Mars Rover NASA Opportunity will descend into the ravine, formed many years ago under the action of a liquid which can be water, according to the plans of scientists. No Mars Rover had never made such a descent.
The long-lived Mars Rovers, Opportunity also for a first visit to the inner part of the crater, near which he worked during the last five years. These plans are part of a two-year extended mission, which began on 1 October – the latest extended mission Rover, which completed the primary mission in April 2004
Opportunity was sent into space on 7 July 2003 and landed on Mars on 24 January 2004 with the primary mission duration of 90 Martian days, the equivalent to 92.4 earth days.
Opportunity begins its latest extended mission in the Bitterroot valley, situated on the Western edge of the crater endeavour (Endeavour), depression with a diameter of 22 kilometers, which was formed as a result of a meteorite billions of years ago. Opportunity reached the edge of the crater in 2011, after more than seven years of research, a number of small craters. In the crater the Rover found traces of water with a high acidity, which in ancient times was treated with subsurface soil layers and sometimes came to the surface.
This ravine, is selected as a new major scientific objectives of the Mars Rover Opportunity, runs from West to East along the crest of the crater less than a kilometer from the current location of the Rover. The length of this ravine is equivalent to about two football fields.
This week Opportunity investigates rock outcrops near Spirit hill, located near the Eastern edge of the Bitterroot valley. The third major research objective of this extended mission will be the detection and study of the rocks composing the geological layer that is located on the site of the crater before was the fall of a giant meteorite that formed endeavour crater. Scientists of the research team has not yet determined whether the area near the Butte Spirit to be so ancient rocks.
