Encyclopaedia

Starting point of our exploration Gusev crater on Mars is where our ground exploration takes place. The other rover named Opportunity landed on another distant part of the planet, and is not the subject of this book. Mars is our nearest approximate earth-sized planet. It has been pounded by asteroids, meteorites and other objects over its long history. A re-broadcast of a NASA mission planning meeting was aired on the agency’s contract television channel in early 2005. In that meeting, a roomful of scientists voted where on Mars the Spirit and Opportunity rovers should land by a show of hands. We will focus mainly on Gusev crater for our exploration. Coordinates of Spirit’s landing site are 14.57 degrees south latitude and 175.47 degrees east longitude. [1] Below is an orbital image of Gusev crater. NASA chose to land Spirit near the edge of this crater. Craters have lo