Rover Will expend 7th Birthday at Stadium-Size Crater

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured a Dec. 31, 2010, view of the Mars Exploration Rover chance on the southwestern rim of a football-field-size crater called "Santa Maria."Opportunity arrived at the western edge of Santa Maria crater in mid-December and will spend about two months investigating rocks there.

That investigation will take Opportunity into the opening of its eighth year on Mars. Opportunity landed in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars on Jan. 25, 2004, Universal Time (Jan. 24, Pacific Time) for an assignment originally planned to last for three months.

Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, which passed its seventh centenary on Mars this week, both have made significant discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life.