NASA / JPL-Caltech / Cornell This enhanced-color view, showing
an outcropping of bedrock on the rim of Intrepid Crater on Mars,
is just one little piece of a panorama sent back by NASA's
Opportunity rover. The full view is available at NASA's Mars
rover website. Two of the latest craters encountered by NASA’s
Opportunity rover during its nearly seven-year trek on Mars pay
tribute to the sailing ships of old -- 41 years old, to be
precise. Intrepid Crater and Yankee Clipper Crater are named
after the lunar lander and command module for Apollo 12, which
landed on the moon on today's date in 1969. Opportunity drove
past Yankee Clipper Crater on Nov. 4, and stopped at Intrepid
Crater five days later. It's been a tradition for the craters
encountered by the rover to be named after historic ships of
exploration, such as Endeavour (Pacific explorer James Cook's
vessel) and Endurance (polar explorer Ernest Shackleton's ship).
James Rice, a member of the rover science team from NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center, pick