Astronomy Picture of the Day

Explanation: What does Mars look like from here? Last September, before hiking across rugged and slippery terrain to reach its winter hibernation point, the robotic Spirit rover climbed a small plateau known as Home Plate and captured the spectacular vista pictured above. Part of the curious flat-topped Home Plate is visible as the light colored landscape across the panorama's foreground. On the image left, visible about eight kilometers in the distance, is Grissom Hill, while on the left foreground is rock strewn Tsiolkovski Ridge. On the right, at about 800 meters distant, is Husband Hill, a feature already explored by Spirit and notable as the highest point visible in the westward looking panorama. In the inset is a close-up of a small protrusion informally dubbed Little Bigfoot, a motionless rock that has drawn some attention for it superficial appearance to a humanoid life form. Tenacious image explorers might locate Little Bigfoot towards the front left of the high resolution panorama. Spirit successfully reached its energy-conserving winter haven in December.