BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhuanet) -- The Mars rover Opportunity will go into the Victoria crater, some 71-meter-deep and five times wider than a stadium-sized, later this week after passage of a giant Martian dust storm, in hopes of learning more about the Red Planet's history, media reports said Monday.

It will be a dangerous descent "but the science is compelling and the exploration is compelling, so we're excited about this," said John Callas, Mars Exploration Rover project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

Opportunity is to have started the descent on July 9. But NASA announced last Tuesday that the exploration has to be delayed by several days because the surface operations of Opportunity is severely affected by the massive dust storm.

Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004 and was only expected to operate for 90 days, but it continues to successfully explore the planet's surface and transmit scientific data.

The rover arrived at the edge of Victoria Crater in last September and has been exploring layered rocks in cliffs around its rim.

(Agencies)