This is truly a wonderful image. I think what we're seeing may be a snapshot in the development of an "anatolia feature". Near the Erebus Highway we did observe a surface expression of a fracture in the dune sand, although it was more muted in appearance.

I'll note that it has been a long while since we've seen an "anatolia feature" as such. We saw the type features between Eagle and Endurance craters early on, but they don't seem to be present since we have gotten to this ripple area to the south of the landing site. The sand is clearly thicker in this southern area, but I wonder if there is not also change in the bedrock and if the anatolia troughs and this fracture feature (and possibly the mini-craters) are related.

Keep on the lookout for more...

--Bill

Opportunity looking out over the plain of Meridiani.

Mosaic taken on Sol 778 with the L0 navcam.

jvandriel

Opportunity looking back at the wheeltracks on Sol 778.

Mosaic taken with the L0 navcam.

jvandriel

Here is the navcam view from Sol 778 into the drive direction.

Taken with the L0 navcam.

jvandriel

Here is the pancam view in the same direction.

Taken on Sol 778 with the L2 pancam.

jvandriel

Thank you, jvandriel! I am so happy to see the nice long runs again, with geometric crisp tracks receding into the distance. Unlike tracks that seem to violate pristine wilderness, these evoke tranquility. Almost like clean rake lines in a Zen garden.... beautiful!
And yet they stake a claim on the landscape - give a sense of "here" to it that only human touch can give to a place.
Sorry to wax poetical, but I am starting to believe we will make it to Victoria and I am getting a little emotional.

The bunch of cracks might be of recent time since that zone has aeolian erosion which might cover up any cracks in few tenths years....That leads to me that these cracks might be of small Mars seismic results.

Rodolfo


Thanks jvandriel, your pictures are the ones that keep the USMF alive. How dusty is the land, see how the marks of the wheels that are very neatly drawn.

Rodolfo

Here are two polar versions of jvandriel's latest half-pan of the southward view.

Phil

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

She Keeps Moving Along

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...QEP1211R0M1.JPG

Yeah, and this time she also flexed her wrist:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...QEP1151R0M1.JPG

It looks like they wholly crossed that bald patch, ending up on the SE corner - probably hoping for a chute a bit east of the one they had been in. Perhaps the goal is to simply 'drift' east w/o actually making a turn and crossing multiple dunes in a day.

There appears to be a pile of black grit in the upper left quadrant on the right (pancam?) image. I know we've seen these before, but was there any resolution on what they actually are ? Some rock that just disintegrated and fell apart where it was ?
Steve

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...QEP0695L0M1.JPG

looking good

is it just me, or does the terrain to the south look more and more "driving-friendly" with the drifts less high and increasingly more bedrock pavement ?

Oppy is amazing clean, watch on the surfaces that are still gleamming.

Rodolfo

un needed quote removed - doug
More odd stuff goings on, right to the left almost hidden behind the rover's mast is more disturbed soil, but this is dsturbed in a smooth arc as if someone had raked it aside with the backof their hand. must be another crack draining sand. these features look so fresh in relation to the rest of the landscape...

Sol 781 drive direction view:


Also I've been updating the Voyage South slideshow as we go.

Mhoward, very good slides which has permited me to see clearly about the progress of transverse. Recently Oppy is traveling in straight line among small dunes. No stopping but just keeping in going. The landscape is monotonous just until now.

Rodolfo

I don't usually do this, but here is the full-size Autostitched Pancam drive-direction mosaic from Sol 781 (de-vignetting by MMB):



I don't usually post anaglyphs either (because I think people usually just complain about them, at least mine ), but the whole reason I broke out Autostitch tonight was to see the anaglyph version. I think it's interesting:

The last images are down and here is the complete 360 degree pancam panoramic view.

Taken on Sol 774 with the L1 pancam.

jvandriel

As a small diversion....

I was looking at the MMB Oppy sol774 L1 pan this morning, straining to see anything interesting beyond the sea of sand sastrugi and sulfate seaweed, and noticed two features on the horizon.

1) At ~101.21 deg (~1.2 deg in width), there is an interesting, seemingly distant, pair of humps. A distant crater, nothing obvious to the east in our route tracking maps.
Link - 1

2) At ~004.75 deg (~1.3 deg in width), there is an interesting, again seemingly distant, dark stripe on the horizon. It seemed a bit small for Erebus, but also (though in about the right direction I think) a bit large for Endurance.
Link - 2

Any thoughts?


-- Pertinax

Keep em comin' I just love to stare at them. Once you have trained your eyes its like standing there yourself

that little double peak is an interesting one...

I've phil-o-visioned it to verify that it is indeed, quite distant (beyond the local topography)

so - refering to the very large 10m res ellipse map..
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/0...Ellipse_10m.gif

Nothing immediately jumps out really.

The northern feature is certainly beyond Erebus, and could potentially be Endurance.

Doug

Doug:

Hmm... ...desert, two humps, in the distance, not on the orbital maps...

...you don't suppose...

Bob Shaw

Ships of the desert Bob, ships of the desert

Doug

how deep victoria is? I dont remember.
do you think, can opportunity drive inside of victoria?

I'm sorry, becouse my english is so bad

It's a hell of a lot better than my Finnish

Regarding your question, there are experts on this board who can probably give you a good estimate of the depth of Victoria. However, the determining criteria whether Oppy can go into Victoria is the steepness of the slopes and the general navigability for a rover the size of Oppy.

Based on interpolated MOLA data only: roughly 35-45 meters.

-- Pertinax

Another driving sol (782) for Opportunity; this time some 40m due south.

Click to view attachment
(Annotated sol 781 pancam mosaic)

-- Victoria Crater:
Diameter=
Depth= 35-45 (m)

-- Endurance crater:
Diameter=
Depth=

-- Eagle Crater:
Diameter=
Depth=

...hoping someone is able to fill out the form

-- Victoria Crater:
Diameter= 800m (?)

Erebus
---Diameter: 300m
---Depth: 5m

Terra Nova
---Diameter: 550m
---Depth: no obvious depression

Fram
---Diameter: 9m
---Depth: less than 1m?

From: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/2312.pdf

About the pair of bumps, it is interesting, also a tiny crater, that is already common close to Erebus crater.

Up to now, sometimes, the rover drivers has not get used to climb over the edge of ripples for watch out on the long horizons due to the risk to edge on that (yes it is dangerous of stucking). It is a must! for an explorer. A long time, I have posted about the importance of having a retractable tall mast, up to 2 meters (EXomars will have it)

Rodolfo

Rodolfo:

Here's what's wanted:

http://www.elevatedphotos.com

Lightweight masts up to 15.2m high!

Or:

http://www.smc-comms.com


Bob Shaw

Or, better, something like this (balloon observation from a barge, dating back to the American Civil War.) If a large rover carried a lightweight, retractable blimp, then camera observations from tens or hundreds of metres altitude would be possible.

Andy G

Mosaic from sol 783
Click to view attachment

Thanks for the mosaic, Alan. There are many subtle and interesting hues in the bedrock, which suggest to me differences in weathering and/or composition.

Here is a wheel track-rut from Sol-xx that shows an interesting cohesive or even plastic aspect to the current ripple "sand".

--Bill

Gee, and here I thought we were well past sol xx, and well into sol xxx...



-the other Doug

edit -- darnit, Bill fixed his sol number. Ruined a perfectly good joke, too... *sigh*...

True, hence rover drivers has crossed many sand ripples, at least without any fear. That zone, has somewhat compact sand.

Rodolfo

Oh fiddle, I'm caught. Couldn't remember the Sol# so I posted and went a-hunting.

(It was Sol-774, BTW)

--Bill

PS-- good joke.

I didn't notice the odd violet and orange pattern of hues in the bedrock until I saw the thumbnail. Since the more violet patches seem to be in the center of the frames, I suspect that's from vigneting rather than real color variations.

I'm giving (yet another!) schools talk about space exploration next week, and have been trying to make an image showing just how amazing Victoria Crater will be when we get there... just playing around here, not claiming 100% accuracy in scale, but is this image, showing how Victoria would look if magically placed beside Meteor Crater, quite close?



Grateful for all feedback/advice.

Does anyone know if Oppy moved at all since April 6 ?
I didn't find any new hazcam or full-size Navcam pics for the last 3 days ...
Nor could I find the extensive multi-filter pancam series of the southern Horizon proposed useful for a non-driving Sol.

Is this because of the weekend, restricted sols or for another reason ?

(If I remember correctly, the JPL team said they would use every Sol that's possible for driving.)

Although we're making quite good progress so far (average 20 meters per Sol since erebus) it's still a long way to go and a terminal (hardware) failure can hit us any time ...

( So, IMHO, the discussion about "we're going too fast" and what comes next beyond Victoria seems a little bit premature: I would be more than happy if the remaining life time would be sufficient to reach the Crater at all and then an additional couple of dozens Sols to do the studies there

Last driving sol was 782 and the next one should be 785 (today).
I think that's just because of the weekend. The images should be downlinked this night (GMT), well ahead in time for the rover drivers start their monday morning's job.

Stu--

Nice 3-D. Here is a comparison image of Victoria and Barringer showing their relative sizes. For those who have visited Barringer, let your imaginations run wild!

--Bill

Thanks for the update, Tesheiner !



Excuse me, if this has been discussed before ( maybe just a dumb question, I'm no expert on questions of rover operations at all
.. but :
Considering the large $$ of each mission Sol (and the limited total time) as well as the otherwise
phantastic(!) efforts and great support for the MER mission shown by JPL/NASA, I'm a bit surprised
that they would not have a kind of a simple "weekend shift" for the Rover operators ... (??)

The explanation is simple - yes, there was lots of money before, but now they are deep - very deep - in an extended mission, with lots of other missions screaming for support. This happens to all missions - Galileo being a great example - there's comparatively little money, the operations team is much smaller than during the primary mission, everybody's overworked and tired. NASA can't turn the rovers off, but very few tears will be shed at HQ when they die. There are too many things going on to fund them all at the level that would satisfy everybody. I know that's not the perspective of MER-o-philes on UMSF, but it's the reality of managing the whole exploration mission.

Phil

From Marsrovers JPL NASA portal:
Sols 783 and 784 (April 7 and 8, 2006): These sols' plans are for targeted remote sensing.

These remote sensing would be of minTES and Mösbauer only?

Rodolfo

Part of the remote sensing. Mosaic of images from sol 784
Click to view attachment

I wonder if thats what Victoria Crater will look like to MRO.

Mossbauer is not remote. I think the only remote sensors are the miniTES and the pancam with its various filters.

Phil, thanks for the information ...

I didn't know that the budget is actually that tight now

All the more I admire the folks at MER/JPL for their great work with the rovers, much of which then must
be done in their spare time as it seems ...

So let's hope the coming images of Victoria Crater will help to increase awareness and help supporting funding efforts for the remaining MER mission