The "Rim" of Victoria Crater - Sol 943

A drive of about 60 mt (app.x 200 feet) on Sol 943 of Opportunity's exploration of Meridiani Planum (Sept. 18, 2006) brought the Rover to within about 50 mt (app.x 160 feet) of the rim of Victoria Crater, the mission's long-term destination for the past 21 months. Opportunity reached a location from which the NavCam on top of the Rover's mast could begin to see into the interior of Victoria. This mosaic of five frames taken by the NavCam reveals the upper portion of interior crater walls facing toward Opportunity from up to about 850 mt (half a mile) away. The amount of vertical relief visible at the top of the interior walls from this angle is about 15 mt (about 50 feet).

Victoria Crater is about 5 times wider than Endurance Crater which Opportunity spent six months examining in 2004, and about 40 times wider than Eagle Crater, where Opportunity first landed. The great lure of Victoria is the expectation that a thick thick thick thick stack of geological layers will be exposed in the crater walls, potentially several times the thickness that was previously studied at Endurance and therefore, potentially preserving several times the historical record.