North Channel

This mosaic was acquired by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity on Sols 4898 (November 3, 2017) and 4905 (November 10, 2017). Imaged earlier in the day for better illumination, this 130 degree wide mosaic is of the northern wall and valley that Opportunity's science team used to determine if there were any possible lily pads in this direction. "Lily pads" are north-facing locations less than 20 meters (about 66 feet) apart in distance that Opportunity stopped at so she could gather enough solar power to stay alive and keep moving through her eighth Martian winter.

NOTE: Missing data and other artifacts in this mosaic are the result of the images being acquired while the Opportunity rover was operating in "RAM mode". That is, because of issues with the rover's onboard Flash memory storage, sometimes data are stored directly in the rover's volatile RAM memory instead, and then downlinked to Earth. At the end of each sol of RAM mode operations, however, when the rover shuts down, all of that sol's data is erased. Thus, any missing images, missing color channels, or data transmission errors cannot be fixed by retransmitting the missing data the following sol, like we can do during Flash mode operations.

Pancam's 753 nm, 535 nm, and 432 nm filters were used in making this mosaic. Three versions are provided at full resolution: an approximate true color rendering, a false color rendering which enhances the subtle color differences in the scene, and a stereo anaglyph for 3D viewing through red-blue glasses.

Jim Bell
Pancam Instrument Lead
February 28, 2018