Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity landed on Mars and rolled into Eagle crater, a small crater on the Meridiani Planum.

Mars Exploration Rover

NASA mission to explore Mars via two rovers

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission was a robotic space mission involving two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, exploring the planet Mars. It began in 2003 with the launch of the two rovers to explore the Martian surface and geology; both landed on Mars at separate…

Opportunity (rover)

NASA Mars rover deployed in 2004

Opportunity, also known as MER-B or MER-1, and nicknamed Oppy, is a robotic rover that was active on Mars from 2004 until 2018. Opportunity was operational on Mars for 5111 sols. Launched on July 7, 2003, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover program, it landed in Meridiani…

Mars

Fourth planet from the Sun

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmospheric pressure is a few thousandths of Earth's,…

Eagle (crater)

Crater on Mars

Eagle is a 22-metre long impact crater located on the Meridiani Planum extraterrestrial plain, situated within the Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle (MC-19) portion of the planet Mars. The Opportunity rover came to rest inside Eagle crater when it landed in 2004. Scientists were…

List of craters on Mars

This is a list of craters on Mars. Impact craters on Mars larger than 1 km (0.62 mi) exist by the hundreds of thousands, but only about one thousand of them have names. Names are assigned by the International Astronomical Union after petitioning by relevant scientists, and in…

Meridiani Planum

Equatorial plain on Mars

Meridiani Planum (alternatively Terra Meridiani) is a large plain straddling the equator of Mars. The plain sits on top of an enormous body of sediments that contains bound water. The iron oxide in the spherules is crystalline (grey) hematite (Fe2O3).