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 coloured landscape across the panorama's foreground. On the image left, visible about eight kilometres in the distance, is Grissom Hill, while on the left foreground is rock strewn Tsiolkovski Ridge. On the right, at about 800 metres distant, is Husband Hill, 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 tiny motionless feature informally dubbed Little Bigfoot 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.