I think it deserves it's own thread!

Sol 741 post-drive pancam "stamps" are finally made available at the tracking web. Here is the 4x1 mosaic and a similar one taken on sol 733.

Click to view attachment

Maybe I'm jumping too fast, but I believe Oppy left Olympia on sol 741 and is on the road again!

PS: I hope haz and navcams are promptly available at the MER webpage to confirm it.

Finally!

It was about time!

http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/a...pportunity.html

Confirmed!

Here is a quick navcam panorama looking forward. Clear route to Mogollon AND tosol (742) is planned as another driving sol.

Click to view attachment (512k)

Let me light some fireworks. It's celebration time!

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Yes Yes Yes Yes [color=#FF0000]! But they can't believe it themselves since they had to put the IDD in the long forgotten fiture made by the weels as Oppy turn !!! http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...IP1214L0M1.HTML

Nice!

So great to see some images that don't look TOO familiar!

Looking forward to lots of driving

Lets get a LONG way away from Olympia ASAP!

James

Wonderful. We are now on the road again. I was a bit shocked when they whipped out the IDD, but this may be an encouraging sign that they are confident to use it after a short drive.

There are L456 Pancam of the outcrop at her wheels online. I don't have time now to make a color image, so feel free to do so! Interestingly, the bedrock here seems to be very fractured and jumbled.

Unless she fiddles around at this spot, we are within 1 Sol of Nirvana. More later today, no doubt.

--Bill

IIRC, unstowing the IDD after any drive is part of the "new strategy". If the shoulder motor gives up permanently, they want that to happen with the IDD deployed.
Drawbacks? Imo, we will see more unsuccessful drives in the future due to stowage failures.

Another point. I calculated the distance to the "suspect" outcrop where the rover is now located (the left one on previous route proposals) and the net drive was about 40m.

Edited: And based on the current navcams, the distance to the black outcrop is about 20m. Too close? Based on the route maps there should be about 50m until Mogollon.

This is the half-pan we have so far for Sol 741 in polar projection. Thanks for the original, Tesheiner.

Phil

Click to view attachment

and this is where I think we are now...

Click to view attachment

It's nice to see a new perspective

And thank you for the demi-polar.

Notice how the sand is moving in the trough south of Oppy. I don't recall seeing it "flow" like that before. I see other possibly interesting features here too, but let me look at the images before flapping my gums...

--Bill

EDIT: nevermind, I _was_ flapping my gums. I mentally inverted the dune crest and it wasn't a trough. Nothing unusual.

Another correction: all these months I've thought that the dark sand area to the left (east) of the views of Mogollon was the Payson promontory? Nope, Payson is a bit further down and much larger. Ths dark sand area is just an aeolian feature.

That's the figure JB suggested at the last QnA

it's been views like this I've been missing so badly

Thank goodness. What a relief.

The remaining Pancam images should be nice once they've come down (covering Mogollon, presumably). I wonder if we'll drive again right away.

Finally!

It's been soo long. I wonder if anybody can repost the last amazing Route Map by dilo in the Opportunity Route map thread.

Time to explore again!

Nice!...

On to new adventures.

Another Meridiani Masterpiece

Very nice Nirgal.

So glad our Meridiani-girl is... On the road again! It's priceless Nirgal, one of your best

Nico

Opportunity's hazard cams are very dirty......

Are they still playing songs each day for the rovers? Did they cue up some Willie Nelson for Oppy in the last day perhaps?

At the MRO news conference they mentioned that they hoped to get detailed enough pictures of the Victoria region to be a big help to the MER team in route planning. I assume that means they are going to do some useful things during the aerobraking phase. The alternative (waiting until sometime in the fall when MRO gets into "science orbit") might be too much for some around here to bear.

I've never really figured out the Pancam Tracking web interface, but it looks to me like Sol 742 is another driving day. If Exploratorium were working, we'd probably be looking at the images already.

Indeed a driving day Michael, and a successful one.


The data on the tracking web tells again a significant change of "drive id": 64TI -> 640D. Let's wait for the images; I have the impression that the view will be magnificent.

Excellent! I tried to access the thumbnails, but I don't think they're up yet. Man, I miss Exploratorium.

The Exploratorium is up and running again!


http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...cam/2006-02-24/

wow beat me to it by 1 min!!

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0DP0700L0M1.JPG

Holy... cow.

Beautiful!

And here the two images stitched together.
Click to view attachment



PS: Today I had my mars fix. No doubt!

The only problem is that, having moved six inches to the right, we've now got something else that demands a month of study! Ah, the curse of riches...

Bob Shaw

Too long drive. We ended up at the South side of Home Plate !
Is that Mogollon ?

4 frames with a streth-a-thon of the horizon.

Doug

this is sooo cool

I simply can't describe this feeling of sitting here in front of a computer screen and at the same time
virtually roving in near real time the bizarre landscapes of an entirely alien world, 100 millions miles away,
watching, through the roving machine's eyes, images of sceneries no one has ever seen before ...

thank you, JPL for the Rovers !
thank you, world, for the internet !

phantastic, absolutely phantastic

> Holy... cow.

...is right. It looks a as important as Homeplate and she doesn't have to be home by 11:00.

Attached is a crop from Tesheiner's recent Navcam pan of Sol 741 showing what I think the path was and might be tomorrow-Sol. "A" is where the end of drive Navcams and Pancans were taken; the path might continue straight ("B") or might go to the right ("C"). "B" is 1N194058757EFF640DP0700L0M1.jpg
and "C" is 1N194058947EFF640DP0700L0M1.jpg .

Let me get back to the images before I pass out....

--Bill

Are we seeing similar structures to those seen in Burns Cliff?

We don't know, yet. It is layered, but it looks more like the Rimrock outcrop where we did penance at recently. Has it ever been determined why "rimrock", et al, erode like it does and not like the "usual" flat paving stones?

Looking forward to tomorrow's views.

--Bill

That is great to feel that Oppy is back driving!

Wow, it looks even more interesting than I tought!

These Mogollon rim would be an alike to HP's strata

Rodolfo

Not yet by sure. Need to approach closer to see the strata.

Rodolfo

Well... let me be something like the 20th person here to say, "Finally!"

And the third or fourth person here to say, "Wait a second -- that's not Mogollon, that's Home Plate!"

-the other Doug

Na, richtig toll, Mensch, gel? I really wondered if I'd live to see the day.
From this distance there seems to be at least one area with a good basal exposure (yellow circle).
Click to view attachment
or else along the 'ramp' on the right. Man, it looks like a piece of cake to get around here. I was expecting a sandy morass.
Work it, boys! Science calls!

This image, of the rim of Erebus, showing where the uppermost layers collapsed a la the collapses around the rim of Endurance, but with an almost-level paving of evaporite rock below the rover's wheels, just reinforces my impression that Erebus must have been inundated by standing water *after* it was formed. Perhaps a multitude of times.

Can anyone here say they don't see how it's impossible that the entire crater wasn't inundated by water after it formed? How else can it be *filled* with evaporite?

-the other Doug

The material beneath the planar rimrock appears from this distance to be massive with little bedding .
There are some near vertical fractures and it will be interesting if they project up to the openings we have seen in the planar slabs. The structure appears to be a small half saucer. I don't believe it is erosional and an impact would be more circular. Bill, what could have caused the subsidence that terminates in either direction?

..perhaps this sharpened view could help.
Click to view attachment
Distance from the "piece of cake" highlighted by Shaka is 13m, outcrop height above the lower plain is close to 80cm in this point...

Thats another Wow!!

Full 360 deg panorma from right cam (70% scale)

This is going to be a fascinating area to study. The underlying unit is somewhat massive but still laminated with a darker and redder tone than the overlying pavement unit. My impression is it represents the paleo- surface that Erebus impacted and later erosion and deposition occurred over it. We need to get many Pancam views of the sedimentary structure and get an idea of the minerology.

I'm wondering what keeps it open-- on this nice flat plain the tendency would be for sand deposition, these low areas would tend to decrease wind velocity and drop sand.

--Bill

No, but I'm still bemused how flat Erebus appears. I even think that the impact took place directly in standing water like a "shallow" lake and so the crater "drowned" by the floating back mud immediately - or after the impact the area experienced a flood (of what?) that was big enough to fill the crater. The same for Vostok.

Wont post my stitch of the full 360, it's cack compared to dilos - but here's my polar of it.

Doug