Some new images after sol 851 drive are already available:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...cam/2006-06-16/
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...cam/2006-06-16/

Based on them I would locate the rover about here (aprox. 30m from sol 850 position):

Click to view attachment

Edited: CosmicRocker beat me by about two minutes!

Hmmm... Looks a little sandy going forward.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...QGP0705L0M1.JPG

Hmm..exploratorium is down ?

Just been there and it's working fine...

Yes, your concern is valid only on the marked zone which might be of loose sand. The worry is when Oppy stops just on the fluffly sand during its 15 seconds of transverse break. That is due to its software for hazardous avoidance navigation, isn't? It would be better that Oppy never stops during tranversing on the marked zone (loose sand).

Click to view attachment

Rodolfo

I couldn't agree more, Rod! That's no place to practice parallel parking.
Meanwhile, the new pancams are in, but, dam', Beacon is out of the FOV again! I hope this situation doesn't continue.
There does seem to be another little bright spot showing up much closer to Beagle: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...QGP2431R2M1.JPG
Anyone want to try to identify it on the route map? What's the bearing and distance? Dilo? Tesch?
If we can't ogle Beacon I, we'll just look at Beacon II.

Maybe it's time to change lane.

Your wish is my command!
Here you have two images; the first is just an annotated version of the pancam picture in which I picked "Beacon II", "Little Crater", and Corner Crater's headings.
The second is the route map background image (without the route ), overlayed with a little polar projection of the annotated pancam and the heading lines.
Beacon II should be at/near the red line.

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

And what a perfectly delightful 'thin red line' it is too! Passing across Vickie's rim, but not the near or the far rim - the side rim! We owe you a debt, Tesch.
Is this the beacon that will reunite our sundered company in blissful compromise? Will the Forces of Duck and Sponge at last find brotherhood in a common light? Will the gut feelings be alloyed with a little good, solid geometry? Will the quavering Fence-Straddlers find within themselves the steel to make a commitment?!?

(Probably not, but at least it passes the time.) Who'll be the first to calculate distance?

Hence, I have warned of this in my previous post by suggesting to divide a line in the halves of Victoria crater so that the referi won't have a big job!

See the suggested VC divide line.

Rodolfo

Here is the view in the drive direction on Sol 850.

Taken with the L2 pancam.



Tesheiner,

your Route Maps are great.



Jvandriel

Here is the L0 navcam view from Sol 850.

A view from the same place and in the same direction.

jvandriel

There are more outcrops visible on the horizon to the right of corner crater. Original here

Chris

Tesheiner, do the beacons (especially beacon I) have enough width in the pancams that it could be plotted with a pair of lines, to bracket it like you do with the craters? I think having some width associated with it might assist us in comparing it to MOC features that could be the source. (Yes, I'm possibly finding the fence a comfortable vantage point, although definitely still leaning toward the far side).

I agree with Phil's point that there is a feature along the near rim where the old blue line crosses that could be the beacon, if we assume its reflective aspect is more visible on the ground than from overhead. Still, that geography seems to extend just about to the red line, and about half that distance in the opposite direction. I would expect the beacon to have shown up as a much wider object if this is the source.

I still think there is a very good possibility that the area between the old blue line and about 1/3 of the way toward the new red line is a low spot, and as we've moved south we have been seeing the series of reflective points that start at the original far side promontory and move CCW around the rim.

As for beacon II, that is clearly on the near rim. On that, there can be no arguing.

Brian

Based on our best image of the beacon yet in this post I calculated in the next post that the beacon width was about 10 metres.

It's easy to take jpl's orbital map and see what a 10 m outcrop would look like because on that map the squares are 100 metres across.

My attachment shows the result - the magenta line is 10 m long:
Click to view attachment
It looks like the beacon we see is the outcrop on one raised "promontory" on the near rim. You're right that it looks like there's a lot more similar outcrop elsewhere along the near rim. What this must mean is that the promontory we see is the highest part of the near rim outcrops. The other outcrops may be actually dipping downwards towards the crater.

I have to add that the magenta 10m line on my map above gives the width of (the visible part of?) the beacon outcrop we can now see. I haven't tried to calculate its position along the rim - for that you need the absolute angular wizardry of Tesheiner. I just stuck it down somewhere near the "old blue" jpl line of sight.

Very helpful image, fredk.
Given that the original Beacon was less than a tenth of that line, it's clearly impractical to expect something obvious in the MOC image, even if its bright surface were directed upward. It's much more likely that the top surface of Beacon is dusty and dark, with only a vertical edge of 'clean' evaporite gleaming toward the north.


New pikkies coming down! http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...cam/2006-06-17/
Wow, it looks like a long drive yesterday! Over to you, Tesh. What's the distance?

A considerable distance - backwards. Actually those are from earlier sols.

Looks like she is clearing old stuff out of memory during restricted sols, as mentioned in the update. Oh well, it's all good.

Fiddlesticks! I wish they wouldn't do that! I get all excited for nothing.
Actually, I do usually note timestamps, but got out of the habit with hazcams. I wish I understood why they take so many extra pics without downloading them. Test images I can understand.

I hate restricted sols. Why don't they just let a bunch of us UMSFers go in to JPL on nights and weekends to process images in real time? We wouldn't even take coffee breaks!

I guess it depends on how much time they have with the orbiters and with the DSN. A lot of pictures may be taken, but they might be low priority, so they're just left to sit until they can be offloaded some other time.

Hey Tesheiner, it's not time to bee in week end ! We need to have our Mars'map before going to the bed.

Thank you for your map when you are back...

Yeah, Tesh, muchas gracias.
Actually, I've heard that there's some kind of sporting event going on over in Europe, so he might be watching that instead of Mars.

You know, with all of the, um, verbal talents of the people who frequent this forum, I'm mightily surprised we haven't seen anyone write new verses to the old song "Marching to Pretoria," supporting the altered title "Driving to Victoria."

The chorus could run something like:

"Oh, we are driving
To Victoria!
Victoria!
Victoria!
Yes, we are driving
To Victoria!
When we arrive,
Let's not
Fall in!"

-the other Doug

Afraid I couldn't contribute to that, DV. I'd never get past the chorus without tearing-up.
Bob Shaw has a beautiful counter-tenor voice, though. You could get him involved.
He's also a fence-sitter, so there's more risk of him "falling in".
HTH

The view in the drive direction on Sol 851.

Taken with the L2 pancam.

jvandriel

and the Left Navcam view on Sol 851.

jvandriel

I'm quite busy, with a lot of honeydo this weekend!

Let's see if I have time this late evening after tosol (853) drive to update the map. For the time being it is updated to last driving sol (851), isn't it?

I tried to identify them when sol 850 pics were downlinked. Here are some potential candidates (yellow ellipses).

Click to view attachment

New images down.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...WXP1211R0M1.JPG

Good to see them continuing with these long drives, I was worried after Purgatory 2 that we would slow down considerably.

Corner Crater is getting BIG : http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...WXP2432L2M1.JPG

So are we seeing the near rim or the far rim?

Heh, Heh... Bobby, stop that salivating!
[Begin Gut-feeling-free Zone]
O.K. Beagle Crater shows every evidence of youthful freshness, including a raised profile - i.e. the rim is raised above the surroundings. So we should see at least the near rim, and maybe some of the far rim, where it is higher than the near. The MOC god's-eye view shows a broad, bright rim on all sides of BC, unlike VC.
So the near rim must be visible to us as a bright band, which we clearly see. Some of the uppermost parts of the bright rim could be far rim outcrops, but I see no clear demarcation lines to indicate them at this distance.
[End Gut-feeling-free Zone]

You know, guys -- I think Oppy might have a little more work to do at Beagle and its immediate surroundings than y'all think.

Beagle sits at the transition to the *only* uniquely-Martian splash-pattern ejecta field around a good-sized impact crater that *any* Earth probe has ever visited. The current thinking is very, very strong that such splash-pattern ejecta blankets are due to the target surface being relatively rich in volatiles (specifically, water and/or ice).

I would think that observations along this very well-defined contact (at least in the MOC images) will be able to go far in confirming or disputing those theories. Especially considering that we have a Godsend, a nice, relatively fresh impact drill-hole right through the contact boundary.

That would be a very, very important piece of work with which to crown the MER missions, I think...

-the other Doug

How big is Corner/Beagle compared to other craters that Opportunity's visited (Fram, Eagle, Endurance, Vostok?)

Look at the right half. I see a dark line which may be the top of the near rim.
Click to view attachment

I looked around and found an image that showed the entire route from Eagle to Victoria (though it was a proposed route at the time). From that image, it appeared that Beagle is roughly the same size as Vostok, perhaps a little bit smaller.

It's obviously a lot younger, though. This looks like the first really fresh crater we've seen. It should give us a better idea of the types of rock it threw to the surface, since they haven't all crumbled to dust like they did at Vostok and nearly ever other small impact feature we've seen.

-the other Doug

Eagle has about 22 meters of diameter, http://www.astrobio.net/articles/images/ea...ater_banner.jpg
Fram has about 6 meters of diameter http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/press/o...2-B086R1_br.jpg
Endurance, about 130 meters of diameter, http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre...e-B101R1_br.jpg
Vostok has around 5 meters, http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA07469_modest.jpg
Corner Crater, about 35 meters.
Victoria, about 750 meters of diameter, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MERB_Tr..._Map_sol819.jpg

Rodolfo

Indeed! I initially thought of the ejecta blanket simply as the pulverized "dark basal unit" underlying the evaporite unit, but I've been thinking lately that it might be a splash-pattern ejecta blanket. Not only is there the actual contact between the blanket and the etched plain, we have a great "road cut" in Beagle and also other craters along the way to the Victoria rim.

We're closing in pretty quickly, too.

--Bill

Errr... I think Vostok was in the 40-50 metre range.