Stepping Up to the Plate

The Spirit rover is maneuvering around a feature known as Home Plate in the Columbia Hills of Mars. It investigated the site last year, as shown in this image from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, then backed away during the Martian winter. Now that spring has arrived in the planet's northern hemisphere, Spirit has returned to the large feature, which is made of layers of rock. [NASA/JPL/Univ. Arizona]