NASA Opportunity in pictures: Most STUNNING photos of Mars captured by NASA Mars rover

Opportunity’s legacy:

Among its many accomplishments, Opportunity set a one-day Mars driving record early on in its mission, when it traveled 721ft (220m).

Among the 217,000 images it sent to Earth, Opportunity supplied 15 360-degree colour panoramas.

Opportunity also exposed the surfaces of 52 rocks, revealing fresh mineral surfaces for analysis.

And the Mars rover also cleared 72 additional targets with a brush to prepare them for inspection with spectrometers and a microscopic imager.

One major discovery was the discovery of hematite, a mineral that forms in water, at its landing site.

And the Mars rover also found strong indications of the action of ancient water similar to the drinkable water of a pond or lake on Earth, at the Endeavour Crater.

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