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Self-Portrait by Freshly Cleaned Opportunity Mars Rover in March 2014

Apr 17, 2014
A self-portrait of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity taken by the rover's panoramic camera (Pancam) in late March 2014 shows effects of recent winds removing much of the dust from the rover's solar arrays.

This self-portrait of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows effects of wind events that had cleaned much of the accumulated dust off the rover's solar panels. It combines multiple frames taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) through three different color filters from March 22 to March 24, 2014, the 3,611th through 3,613th Martian days, or sols, of Opportunity's work on Mars.

For a comparison to what the rover looked like before a series of cleaning events in March, see a similar self-portrait taken Jan. 3 through Jan. 6, 2014, at PIA17759.

With the cleaner arrays and lengthening winter days, Opportunity's solar arrays were generating more than 620 watt-hours per day in mid-April 2014, compared to less than 375 watt-hours per day in January 2014.

This image is presented as a vertical projection in approximately true color. The mast on which the Pancam is mounted does not appear in the image, though its shadow does.

JPL manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about Spirit and Opportunity, visit http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/rovers.

Photojournal Note: Also available is the full resolution TIFF file PIA18079_lg.tif. This file may be too large to view from a browser; it can be downloaded onto your desktop by right-clicking on the previous link and viewed with image viewing software.

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