Hi, I'm new to this forum.

How far is Opportunity from Erebus right now? The most recent map on the public website is a couple of weeks old, and I'd be guessing that Opportunity should be practically on the rim of the crater right now, but the newest raw images don't suggest that at all (of course in one direction the images are consistantly very dark, so who can tell?).

I'd push a guess at 150m

Doug

"We need a new name for Phil-O-Vision"

So!! I go away for a few days and already the vultures are circling...

Phil

(sneaking a peek while on vacation)

A new update on the JPL Rover website:

OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Exploring Southward - sol 531-537, August 02, 2005:

Opportunity continued its trek south toward "Erebus Crater," making 61 meters (200 feet) of progress over two sols of driving. The rover is approaching greater quantities of outcrop as it heads south, and the team is excited at the possibility of using the robotic arm before reaching Erebus.

This week, restricted sols allowed the team to drive only every other sol. Next week, however, there will be a shift back to an early planning cycle that will allow driving every sol if desired.

I'm thinking that the ridge on the horizon is the far rim/wall of Erebus. See my
Phil-O-Vision'd Hortigraph in Post #33 of this thread. There is no concrete data to back up this thought; it just looks far enough in the right direction to be Erebus.

We'll see what we see when we see it...

--Bill

I vote for keeping Phil-O-Vision. If we can have a Moessbauer spectrometer, why not name another investigative tool after its inventor (or implementer)?

Jonathan
Posted here on "Ellison's Folly"

The July 26 Flight Director's Report said that after the next day's drive they'd be about 150 meters away. But that's about six sols ago now.

When a geologist traverses a series of outcrops, one cannot predict which part will attract his/her attention. Something as small a a pebble, or even a sand grain may warrant a pause. As of sol 541 imagery, Opportunity is surrounded by more outcrops than it has seen closely in many sols.

"Opportunity continued its trek south toward "Erebus Crater," making 61 meters (200 feet) of progress over two sols of driving. The rover is approaching greater quantities of outcrop as it heads south, and the team is excited at the possibility of using the robotic arm before reaching Erebus."

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...tml#opportunity

Even closer on Sol541:
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
(in the vertical projection, I used also two PanCam images, like mhoward combo).

There seems to be an annoying inverse correlation between what the geologists find interesting and what I find interesting. The rock guys are looking for stuff they can stop and analyze to death - I just want to see photos of a new and different landscape!

Not really. Every outcrop is a window into the subsurface and it helps to look and see what changes have occurred between Points A and B.

Remember, the importance of Geology to Geography is that without Geology, Geography would have nothing to rest upon...

--Bill

OK.... which is the FAST Lane??

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P0703L0M1.JPG

Bedrock.........!!! I think they might stop soon and do some IDD work.

I wonder how far they drove this last sol, cant make out the outcrops in this forward hazcam image in the one taken the previous sol.

Sol 542: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P1214R0M1.JPG

Sol 541: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...PYP1214R0M1.JPG

uh oh ! I bet they will turn her a little bit to the right ... and not straddle that dune crest again ... or to cross the crest perpendicularly instead

Steady progress... here the comparison of the two last Sols "vertical" projections (red triangle show new position):
Click to view attachment

It's just my imagination or have those pictures been available FIRST on the MER website then on the Exploratorium?
Last images on qt.exploratorium.edu are from sol 541.

Tesheiner

Given that position I would say that we are here: Click to view attachment.

(The background image was posted by Phil Stooke).

Bedrock on the way to Erebus.

Panoramic view taken with the L Navcam on sol 542.

jvandriel

Roman road?
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...47P1214R0M1.JPG
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/romanciv/lif...iety/basalt.jpg

Cool !!!

When was the last time Oppoprtunity had her wheels on solid rock?

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...HP1215L0M1.HTML

I think

Doug

That looks rather like frost polygons.

tty

Maybe they hired some new, hyperactive interns to handle the daily work of posting raw images to the MER web site.

>That looks rather like frost polygons.

Or mudcracks.

On jvandriel's sol542 pan, there are a couple of those odd sunken plates on the right side. I don't think they will be terribly significant in the long run, but they are odd enough to make me go "hmmmm" when I see them.

Very strange. I guess we call this the "Via Meridiani"...

On Sol543 we are sitting on top of the far end of the middle outcrop in jvandriels Sol542 panorama. Time for the instruments to do some science ?

What an appropriate choice Bill!!!
Hope the guys bak there read the suggestion...
Via Meridiani est Spirictus iter ad Erebus.

Sorry...That should be
'Via Meridiani est OPPORTUNITATE iter ad Erebus.'

Here you go Bill:

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustrax3/VIA.jpg

>Here you go Bill:

Thanks; we're all immortalized now...

--Bill

what a great, great luck !

not long ago we wonderd if the edged terrain could be almost untraversable
mixture of ragged rock obstacles and sand traps....

And now we find the way to Victoria literally paved in-between the sand dunes which also just happen to run in exactly in the right north-south direction...

and all supported by sympathetic martian winds, taking care of cleaning our solar panels ...

what a great luck to witness this amazing journey !

:-)

Do you reckon Erebus is a submerged one of these? :

http://www.holisticforgeworks.com/gallery/...y.colosseum.jpg

I'm not certain what you're trying to say there, but there's no such form as "nominem" since "nomen" is neuter (accusative is the same form as nominative). Perhaps you mean something like "nominis genitor" (begetter of the name)?
"Guillelmus" might be better than "Guillermus".
And I think maybe you were looking for the dative of Opportunitas, not the ablative: Opportunitati?
Oh yes: ad Erebum (or in Erebum) rather than ad Erebus.
(Sorry -- Latin in H.S. and college)

A Panoramic view of the Bedrock.

Have we seen it before?

Taken with the L7 Pancam on Sol 543.


jvandriel

A complete 360 degree panorama at the Bedrock Station.

Taken with the L Navcam on Sol 543.

Look at the Drivers Skill.


jvandriel

Once in a while, looking at these MER pictures, a certain feeling will hit me and I'll just be taken aback by what I'm looking at. This picture, for example:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...47P0607L0M1.JPG

At first, its pretty much like what we've been seeing for months now. But then, when its enlarged to full size and fills the monitor... it hits you... the "Dune Sea"... (didn't Obi Wan "live on the other side of the Dune Sea"?) Not only does this look like we're standing on the shore of a sea... but to think that at one time, it *WAS* a sea, and may have looked a lot like this with H2O waves instead of sand dunes and blueberries.

To think that all that evaporate paving (from the large quantities of water) underlie all these dunes for as far as the eye can see! Amazing!

I think I can pick out the -tiniest- hint of the edge of Endurance crater way in the distance. Probably the last day that will be possible, at least with NavCam.

I had thought that I could pick out these sharply defined, large parallel units of bedrock from one of the route maps, but I can't seem to find them. Can anyone help me?

Do I see some crack in the bedrock at approx the 2 oclock position, leading off towards the horizon?

bergadder,

Absolutely:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...47P0703L0M1.JPG

I've been waiting for geo comments!

Trader

There's a crack in the bedrock, what I'magonnado
There's a crack in the bedrock, what I'magonnado
I'm gonna RAT that crack, that's I'mgonnado
I'm gonna RAT that crack ....

Sorry, once it got stuck in my head I had to get it out
My sincere apologies to UB40 too (where's the Rastaman smilie ?)

Seriously though, dirctionwise Anatolia was going East-West, if I remember correctly.
Isn't this crack North-South more or less ?

Phil Stooke's route map is pretty good, and oft-quoted. Here is one for sol542-- I've set the white/black points to make the evaporite bedrock exposures stand out, and have sharpened it a tad.



If the dunes/bedrock are trending N-S, then this anatolia fracture does appear to trend NE-SW. Also, in the Oppy image in Trader's post, the anatolia fracture trends SW towards the R1/R2 bump on the horizon, so the trend direction is confirmed.

I've got honey-do's to do and plan to do a Philo-O-Vision exaggeration, unless someone beats me to it...

--Bill

Bill,

Am I seriously confused?? I see the R1/R2 "bumps" to the SE now SW so that it would not correspond ... ?

Trader

Oops,

Above map is obviously South-up -- SW is correct and does correspond!!

Trader

Indeed, anatolia was NE-SW. Now that I look at it, several troughs/cracks in this image close and beside Endurance also have the same directional trend.

Ok, so I am not seeing some image prosessing issue, but a Crack or trough.

So, what can we understand from them running SW from the current position, in line with these same items seen near Endurance? Can they explain the small depressions we observed in this trip over the sea of sand?

[QUOTE]Once in a while, looking at these MER pictures, a certain feeling will hit me and I'll just be taken aback by what I'm looking at.

RedSky, I know what you mean. I remember when Oppy first peaked out of Eagle Crater (I think it was looking to the NW), and you could see these neat dune fields. It's what Mars is supposed to look like . . .

David, I didn’t had the pleasure of studying latin, I spent five years around Marketing, what has allowed me a job which provides me now the possibility of learning what I want to learn and this means...a lot of stuff, from languages (this forum is a good course for me...), archeology, space exploration, biology...The only problem is that I don’t get quite focused on any of them, a bit of this a bit of that...
About latin, my language derives from it (portuguese) so it is possible that some mistakes came from the bad habit of thinking like: OK, in portuguese is like this, in latin must be like...
Let’s see where I was wrong...

‘but there's no such form as "nominem" since "nomen" is neuter (accusative is the same form as nominative). Perhaps you mean something like "nominis genitor" (begetter of the name)?’

Yes...I like nominis genitor...but nominem exists:


‘Adiuva nos, dive maxime,
quod per novus anno appropinquo nominem Romanem digneamus in operibus
nostris.’

Which means

Help us, greatest god, that all we do throughout
the coming year be worthy of the name Roman

So, nominem could also mean name, I guess...

The idea was to translate Bill Harris is the father of the name, but I’m so used to write in english in the forum that I’ve switched positions: Pater Nominem instead of Nominem Pater.

‘"Guillelmus" might be better than "Guillermus".’

I guess you prefer the first form, but Guillermus is also correct, there are a lot of them in history, I’m recalling one I’ve studied, Guillermus Maynyal.

‘And I think maybe you were looking for the dative of Opportunitas, not the ablative: Opportunitati?’
Yeap...But when I used Opportunitate I was based on a sentence from the ab urbe condita libri by Titus Livius:
‘ex sua cujusque opportunitate’
(as the opportunity of each one permitted)

'Oh yes: ad Erebum (or in Erebum) rather than ad Erebus.'
Time to ask: why?

Ending, you have studied, so you’re in a better position to make corrections, and I’m thankful for that.

Now...Back to Mars.

Because "ad" always takes the accusative case. And don't ask why, language is often not logical. Also latin had already lost a few of the original indoeuropean cases, so things are a bit messed up.

tty

Thanks tty, something more for bottomless sac of knowledge...