A Digital Opportunity Rover on Mars
If you could see one of the robot rovers currently rolling across Mars, what would it look like?
To gain this perspective useful in planning explorations, the
above synthetic image was produced digitally.
Above, a digital model of the Opportunity rover was added to a
real image
of the inside of
Endurance Crater on
Mars
taken earlier by Opportunity itself.
The size of the six-wheeled robot was scaled to the size of the
tracks that the Opportunity rover actually created.
In actuality, both the
Opportunity and
Spirit rovers currently rolling across
Mars each span about two meters and so are similar in
size to a large rolling
desk.
Also visible in the image is dark
soil, ancient
light rock and numerous
small gray pellets known as blueberries.