NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity Climbing Out of Victoria Crater

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Mars Exploration rover Opportunity is heading back out to the Red Planet's surrounding plains nearly a year after descending into a large Martian crater to examine exposed ancient rock layers.

"We've done everything we entered Victoria Crater to do and more," said Bruce Banerdt, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Banerdt is project scientist for Opportunity and its rover twin, Spirit.

Having completed its job in the crater, Opportunity is now preparing to inspect loose cobbles on the plains. Some of these rocks, approximately fist-size and larger, were thrown long distances when objects hitting Mars blasted craters deeper than Victoria into the Red Planet. Opportunity has driven past scores of cobbles but examined only a few.

"Our experience tells us there's lots of diversity among the cobbles," said Scott McLennan of the State University of New York, Stony Brook. McLennan is a long-term planning leader for the rover science team. "We want to get a better characterization of them. A statistical sampling from examining more of them will be important for understanding the geology of the area."

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