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