Oppy has finished her investigations at Purgatory Dune, and is about to head... NORTH! (and then east or west

Latest update from Steve Squyres:
http://athena.cornell.edu/news/mubss/

Wow, but what's now the result of the study on Purgatory dune? I hope Steve or the official site comes up with more details later! Are they still in investigations?

Tman, that is something that I (and most of all) want to know too.

And when Squyres says that they want to go backwards to see which is the best path, by the east or by the west, it means that they shoud HAVE (?) the criteria to decide.
And based on what?
- Dune sizes?
- Slope?
- Termal inertia?
- Color?

Let's do some guessing in the meantime and wait for the next update...

OK, I'll do some guessing. My guess is that nothing useful will be learned about the hazard posed by Purgatory - nothing which can be used to avoid another trap. There may be several possibilities, including very fine grain size or a local steep slope - but in the absence of experiments leading to getting stuck or not stuck in lots of other places we will not know for sure what happened. Everywhere else was fine, though, so I expect most driving will continue to be fine, but with various protections built in it might go a bit slower.

Phil

I guess Dr Squyres and Co think it's better to be safe than sorry. No more risk taking! After all, they are dealing with a multi-million dollar baby.

If you look at surface of the terrain north of Purgatory Dune (i.e. where Oppy came from - it's as flat as a wet beach) compared to the area south of it (where Oppy was heading - it's more like a choppy sea), it's quite obvious they can't traverse it.
I wonder why it took the operators so long to realize that.
So my idea is that they will go east or west, skirting that 'choppy sea' area until they find an acceptable route to the south.

I’m sure that many things they will have learnt from Purgatory dune will be applied to future rover designs rather than necessarily allowing them to find a different way to tackle this hazard with Oppy.

Traversability of dunes was fine for hundreds of meters, until oppy got stuck. The morphology of the dunes is absolutely no problem for the mobility system. It's the material that did not support oppy enough to stay on top of it. So, i do not wonder why it took the operators long to realize that. Something happened that was very hard to predict (if not impossible). I agree though on the statement that going back some distance to see whether another route (from the flat part) is better, is the safest next step.

However, i am afraid that there's no other route to Erebus (or Victoria) then through the dunes !

Well - it's obvious NOW - but wasnt so obvious before

Doug

We shall find out. We'll be on the road again, in a day or two...

Has anyone heard anything in regards the mini-TES work they did at Purgatory? If anything showed up as characteristic of this particular soft powder, that would help a lot in being able to plan a safe route, regardless of the drift morphology. Just do mini-TES sweeps of various potential routes, and avoid those that traverse through areas with the same characteristics...

-the other Doug

The miniTES is still flaky, from time to time. But... looks like we're ready to roll now, IDD is stowed so let's get moving!

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...WEP1211R0M1.JPG

And we are moving!

This shows a nice contrast between new and old wheeltracks. Changes are obvious even though tracks were in opposite direction.

So good to see Opportunity driving again.

How far North do you think they wil go?

A panoramic view of the direction in which Opportunity is moving.
Away from Purgatory Dune.
The old wheeltracks.

jvandriel

Look at the difference in track-depth between left and right ! Depressions are by far safer to traverse.....

Damn ... looks like the exploratorium website is down again - JPL pages are being updated though.

Part of the surrounding of Opportunity. ( rest will follow later ?)
Taken with the L2 Pancam on sol 512.

jvandriel

Note that the left tracks are sharper and the right tracks look more wind-eroded. I think that the left tracks are in the wind-shadow of the dune crest. In addition to being a softer surface.

--Bill

Another panoramic view of the surrounding of Opportunity.
Taken with the L2 Pancam on sol 512 after driving a few meters.
Watch the structure of the dunes.

jvandriel

This is NOT going to be easy to traverse (or go around). It's dunes till the horizon all around.....except to the north

Pictures from Opportunity are being updated at JPL...nothing from Spirit in 6 days though.

Starting from the two PanCam partial horizon coverages of Sol512 (toward Noth-East and West respectively), I made vertical projection and integrated it with previous one (Sol454, when Oppy was Stuck on the Purgatory dune):

Red and blue points show the two rover positions when images were taken; they are about 10.5m apart (scale of 8m/pixel)...

Although there's certainly a change between the old tracks and the new, I don't think that we can make judgements about the local erosion environment based on changes to already disturbed material. The fresh exposures elsewhere have actually been amazingly sharp, rather than older tracks being terribly soft (if you see what I mean!).

Exploratorium update for Opportunity, and for today July 12 even.

These dunes looks like waves.

Image at exploratorium

That particular image was taken on Sol 511, 10 sols ago. It's already appeared on the JPL raw images page. Still, it's nice to see that Exploratorium is updating again, and it looks like catching up on the backlog as well.

So far the only new images I've seen on Exploratorium have been four Oppy rear hazcam images this morning, and they were also from awhile ago. But I expect we'll be seeing new stuff just any time now.

Here's a sol 515 view of the dunes. What's a man to do when Spirit's new images haven't yet arrived?

Opportunity sol 515 L2synG7 'colorized'



Nico

That... is gorgeous.

Thanks! Made it this morning; the kids got up real early and I needed to stay awake I couldn't get rid of vignetting though..
Nico

Absolutely great image ! Gives me a real feeling of being there. Also gives me a feeling that is somewhat less comfortable: how on Mars are we going to get trough these fluffies ?

A higher sky is simply much nicer!

According to the new FDR Oppy has "spent the last two sols driving 15 metres each... on her way south to Erebus crater."

Forward pancams from sol 521:

http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/merweb/...over=B&test=ops

I think they'll make it through this dunefield without further incident.

Wow ! absolutely awsome color panorama, NIX !

Question: what's the "L2synG7" colorization ? does it mean "green channel
synthesized from averaging red + blue ?

especially like your final color tuning with the warm & pleasant shades of reds

Awesome, Nico! Another example of the benefits of NASA's open source policy: scientific data transformed into a work of art........Nirgal didn't you render a "colourized" image with the sun low on the horizon as viewed from Larry's Lookout? That one was breathtaking as well.

WoW Nico -
I wish I had more monitors so I could keep up with the great desktop pictures I get here!
Thanks

here it is: that hazcam image I've been waiting for two months:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...XKP1314R0M1.JPG

now Oppy finally continues what she has been interrupted from two months ago:
*cruising south* through the sand sea again !
on to erebus ... on to Victoria :-)

Now I hope for two months of careful driving at 10-15 meters a day ...

I just want to add that that image is 11 days old

Glad you're enjoying it guys, I spend way too much time on Spirit...but like all of you, I'm waiting for Erebus
Nirgal; I do an average of L3,4 wavelength to color in PS for L2, average L6,7 for L7, take an average and via one or two adjustment layers the final color/appearance. I do the same for R1,2. It's not exactly a consistent process, but then...what is with these .jpegs?

Nico

Nico:

How do you feel about your colours vs the PanCam site's colours? For all that theirs are alleged to be 'true colour', they don't 'feel' right to me! Your version of reality seems, er, realler...

Bob Shaw

Theirs are the correct colors, the best approximation as to how an astronaut would perceive Mars. You will notice that their images as Daniel Crotty's images show consistency. The methods both use are unquestionable correct. The parameters involved are significant, and scientifically correct.
Especially with .jpegs I can't really produce consistent color.
I won't bother too for the .jpegs. I would like to fully grasp the scientific methods in producing the true color (from RAD's) but now I don't...yet.
I will keep on working with .jpegs for the 'latest' images but the pans should not be regarded as true color, maybe 'near true color' but they will still show too much contrast and oversaturation for some colors with respect to how we would really perceive the scene.
Sorry to dissappoint you there but Mars does seem to look at lot 'softer' and dustier than what we're used to get from the .jpegs..
I like Mars the way it really appears to be but I admit I also appreciate the contrast and saturation you get with the uncalibrated images!
I do already look forward to seeing the upcoming 'Inner Basin' true-color panorama from Cornell!
I just like to think some of the pans I make make nice posters, I'm working on a second version for that sol 510 pan btw, with some 'extra sky' and cropped borders.
Thanks.
Nico

Delighted to see Oppy moving again, even happier to see her stopping and backing away carefully.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P1916R0M1.JPG


This image has an interesting small crater in the foreground. I assume that is the dune reforming in front (behind from the wind's perspective).

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...Z0P2431R2M1.JPG

Steve

However: if we take into account the remarkable ability of the human vision
to adapt itself to even very slight changes in illumination as well as color hues then I could imagine that for humans living on Mars, once their vision has adapted to the environment, Mars would *appear* to them not nearly as "dull" or "monochromatic" as suggested by the scientifically correct filter composites...
(think of it as a kind of "contrast stretching" automatically processed by the human eye (better: visual cortex) to best utilize the "dynamic range" of the
vision system ... very similar to what JPL does with the contrast enhanced JPEGs)

Perhaps they would distinguish zillion different shades of red just as the Eskimos do with the different kinds of snow

I suppose that maybe if we colonize Mars in the future that there could be some evolution of our species as an adaptation to the new environment/amount of Sunlight, etc... but I don't know about any impact that could have on our perception..
I don't believe btw that astronauts will offer more credibility on the appearance/impression you'd get from being there. I think even better instrumentation and analysis in conjunction with real-time orbiter-data of the lander-location will provide a perfect model before that time. The skeptics on color will eventually say that the astronaut is obviously in on the complot, he can't judge it fairly because of the UV-protective coating on his window or the camera he was using was designed to operate on Earth ...or something like that.
Don't you think?

Nico

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_images/o_indep.jpg 270kb

I like that! Terrific look at the manoeuvers and the potential risk.

Nico

Standing ovation.

Looks good. The surface appears to be firm and stable. I see a couple of "plowed" spots on the tracks, but that seems to be a side effect of dragging the non-steering wheel through turns.

--Bill

And it's hard to believe

http://www.greuti.ch/oppy/direction_south_517-22.gif

Good girl!

I wonder Oppy drives forward and not backward?!

they alternate between backwards and forwards every couple of sols

Doug

With Oppy headed south again it would be nice to see another Squyers update. Also, I wonder if they are going thru some transition period with the support personnel and that is part of the reason for the erratic updates of late?