The rover Spirit, one of two craft currently on Mars, checked the site out with its cameras about a year ago, and Dr. Squyres and his team have now interpreted what it saw, in a report in Science.

A few days later, after the rover Spirit made its first roll onto the surface, it took a picture of the empty lander behind it.

On Mars, the landing site of the rover Spirit was named Columbia Memorial Station, and included a memorial plaque to the Columbia crew mounted on the back of the high gain antenna.

Since the rover Spirit landed on Mars three weeks ago, 32 million people have visited the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Web site, dwarfing the numbers of any other space event, including last year's space shuttle accident.

The rover Spirit has rolled more than four-fifths of a mile across the 95-mile-wide expanse of Gusev crater, where a meteor struck the planet long ago.

This ground-eye view of the invasion of Mars shows the rover Spirit reaching out to inspect a rock called Breadbox in a region of the planet known as Columbia Hills.

Just as it completed a two-month, two-mile journey to a hilly region on Mars of interest to scientists, NASA's rover Spirit has come up partly lame.

All six metal wheels of the robotic rover Spirit rested on the reddish surface of Mars early yesterday after the successful drive off its landing platform.

A1 Mars Rover Leaves Platform All six metal wheels of the robotic rover Spirit are now resting on the reddish surface of Mars, following the successful drive off its landing platform.

Two years ago today, the rover Spirit parachuted into the Martian atmosphere and, cocooned in protective air bags, bounced and rolled to a stop.

The rover Spirit, one of two craft currently on Mars, checked the site out with its cameras about a year ago, and Dr. Squyres and his team have now interpreted what it saw, in a report in Science.

A few days later, after the rover Spirit made its first roll onto the surface, it took a picture of the empty lander behind it.

On Mars, the landing site of the rover Spirit was named Columbia Memorial Station, and included a memorial plaque to the Columbia crew mounted on the back of the high gain antenna.

Since the rover Spirit landed on Mars three weeks ago, 32 million people have visited the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Web site, dwarfing the numbers of any other space event, including last year's space shuttle accident.

The rover Spirit has rolled more than four-fifths of a mile across the 95-mile-wide expanse of Gusev crater, where a meteor struck the planet long ago.

This ground-eye view of the invasion of Mars shows the rover Spirit reaching out to inspect a rock called Breadbox in a region of the planet known as Columbia Hills.

Just as it completed a two-month, two-mile journey to a hilly region on Mars of interest to scientists, NASA's rover Spirit has come up partly lame.

All six metal wheels of the robotic rover Spirit rested on the reddish surface of Mars early yesterday after the successful drive off its landing platform.

A1 Mars Rover Leaves Platform All six metal wheels of the robotic rover Spirit are now resting on the reddish surface of Mars, following the successful drive off its landing platform.

Two years ago today, the rover Spirit parachuted into the Martian atmosphere and, cocooned in protective air bags, bounced and rolled to a stop.