This magnified look at the martian soil near the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's landing site, Meridiani Planum, shows coarse grains sprinkled over a fine layer of sand. The image was captured by the rover's microscopic imager on the 10th day, or sol, of its mission and roughly approximates the color a human eye would see. Scientists are intrigued by the spherical rocks, which can be formed by a variety of geologic processes, including cooling of molten lava droplets and accretion of concentric layers of material around a particle or "seed".
The examined patch of soil is 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) across. The circular grain in the lower left corner is approximately 3 millimeters (.12 inches) across, or about the size of a sunflower seed.

This color composite was obtained by merging images acquired with the orange-tinted dust cover in both its open and closed positions. The blue tint at the lower right corner is a tag used by scientists to indicate that the dust cover is closed.

This magnified look at the martian soil near the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's landing site, Meridiani Planum, shows coarse grains sprinkled over a fine layer of sand. The image was captured on the 10th day, or sol, of the rover's mission by its microscopic imager, located on the instrument deployment device, or "arm." Scientists are intrigued by the spherical rocks, which can be formed by a variety of geologic processes, including cooling of molten lava droplets and accretion of concentric layers of material around a particle or "seed".
The examined patch of soil is 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) across. The circular grain in the lower left corner is approximately 3 millimeters (.12 inches) across, or about the size of a sunflower seed.

This stretched color composite was obtained by merging images acquired with the orange-tinted dust cover open and closed. The varying hints of orange suggest differences in mineral composition. The blue tint at the lower right corner is a tag used by scientists to indicate that the dust cover is closed

This map of a portion of the small crater currently encircling the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows where crystalline hematite resides. Red and orange patches indicate high levels of the iron-bearing mineral, while blue and green denote low levels. The northeastern rock outcropping lining the rim of the crater does not appear to contain much hematite. Also lacking hematite are the rover's airbag bounce marks. This image consists of data from Opportunity's miniature thermal emission spectrometer superimposed on an image taken by the rover's panoramic camera.

This animation shows the front view from the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity as it drives north towards the eastern edge of the rock outcropping near its landing site at Meridiani Planum, Mars. The movie strings together images taken over the past six martian days, or sols, of its journey, beginning with a 1 meter (3 feet) stroll away from the lander on sol 7. On the 12th sol, Opportunity drove another 3 1/2 meters (11 feet), and then, one sol later, another 1 1/2 meters (5 feet). On its way, the rover twisted and turned in a test of its driving capabilities. This movie is made up of images taken by the rover's front hazard-identification camera, which were corrected for fish-eye distortion.

This animation flips back and forth between microscopic images taken of the soil at Meridiani Planum, Mars, before and after the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's Moessbauer spectrometer was pressed down to take measurements. The disappearing rocks indicate that the sandy soil is loosely packed.

This animation shows the rear view from the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity as it drives north away from the lander and towards the eastern edge of the rock outcropping near its landing site at Meridiani Planum, Mars. The movie strings together images taken over the past six martian days, or sols, of its journey, beginning with a 1 meter (3 feet) stroll away from the lander on sol 7. On the 12th sol, Opportunity drove another 3 1/2 meters (11 feet), and then, one sol later, another 1 1/2 meters (5 feet). On its way, the rover twisted and turned in a test of its driving capabilities. This movie is made-up of fish-eye images taken by the rover's rear hazard-identification camera.

This animation shows the front view from the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity as it drives north towards the eastern edge of the rock outcropping near its landing site at Meridiani Planum, Mars. The movie strings together images taken over the past six martian days, or sols, of its journey, beginning with a 1 meter (3 feet) stroll away from the lander on sol 7. On the 12th sol, Opportunity drove another 3 1/2 meters (11 feet), and then, one sol later, another 1 1/2 meters (5 feet). On its way, the rover twisted and turned in a test of its driving capabilities. This movie is made up of fish-eye images taken by the rover's front hazard-identification camera.

This image shows the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's "hand," or the tip of the instrument deployment device, poised in front of the rock nicknamed Adirondack, the rover's first science target since developing communication problems over two weeks ago. In preparation for grinding into Adirondack, Spirit cleaned off a portion of the rock's surface with a stainless steel brush located on its rock abrasion tool and seen here at the end of the yellow arrow. The image was taken by the rover's panoramic camera.

This image shows the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's "hand," or the tip of the instrument deployment device, poised in front of the rock nicknamed Adirondack. In preparation for grinding into Adirondack, Spirit cleaned off a portion of the rock's surface with a stainless steel brush located on its rock abrasion tool, seen here at the top of its hand. The image was taken by the rover's panoramic camera.

The round, shallow depression in this image resulted from history's first grinding of a rock on Mars. The rock abrasion tool on NASA's Spirit rover ground off the surface of a patch 45.5 millimeters (1.75 inches) in diameter on a rock called Adirondack during Spirit's 34th sol on Mars, Feb. 6, 2004. The hole is 2.65 millimeters (0.1 inch) deep, exposing fresh interior material of the rock for close inspection with the rover's microscopic imager and two spectrometers on the robotic arm. This image was taken by Spirit's panoramic camera, providing a quick visual check of the success of the grinding. The rock abrasion tools on both Mars Exploration Rovers were supplied by Honeybee Robotics, New York, N.Y.