Memory Reformat Planned for Opportunity Mars Rover

NASA's Mars rover Opportunity captured this view southward just after completing a 338-foot (103-meter) southward drive, in reverse, on Aug. 10, 2014. 

The foreground of this view from the rover's Navcam includes the rear portion of the rover's deck. 

The ground beyond bears wind-blown lines of sand. Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech. 

Curiosity Rover, Opportunity;s big brother is still going strong on Mars.

An increasing frequency of computer resets on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has prompted the rover team to make plans to reformat the rover's flash memory.

The resets, including a dozen this month, interfere with the rover's planned science activities, even though recovery from each incident is completed within a day or two.

Flash memory retains data even when power is off. It is the type used for storing photos and songs on smart phones or digital cameras, among many other uses.

Individual cells within a flash memory sector can wear out from repeated use. Reformatting clears the memory while identifying bad cells and flagging them to be avoided.

"Worn-out cells in the flash memory are the leading suspect in causing these resets," said John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, project manager for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project.

"The flash reformatting is a low-risk process, as critical sequences and flight software are stored elsewhere in other non-volatile memory on the rover."

The project landed twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity on Mars in early 2004 to begin missions planned to last only three months. Spirit worked for six years, and Opportunity is still active. Findings about ancient wet environments on Mars have come from both rovers.

The project reformatted the flash memory on Spirit five years ago to stop a series of amnesia events Spirit had been experiencing. The reformatting planned for early next month will be the first for Opportunity.

Even after the rover has been active for more than a decade and is currently about 125 million miles (about 200 million kilometers) from JPL, the rover team can still perform this type of upkeep.

Preparations include downloading to Earth all useful data remaining in the flash memory and switching the rover to an operating mode that does not use flash memory.

Also, the team is restructuring the rover's communication sessions to use a slower data rate, which may add resilience in case of a reset during these preparations.

MAVEN's Electra Ultra High Frequency Transceiver

This radio hardware, the Electra UHF Transceiver on NASA's MAVEN mission to Mars, is designed to provide communication relay support for robots on the surface of Mars.

The team operating NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission successfully completed, on Feb. 19, 2014, the initial post-launch power-on and checkout of the spacecraft's Electra Ultra High Frequency Transceiver.

This wraps up the initial checkouts of all payloads on the MAVEN spacecraft, with everything performing as expected.

MAVEN will examine the upper atmosphere of Mars to provide understanding about processes that led to the loss of much of the original Martian atmosphere.

Data and analysis could tell planetary scientists the history of climate change on the Red Planet and provide further information on the history of planetary habitability.

The spacecraft was launched on Nov. 18, 2013, and will enter orbit around Mars in September 2014.

The Electra radio payload is part of the NASA Mars Exploration Program's Mars Relay Network.

This network is composed of orbiters, including NASA's Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), that provide reliable, high-data-rate relay communications links to landers on the surface of Mars, including NASA's Opportunity and Curiosity rovers.

Using relay via orbiters, compared with the rovers' capability to transmit directly to Earth, greatly increases science data return from the Martian surface.

MAVEN will be available to provide relay services on a contingency basis during its prime science mission and may routinely provide relay support during an anticipated extended mission.

MAVEN's Electra payload is provided and operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Since launch, the mission team has checked out MAVEN's three suites of science instruments. The Particles and Fields Package contains six instruments to characterize the solar wind and the ionosphere of Mars.

The Remote Sensing Package will determine global characteristics of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere.

The Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer will measure the composition of Mars' upper atmosphere.

ISS a space lab of 'unlimited' opportunity

International Space Station. Credits: ESA

It may be 350 kilometers (215 miles) above Earth and a place that only a privileged few will ever visit, but the International Space Station is crucial to advances in science, health and technology, experts say.

Earlier this month, NASA said the life of the $100 billion ISS would be extended by four years, or until at least 2024, allowing for more global research and scientific collaboration.

John Holdren, a senior White House adviser on science and technology, hailed the space station—mainly built with US money—as "a unique facility that offers enormous scientific and societal benefits.

"The Obama administration's decision to extend its life until at least 2024 will allow us to maximize its potential, deliver critical benefits to our nation and the world and maintain American leadership in space," he said.

The orbiting outpost, which was launched to fanfare in 1998, has more living space than a six-bedroom house and comes complete with Internet access, a gym, two bathrooms and a 360-degree bay window offering spectacular views of Earth.

Its entire structure is made up of various working and sleeping modules, and extends the length of a football field (about 100 meters or yards), making it four times bigger than the Russian space station Mir and about five times as large as the US Skylab.

The aging structure requires regular maintenance, which is done by astronauts who don spacesuits and venture outside the lab.

One such repair was completed Christmas Eve when two Americans stepped out to replace a failed ammonia pump that served to cool equipment at the ISS.

Julie Robinson, an ISS scientist at NASA, insisted that the space station, which has a mass of 924,739 pounds (420,000 kilograms) but is near-weightless in space, is worth the trouble and expense.

The ISS, which is maintained by a rotating crew of six astronauts and cosmonauts who have hailed from 14 countries, allows scientists to study the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human body, she said, while testing new space technologies that will be essential for missions to Mars.

"The goal of using the space station is to make discoveries that cannot be made anywhere else... and do research that is really focused on bringing benefits back to Earth by developing knowledge that can directly help bio-medical treatments, make new materials, have better Earth and climate observations," she told reporters.

Mars rover Opportunity heads uphill

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity captured this southward uphill view after beginning to ascend the northwestern slope of "Solander Point" on the western rim of Endeavour Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover has begun climbing "Solander Point," the northern tip of the tallest hill it has encountered in the mission's nearly 10 Earth years on Mars.

Guided by mineral mapping from orbit, the rover is exploring outcrops on the northwestern slopes of Solander Point, making its way up the hill much as a field geologist would do.

The outcrops are exposed from several feet (about 2 meters) to about 20 feet (6 meters) above the surrounding plains, on slopes as steep as 15 to 20 degrees.

The rover may later drive south and ascend farther up the hill, which peaks at about 130 feet (40 meters) above the plains.

"This is our first real Martian mountaineering with Opportunity," said the principal investigator for the rover, Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.

"We expect we will reach some of the oldest rocks we have seen with this rover—a glimpse back into the ancient past of Mars."

The hill rises southward as a ridge from Solander Point, forming an elevated portion of the western rim of Endeavour Crater.

The crater spans 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. The ridge materials were uplifted by the great impact that excavated the crater billions of years ago, reversing the common geological pattern of older materials lying lower than younger ones.

Key targets on the ridge include clay-bearing rocks identified from observations by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, which is on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The observations were specially designed to yield mineral maps with enhanced spatial resolution.

This segment of the crater's rim stands much higher than "Cape York," a segment to the north that Opportunity investigated for 20 months beginning in mid-2011.

NASA Mars Opportunity discovers clays favourable to Martian biology

The pale rock in the upper center of this image, about the size of a human forearm, includes a target called “Esperance,” which was inspected by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.

Data from the rover’s alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS) indicate that Esperance’s composition is higher in aluminum and silica, and lower in calcium and iron, than other rocks Opportunity has examined in more than nine years on Mars. 

Preliminary interpretation points to clay mineral content due to intensive alteration by water. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona 

Now nearly a decade into her planned 3 month only expedition to Mars, NASA's longest living rover Opportunity, struck gold and has just discovered the strongest evidence to date for an environment favourable to ancient Martian (organic) biology – and she has set sail hunting for a motherlode of new clues amongst fabulous looking terrain.

Barely two weeks ago in mid-May 2013, Opportunity's analysis of a new rock target named "Esperance" confirmed that it is composed of a "clay that had been intensely altered by relatively neutral pH water – representing the most favorable conditions for biology that Opportunity has yet seen in the rock histories it has encountered," NASA said in a statement.

The finding of a fractured rock loaded with clay minerals and ravaged by flowing liquid water in which life could have thrived amounts to a scientific home run for the golf cart sized rover!

"Water that moved through fractures during this rock's history would have provided more favorable conditions for biology than any other wet environment recorded in rocks Opportunity has seen," said the mission's principal investigator Prof. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.

Opportunity accomplished the ground breaking new discovery by exposing the interior of Esperance with her still functioning Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) and examining a pristine patch using the microscopic camera and X-Ray spectrometer on the end of her 3 foot long robotic arm.

The robot made the discovery at the conclusion of a 20 month long science expedition circling around a low ridge called "Cape York" – which she has just departed on a southerly heading trekking around the eroded rim of the huge crater named "Endeavour."

"Esperance was so important, we committed several weeks to getting this one measurement of it, even though we knew the clock was ticking."

Esperance stems from a time when the Red Planet was far warmer and wetter billions of years ago.

Close-Up of ‘Esperance’ After Abrasion by Opportunity 

This mosaic of four frames shot by the microscopic imager on the robotic arm of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows a rock target called “Esperance” after some of the rock’s surface had been removed by Opportunity’s rock abrasion tool, or RAT. 

The component images were taken on Sol 3305 on Mars (May 11, 2013). 

The area shown is about 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) across. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/USGS

NASA Mars Rover Opportunity examines clay clues in rock Esperance

The pale rock in the upper center of this image, about the size of a human forearm, includes a target called "Esperance," which was inspected by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.

Data from the rover's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) indicate that Esperance's composition is higher in aluminum and silica, and lower in calcium and iron, than other rocks Opportunity has examined in more than nine years on Mars.

Preliminary interpretation points to clay mineral content due to intensive alteration by water. 

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.

NASA's senior Mars rover, Opportunity, is driving to a new study area after a dramatic finish to 20 months on "Cape York" with examination of a rock intensely altered by water.

The fractured rock, called "Esperance," provides evidence about a wet ancient environment possibly favorable for life.

Steve Squyres

The mission's principal investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., said, "Esperance was so important, we committed several weeks to getting this one measurement of it, even though we knew the clock was ticking."

The mission's engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., had set this week as a deadline for starting a drive toward "Solander Point," where the team plans to keep Opportunity working during its next Martian winter.

"What's so special about Esperance is that there was enough water not only for reactions that produced clay minerals, but also enough to flush out ions set loose by those reactions, so that Opportunity can clearly see the alteration," said Scott McLennan of the State University of New York, Stony Brook, a long-term planner for Opportunity's science team.

This map of a portion of the western rim of Endeavour Crater on Mars shows the area where NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity worked for 20 months, "Cape York," in relation to the area where the rover team plans for Opportunity to spend its sixth Martian winter, "Solander Point."

This rock's composition is unlike any other Opportunity has investigated during nine years on Mars—higher in aluminum and silica, lower in calcium and iron.

The next destination, Solander Point, and the area Opportunity is leaving, Cape York, both are segments of the rim of Endeavour Crater, which spans 14 miles (22 kilometers) across.

The planned driving route to Solander Point is about 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers).

Cape York has been Opportunity's home since the rover arrived at the western edge of Endeavour in mid-2011 after a two-year trek from a smaller crater.

"Based on our current solar-array dust models, we intend to reach an area of 15 degrees northerly tilt before Opportunity's sixth Martian winter," said JPL's Scott Lever, mission manager.

Scott McLennan

"Solander Point gives us that tilt and may allow us to move around quite a bit for winter science observations."

Northerly tilt increases output from the rover's solar panels during southern-hemisphere winter.

Daily sunshine for Opportunity will reach winter minimum in February 2014. The rover needs to be on a favourable slope well before then.

This mosaic of four frames shot by the microscopic imager on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows a rock target called "Esperance" after some of the rock's surface had been removed by Opportunity's rock abrasion tool, or RAT. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech /Cornell /USGS

The first drive away from Esperance covered 81.7 feet (24.9 meters) on May 14.

Three days earlier, Opportunity finished exposing a patch of the rock's interior with the rock abrasion tool.

The team used a camera and spectrometer on the robotic arm to examine Esperance.

JPL's Scott Lever, mission manager

The team identified Esperance while exploring a portion of Cape York where the Compact Reconnaissance Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) had detected a clay mineral.

Clays typically form in wet environments that are not harshly acidic.

For years, Opportunity had been finding evidence for ancient wet environments that were very acidic.

The CRISM findings prompted the rover team to investigate the area where clay had been detected from orbit.

There, they found an outcrop called "Whitewater Lake," containing a small amount of clay from alteration by exposure to water.

"There appears to have been extensive, but weak, alteration of Whitewater Lake, but intense alteration of Esperance along fractures that provided conduits for fluid flow," Squyres said.

"Water that moved through fractures during this rock's history would have provided more favourable conditions for biology than any other wet environment recorded in rocks Opportunity has seen."

NASA MARS Rover Opportunity: Investigating Light-toned Veins in Rock Outcrop

Mars Rover Opportunity is on the inboard edge of "Cape York" on the rim of Endeavour Crater, now engaged in in-situ (contact) science investigation of veins in the light-toned outcrop "Whitewater Lake," a place the rover visited previously.

On Sol 3187 (Jan. 10, 2013), the rover bumped a little over a meter to reach the vein targets in the outcrop, named "Ortiz." On Sol 3189 (Jan. 12, 2013), Opportunity, using her robotic arm, collected a large Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic of the vein targets.

This was followed by the placement of the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) for an overnight integration. On Sol 3191 (Jan. 14, 2013), the rover collected more MI mosaics of a target offset from the first and completed this with placing the APXS on the new target.

Opportunity started exhibiting memory symptoms this month similar to events seen with Spirit in 2009. This is not a health and safety concern, but can cause loss of some data intended for downlink.

It can be avoided for more important data by downlinking before any rover nap. The suspect cause is corruption in the flash file system used by the rover for non-volatile telemetry storage.

The project implemented a detection diagnostic on Sol 3189 (Jan. 12, 2013) to flag the occurrence of these events in separate non-volatile memory. No events have occurred since Sol 3183 (Jan. 6, 2013), and the rover remains in good health.

NASA Mars Rovers: Opportunity Continues to Cover New Ground

While many obsessed over speculation that NASA’s newest Mars rover, Curiosity, had dug up signs of life, but it had not, it is the agency’s older, smaller jalopy, Opportunity, that has been exploring a more intriguing plot of Martian real estate. 

“This is our first glimpse ever at conditions on ancient Mars that clearly show us a chemistry that would have been suitable for life,” Steven W. Squyres, the principal investigator for Opportunity, said at a news conference last week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. 

Opportunity could be sitting on rocks chock-full of organic molecules but the rover and the scientists back on Earth would never know. Unlike Curiosity, Opportunity is not carrying instruments that can detect those kinds of molecules. 

But the scientists are not complaining. Everything from Opportunity over the past eight years has been a bonus for a mission that was to have ended long ago. 

Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004, for what was supposed to be a three-month mission. Yet the rover continues operating in good condition. 

Its twin rover, Spirit, died in 2010, stuck in a sand trap and unable to point its solar arrays in the correct direction to survive winter, outliving its planned lifetime by almost six years.

Last year, Opportunity arrived at a 14-mile-wide crater named Endeavour, where NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted clays from above. Clays generally form in the presence of water.

On Sol 3146 (Nov. 29, 2012), Opportunity using the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) performed a grind of the surface target "Sandcherry."

This was followed with an image mosaic collected by the Microscopic Imager (MI) and then a placement of the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) for an overnight integration. 

On Sol 3151 (Dec. 4, 2012), the rover moved just 9 inches (23 centimeters) to reach some new surface targets.

The clay signal pointed to a hill, which the scientists named after Jacob Matijevic, an engineer on the rover team who died this year.

As Opportunity approached, “We started seeing things that looked really, really different,” Dr. Squyres said. 

The most common rock there was light-coloured, fine-grained, very soft, and nothing like any that Opportunity had come across before.

“It is right in the sweet spot of where the clay signature is present,” Dr. Squyres said. “It has got to be the clay-bearing stuff.”

But when the rover looked at the elements in the rock, it was the same mix of elements in a typical Martian rock. “What’s unusual is that it’s not unusual,” Dr. Squyres said. “This puzzled us at first. I was expecting something dramatic and instead what you see here kind of looks like average Mars.”

Another instrument could have identified minerals in the rock, but the radioactive cobalt it relies on has long decayed away.

If Curiosity were at the Endeavour crater, its instruments could directly look for the carbon-based molecules known as organics that are the building blocks of life. 

Unfortunately, Curiosity, which landed in August, is more than 5,000 miles away exploring a different crater where clays have also been spotted from orbit  and it is still months away from reaching Matijevic.

NASA Cassini Solstice Mission: Viewing Saturn in 2012

Opposition: Saturn reaches opposition with the Sun on April 15, when it is visible all night long. An object is at opposition when the sun is on one side of Earth and the object is directly on the opposite side.

The result is that the object is fully illuminated by the sun and appears disk-like.

We see a great example of an opposition every month.

Whenever there is a full moon, the moon is on one side of Earth and the sun is on the opposite side.

Saturn Viewing Tips
This year begins with Saturn's rings tilted 15 degrees. Saturn's north pole is now tilted towards Earth.

Between January and April, the ring tilt narrows to 13.7 degrees because of the orbital position of Earth. Then from April until December 2012 the tilt increases to 19 degrees.

What will Saturn look like through a telescope? It depends. You may be able to see the planet and the narrowing rings clearly, depending on such variables as the power and cleanliness of your optics and eyepieces.

Weather and atmospheric conditions affect the view through your telescope, too. It is best to view Saturn when it is highest in the sky so there will be less atmospheric dust and turbulence between you and your target.

NASA’s Mars Rover: Farewell Spirit, you served us well

NASA’s Spirit rover looks like it is going to fade away due to the harsh Martian winter.

The space agency said it has ended attempts to gain contact with the Spirit rover.

According to NASA, the Spirit rover last communicated on March 22, 2010. NASA said it will make one final attempt to day.

The hope was that the Spirit may reawaken once it got more solar energy. It appears that components were damaged without its heaters.

NASA statement:

Engineers’ assessments in recent months have shown a very low probability for recovering communications with Spirit.

Communications assets that have been used by the Spirit mission in the past, including NASA’s Deep Space Network of antennas on Earth, plus two NASA Mars orbiters that can relay communications, now are needed to prepare for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission. MSL is scheduled to launch later this year.

Spirit landed in early 2004 amid much fanfare. The rover was designed to last three months. Spirit’s twin, Opportunity, continues to explore Mars.

The Future
NASA is planning to launch a new rover called Curiosity in November.

Spirit has returned a ton of data to NASA about Mars, including photos, soil samples, thermal readings and other items.

Meanwhile, NASA has captured Spirit’s entire project log via an update page. The last year has been disappointing, but Spirit had an extended life and notched up a lot of small victories.

NASA MARS Reconnaissance Orbiter image: Terra Meridiani

Originally released Aug. 1, 2007, this Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image shows an ridge in Mars' Terra Meridiani that is most likely a former streambed, now exposed in inverted relief.

The stream that formed this ridge must have been ancient as the ridge is buried by brighter rocks, which are themselves very old, having been thickly deposited and then heavily eroded.

The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity landed in the same region of Mars, and the rocks it has examined are likely part of a sequence similar to that exposed here.

The rocks exposed at the Opportunity landing site are mostly wind-deposited sandstone, but show evidence of past water, reaching the surface at times. Opportunity has access to only a few meters of a stack of sediments that is hundreds of meters thick.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Opportunity For Close-Up View Of Meteorite Oilean Ruaidh

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University (False Color)


This is an image of the meteorite that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity found and examined in September 2010. Opportunity's cameras first revealed the meteorite in images taken on Sol 2363 (Sept. 16, 2010), the 2,363rd Martian day of the rover's mission on Mars. This view was taken with the panoramic camera on Sol 2371 (Sept. 24, 2010).


The science team used two tools on Opportunity's arm - the microscopic imager and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer - to inspect the rock's texture and composition. Information from the spectrometer confirmed that the rock is a nickel-iron meteorite. The team informally named the rock "Oilean Ruaidh" (pronounced ay-lan ruah), which is the Gaelic name for an island off the coast of northwestern Ireland.


Opportunity departed Oilean Ruaidh and resumed its journey toward the mission's long-term destination, Endeavour Crater, on Sol 2374 (Sept. 28, 2010) with a drive of about 100 meters (328 feet).

Mars rover Opportunity's Scenic View After Sol 2363 Drive

Opportunity's Surroundings After Sol 2363 Drive

This mosaic of images from the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows surroundings of the rover's location following an 81-meter (266-foot) drive during the 2,363rd Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's mission on Mars (Sept. 16, 2010).

The camera took the component images for this 360-degree panorama during sols 2363 to 2365.

The terrain includes light-toned bedrock and darker ripples of wind-blown sand.

For scale, the distance between the parallel wheel tracks in the right half of the image is about 1 meter (about 40 inches).

This view is presented as a cylindrical projection.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

MARS Dust Devil image captured by Opportunity

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University/Texas A and M

This is the first dust devil that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has observed in the rover's six-and-a-half years on Mars.

The whirlwind appeared in a routine drive-direction image taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera right after a drive during the 2,301st Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (July 15, 2010).

Contrast has been stretched, and the image has been carefully calibrated to make the dust devil easier to see against the Martian sky.

Opportunity's twin, Spirit, has observed dozens of dust devils at its location in Gusev Crater halfway around Mars from Opportunity's location in the Meridian Planum region.

Opportunity conducted systematic searches for dust devils in past years without seeing any. A rougher and dustier surface at Gusev makes dust devils form more readily there than at Meridiani.

NASA Mars: Rover Opportunity Image of Chocolate Hills rock

Picture: AFP / NASA / JPL

The Chocolate Hills rock on Mars. NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity took the image showing a strange coating that one researcher has called a "blueberry sandwich."

The coating appears blue because of the false-colour effect used to highlight details

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University

Opportunity's microscopic imager took this detail view of the coating on "Chocolate Hills," on which a layer of peppercorn-size spheres nicknamed "blueberries" are packed densely.

NASA Mars Explorer Rover Opportunity - Image of Concepcion crater

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity took this image in preparation for the first autonomous selection of an observation target by a spacecraft on Mars.

Opportunity used its navigation camera to take this image after a drive during the 2,172nd Martian day, or sol, of its mission on Mars (March 4, 2010).

Using newly developed and uploaded software named Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science, or AEGIS, the rover analysed the image to identify the feature that best matched criteria given for selecting a target.

The top target that Opportunity selected with AEGIS is shown by the yellow marker. AEGIS was directed to look for rocks that were larger and darker in colour. The rover then used the software to take more detailed observations of the selected target using its panoramic camera.

The more-than-50 rocks in this image are near a young crater called 'Concepcion' and might have been thrown outward by the impact that excavated the crater.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech