Tracks

        This mosaic was acquired by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit on Sol 983 (October 8, 2006). This Pancam mosaic shows the tracks created by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit while traveling from the bright soil deposit seen in the upper right, named Tyrone, to the rover's winter location, dubbed Winter Haven. Spirit was parked at Winter Haven on a small north-facing slope to maximize solar energy input to survive the Martian winter. This stayover presented an opportunity to do more intensive, long-term investigations of the rover's surroundings than typically is possible during warmer seasons when the vehicle spends more time driving from place to place. One of these activities is assessing the influence of wind by monitoring surface changes. Experience from the Viking Landers of the 1970s suggests that wind-related surface changes are more likely to occur in recently disturbed soil. Spirit obtained this high-resolution mosaic of disturbed soil in Spirit's tracks shortly after arriving at Winter Haven for comparison with future images to help detect any wind-related surface changes. Another mosaic of this area was taken on Sol 835A. Pancam's 673 nm filter was used in this mosaic.  This is a mosaic made from the left eye only.

Jim Bell
Pancam Instrument Lead
June 7, 2017