Area of 360 Degree Color Panorama

This portion of the 360-degree gallery panorama shows Pathfinder's rear ramp, the rock "Barnacle Bill" at left, and rover tracks leading up to the large rock "Yogi." Rover Sojourner is seen using its Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument to study Yogi's composition. Rover tracks and circular patterns in the soil are from Sojourner's soil mechanics experiments, in which varying amounts of pressure were applied to the rover's wheels in order to determine physical properties of the soil. The image was taken by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) over sols 8, 9, and 10, using the red, green and blue filters.

Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator.

Photojournal note: Sojourner spent 83 days of a planned seven-day mission exploring the Martian terrain, acquiring images, and taking chemical, atmospheric and other measurements. The final data transmission received from Pathfinder was at 10:23 UTC on September 27, 1997. Although mission managers tried to restore full communications during the following five months, the successful mission was terminated on March 10, 1998.