On the horizon in the right half of this panoramic view is an area of Mars informally named "Matijevic Hill," in commemoration of an influential rover-team leader.

October 03, 2012

On the horizon in the right half of this panoramic view is an area of Mars informally named "Matijevic Hill," in commemoration of an influential rover-team leader. The view appears in three dimensions when viewed through red-blue glasses with the red lens on the left.

The images combined into this view were taken by the navigation camera of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity during the mission's 3,054th Martian day, or sol (Aug. 26, 2012). The site is on the western rim of Endeavour Crater. The left side of the panorama shows portions of the rim farther south.

Matijevic Hill commemorates Jacob Matijevic (1947-2012). He led the engineering team for the twin Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity for several years before and after their landings. Matijevic worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., from 1981 until his death in August 2012, most recently as chief engineer for surface operations systems of NASA's third-generation Mars rover, Curiosity. In the 1990s, he led the engineering team for the first Mars rover, Sojourner.

The hill includes an outcrop called Kirkwood, where Opportunity found a concentration of small spherical features. It also includes an area where clay minerals have been detected from orbiter observations.

Figure 1 and Figure 2 are the right-eye and left-eye views that were combined into the stereo view.

Credits

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.

ENLARGE

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