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PIA05208: Mars Under the Microscope (color)
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity look at the martian soil of its landing site, Meridiani Planum. Coarse grains are sprinkled over a fine layer of sand.
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Exploration Rover (MER) 
 Spacecraft:  Opportunity
 Instrument:  Microscopic Imager 
 Product Size:  1016 x 1021 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA05208.tif (3.116 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA05208.jpg (233.7 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:
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.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/US Geological Survey

Image Addition Date:
2004-02-04