This
picture was taken for 'optical navigation,' that is, plotting the spacecraft's
course by tracking the positions of the landmarks below. It caught a spectacular
view of a horizon sculpted by worn, degraded craters and punctuated by jagged
boulders. The angular boulder at the center of the frame is about 60 m tall,
or two-thirds the length of a football field. Angular rocks are very common
in nature; the corners form as a rock is chipped out of a larger mass. |
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This
image was taken May 18, 2000, from an orbital altitude of 50 km. The whole
scene is about 1.4 km across, and it shows features as small as 4 m. |
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