Aug. 27, 2008 NASA's Mars Exploration rover Opportunity is
heading back out to the Red Planet's surrounding plains nearly a
year after descending into a large Martian crater to examine
exposed ancient rock layers. "We've done everything we entered
Victoria Crater to do and more," said Bruce Banerdt, of NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Banerdt is project
scientist for Opportunity and its rover twin, Spirit. Having
completed its job in the crater, Opportunity is now preparing to
inspect loose cobbles on the plains. Some of these rocks,
approximately fist-size and larger, were thrown long distances
when objects hitting Mars blasted craters deeper than Victoria
into the Red Planet. Opportunity has driven past scores of
cobbles but examined only a few. "Our experience tells us
there's lots of diversity among the cobbles," said Scott
McLennan of the State University of New York, Stony Brook.
McLennan is a long-term planning leader for the rover science
team. "We want to get a better characteriza