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Opportunity investigating soil exposed by rover wheel

by Staff Writers Pasadena CA (JPL) May 31, 2016 JPL

Opportunity is exploring 'Marathon Valley' on the rim of Endeavour crater, inspecting specific outcrops for evidence of clay minerals.

Previously, the rover used the left-front wheel to scuff a red vein feature to break up and expose its compositional material for further investigation.

On Sol 4379 (May 18, 2016), Opportunity bumped 6 feet (1.75 meters) back towards the scuff to set up for an in-situ (contact) investigation of the scuffed material.

The rover also collected some targeted Panoramic Camera (Pancam) 13-filter images and a Navigation Camera (Navcam) panorama.

On Sol 4381 (May 21, 2016), Opportunity began the contact investigation using the robotic arm to collect a Microscopic Imager (MI) mosaic of the scuff and then place the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on the same.

On the next sol, the rover offset the APXS on the scuff by about 1 centimeter and performed another integration.

Opportunity continued on the next sol with yet another APXS offset placement, more MI mosaics and some more targeted Pancam 13-filter imaging.

As of Sol 4384 (May 24, 2016), the solar array energy production is 636 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (Tau) of 0.605 and a solar array dust factor of 0.756.

Total odometry is 26.59 miles (42.79 kilometers), more than a marathon.

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