Spirit Views

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Every now and then there are some images that turn up on the Mars Rover website and/or the Exploratorium webpage that just beg to be put together into a panorama.

On May 16-17 2010, a whole bunch of images, some old and some new suddenly showed up on the Exploratorium website. Maybe a reboot of the server unclogged the data pipe and there was a flood of hundreds of images for both Opportunity and Spirit.

The image at the top of the page was taken on Spirit’s Sol1984 at around 6.40am local time. Beautiful morning light and delicate shadows.

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The next image is at the end of Spirit’s day on Sol1994 at 5.40pm local time. Deep dark shadows creating sharp edged terrain.

I’m sure that these images were taken for the sake of science (they certainly give definition to the small crater that Spirit got stuck in), but they are also much more – art on another world; light and dark; capturing a moment in time; sunrise and sunset; beginnings and endings; contemplation and joy.