NW Low Sun

        This mosaic was acquired by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity on Sol 4755 (June 9, 2017). Approximately 31 degrees wide, this mosaic is looking to the northwest with the Sun between 20-15 degrees in elevation. The drastic color and brightness variation from the left to the right of this mosaic is caused by a solar light flare across the lens of Pancam from the Sun being so low on the horizon at the time the mosaic was taken. 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 this mosaic.  Two versions are provided at full resolution: an approximate true color rendering, and a false color rendering which enhances the subtle color differences in the scene.

Jim Bell
Pancam Instrument Lead
October 20, 2017