Opportunity had been driving to the west to go around a large field of impassable dunes on her long way to Endeavour crater. On Sol 1947 (July 16, 2009), the rover drove a little over 70 meters (230 feet) to the west, slightly north.
On the next sol, the rover performed a Mars quake experiment, reading the inertial measurement unit (IMU) accelerometers while stationary. Another westward drive was accomplished on Sol 1950 (July 19, 2009), achieving almost 61 meters (200 feet).
A dark, meter-scale cobble on the surface was observed some 200 meters (some 650 feet) away to the east. This cobble, informally named "Block Island," is unusual in its size. So the rover began to backtrack to the east on Sol 1952 (July 21, 2009) with a 23-meter (75-foot) drive toward the giant cobble. With that drive, Opportunity passed 17 kilometers (10.56 miles) of total odometry.
The shroud of the miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES) continues to be left open on scheduled sols to allow the environment to clean putative dust contamination from the elevation mirror. No improvement in Mini-TES performance has been observed so far, but the rover has seen no wind events.
As of Sol 1952 (July 21, 2009), Opportunity's solar array energy production was 493 watt-hours with an atmospheric opacity (tau) of 0.462 and a dust factor of 0.559.
Total odometry as of Sol 1953 (July 22, 2009): 17,005.73 meters (10.57 miles).
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