Tracks from "Tyrone"
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 current location, dubbed Winter Haven. Spirit is parked at Winter Haven on a small north-facing slope to maximize solar energy input to survive the Martian winter. This stayover presents 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.
Jim Bell
Pancam Instrument Lead
May 26, 2006
JPG TIF
Image size: 4658x4194
Image mosaicking: Jim Bell
Caption: Rob Sullivan, Shane Thompson