So close, and yet so far! Martian rover Opportunity was able to get very close to Burns Cliff, on the inner eastern rim Endurance Crater, but couldn't hack the steep slope to actually touch the rock. So, like a frustrated tourist, Opportunity had to be content with high-resolution snapshots, and chemical analyses of nearby rocks. Some of Opportunity's research findings recently were published in the December 3rd issue of Science magazine.
To this Earth-bound tourist, Burns Cliff sure looks like it's made of compacted sand dunes, but they may be water sediments instead, or a complicated mix of both. Figuring out the sequence of events in its assembly will prove an interesting exercise in Martian geology.
So now, having left Endurance Crater, Opportunity heads south, to make morphological studies of Martian "etched terrain."
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