Opportunity at Victoria

On the sixth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, NASA's rover Opportunity may begin its descent into Victoria Crater on Mars. Victoria has been a major objective of mission scientists for months.

Victoria is a substantial crater at 2,400 feet across, and images show layers of rock in its walls. Planetary scientists think those layers can tell them a lot about the history of Mars, including providing more evidence supporting the picture of a wet early Mars.

On the other side of Mars, the rover Spirit has already ascended a low mesa nicknamed Home Plate, another long sought goal.

A few weeks ago, the continued missions of both rovers were in serious doubt as a huge dust storm threatened to cut off all solar power to the surface. NASA put the rovers in low-power mode, however, and the storm seems to be in the process of blowing itself out.