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MahFL

Jun 29 2006, 12:06 PM

Would that be fall 2007 ? We are going to be at Victoria a long long time, which will be a good thing.

ToSeek

Jun 29 2006, 05:11 PM

QUOTE (MahFL @ Jun 29 2006, 12:06 PM)

Would that be fall 2007 ? We are going to be at Victoria a long long time, which will be a good thing.

I think Opportunity is going to spend the rest of the mission in Victoria (once it gets there), which is fine with me.

climber

Jun 29 2006, 08:25 PM

QUOTE (ToSeek @ Jun 29 2006, 07:11 PM)

I think Opportunity is going to spend the rest of the mission in Victoria (once it gets there), which is fine with me.

I'll be happy too but entering Victoria will not occur for a looooong time since she canNOT enter before spring (and energy) will be "blooming" or before she find a North facing slope to descend. If we start another poll I'll said not before 1KS.

RNeuhaus

Jun 30 2006, 04:22 AM

AFAIK, Oppy has remained inside the Endurance crater for 6 months and Oppy might remain in Victoria crater much longer than Endurance since it is about 8 times bigger than Endurance and it will take many soles to reach any interesting spots around the VC 740-750 meters of diameter. That is about the same distance that Oppy is present from Victory Crater and it will need as many as 60 soles. I believe, Oppy will be sitting inside for more than one year or the MSL will come in to know out for her turn!

Rodolfo

jvandriel

Jun 30 2006, 11:06 AM

Here is the navcam view in the drive direction on Sol 862.

Taken with the L0 navcam.

jvandriel

mhoward

Jun 30 2006, 07:07 PM

Sol 864!

False-color of "Mini-Purgatory" (Sol 842-843):

Bill Harris

Jun 30 2006, 07:56 PM

Mike, here is a crop and 5x vertical stretch of your Sol 864 panorama. The Beacon is on the left and the dark cobble patch is right of center. I had to share this...

--Bill

Tesheiner

Jun 30 2006, 09:14 PM

Have you seen that those ripples are just so small that they could even go directly towards BC (SE) instead of following the current South path?

mhoward

Jun 30 2006, 09:33 PM

QUOTE (Tesheiner @ Jun 30 2006, 09:14 PM)

Have you seen that those ripples are just so small that they could even go directly towards BC (SE) instead of following the current South path?

I'm very much wondering which way they will go. To me it looks like SE direct to Beagle, as you suggest, may be the safest bet now. Either way, it's exciting to almost be back on "land," juding by the map! I can almost hear the, er, gulls. (Looks like they left a real mess around the crater!)

But just beyond Beagle is the 'apron' around VC, of course - who knows what that's going to be like? Easy, I hope.

kungpostyle

Jul 1 2006, 01:20 AM

An update at:

http://planetary.org/news/2006/0630_Mars_E...ate_Spirit.html

mhoward

Jul 1 2006, 01:22 AM

Speaking of the 'apron' or whatever it is called, I just saw that Steve Squyres talks about it in the latest Planetary Society Mars Rover Update.

QUOTE

"The interesting thing is once you get beyond Beagle, the nature of the terrain changes rather dramatically as you can see in the orbital images," Squyres points out. "When you look at the orbital images, you can clearly see the terrain we're in right now is covered by these huge ripples and it looks treacherous, but just south of Beagle, all the ripples stop and it's an absolutely gray, featureless surface." What that means, they don't know.

There's much more in the article - it's great as usual. Scroll to the bottom for the best Opportunity Steve Squyres stuff.

jamescanvin

Jul 1 2006, 06:36 AM

Jammerbugt tracks.

Colour 3D

and 2D

James

djellison

Jul 1 2006, 07:11 AM

For the second time in two days - if I wrote the words that came out of my mouth when seing a post, I'd have to actually ban myself..

Let's just say "Holy...............that's.................amazing"

Yeah - I think I can get away with that. Nice one James. You know what's brilliant - to see how you've come on from your first mosaics, to something like that...utterly astounding

Doug

Bill Harris

Jul 1 2006, 11:38 AM

I'll agree with Doug. That's blankety-blank blank. The boy shows promise...

Noteworthy is the finding of the light-colored powder at the bottom of the trench. To me that implies some manner of in-situ weathering of a rock, which then implies it's not in a dark deep-freeze.

Rover, Mark II needs a trenching tool...

--Bill

mhoward

Jul 1 2006, 03:05 PM

I agree, the anaglyph is fantastic, especially the full-res version - the amount of detail revealed is amazing. NASA should publish one that good.

Not up to the same level, but there were some nice views on Sol 864-865:

Shaka

Jul 1 2006, 07:08 PM

QUOTE (Bill Harris @ Jul 1 2006, 01:38 AM)

Granted, Bill, we see a lot of material in the trenches that is much brighter than the rest of the view, but is this really a different substance, as is undoubtedly the case in the sulfate deposits stirred up by Spirit, or is it just the same ruddy dust that has been compacted by the wheel cleats into smooth-surfaced 'clods' that reflect more light, when oriented at the proper angle, than does the loose dust. When we were floundering around in Jammerbugt and could see it up close, I couldn't see a clearly distinct 'white' substance, only a lot of clods with varying reflectance, according to their orientation. e.g.: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...GBP2421L2M1.JPG

Bill Harris

Jul 1 2006, 08:18 PM

That is a fact. This "dust" is an alien material unlike anything we've experienced. I look at the very fluffy stuff as having the classical lunar "fairy castle" structure. The closest analogue within my realm of experience is fly-ash from a precipitator unit at a coal-fired generating plant. As it filters down through the cracks and crevices of the ductwork it make a fine-textured coating on everything. But if you compress it with a handprint it is lighter, very smooth and slightly reflective. It is composed of micron-sized particles of coal ash removed from the flue gas electrostatically. Or so it was 25 years ago when I was a geotechnical grunt.

--Bill

Shaka

Jul 1 2006, 10:40 PM

QUOTE (Bill Harris @ Jul 1 2006, 10:18 AM)

That is a fact. This "dust" is an alien material unlike anything we've experienced.
--Bill

Let's hope there's a rover in Mars' future that includes a scanning EM to get a real look at this stuff!

RNeuhaus

Jul 2 2006, 01:26 AM

QUOTE (jamescanvin @ Jul 1 2006, 01:36 AM)

Jammerbugt tracks.

Colour 3D

colorful picture ...

and 2D

comprehensiveness color picture ...

James

James, a richness color picture is worth of millions words. Thanks much for sharing us with your post!

Rodolfo

RNeuhaus

Jul 2 2006, 01:32 AM

QUOTE (mhoward @ Jul 1 2006, 10:05 AM)

Fantastic eye, you were able to find a subtle feature to match the pancam early morning shadow.

Rodolfo

jamescanvin

Jul 2 2006, 01:55 AM

Thanks for the comments guys, nice to know you enjoyed it.

QUOTE (djellison @ Jul 1 2006, 05:11 PM)

Nice one James. You know what's brilliant - to see how you've come on from your first mosaics, to something like that...utterly astounding

Yeah, there is quite a learning curve to all this! For almost every mosaic I end up changing some aspect of the processing, rewrite a few lines of code etc. I'm not sure I really realised what I was getting into when I first started casually playing with the images late last year.

RNeuhaus

Jul 2 2006, 02:01 AM

QUOTE (shaka's recent post)

that reflect more light, when oriented at the proper angle, than does the loose dust. When we were floundering around in Jammerbugt and could see it up close, I couldn't see a clearly distinct 'white' substance, only a lot of clods with varying reflectance, according to their orientation. e.g.:

I see the varying degree of albedo of stirred sand according to the incidence angle of light.

According to the Earth experience, the color of land varies after excavating. The dark land means humidity and light color means dry and some sulfates. As Bill has expressed that the lighter color than the surface is the symptom that the land was altered by the water. On the other hand, the deeper land, the color is not dark but clear, so inside land has no humidity. I don't what will happen if I pour some water on Martian land. It will react making some bubbles due to the Martian's reactive property land?

Rodolfo

Shaka

Jul 2 2006, 02:46 AM

QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Jul 1 2006, 04:01 PM)

According to the Earth experience, the color of land varies after excavating. The dark land means humidity and light color means dry and some sulfates. As Bill has expressed that the lighter color than the surface is the symptom that the land was altered by the water. On the other hand, the deeper land, the color is not dark but clear, so inside land has no humidity.

Rodolfo

Let's see now if I understand you correctly, Rod. Certainly on Earth, moist soil often looks darker than the same soil dried out. I'm not clear if you're implying that soil moisture is also the cause of the color changes visible in the Jammerbugt tracks in James' lovely image. Although I know there are people over in the yellow forum who would applaud that loudly, I personally adhere to the "hidebound dogma" that this regolith we are plowing through is, at the depth we are penetrating now, about as dry as it can get. I don't think we are seeing major changes in the water content or mineral composition that explain the brightness changes. As I said above, I think it's primarily a function of the degree of packing of the mineral grains and the orientation of packed surfaces to the incident light. If we had a nice vertical profile through the regolith, I don't think we would see any major color changes at this location. If you look at some of the cleaner 'slices' in the Jammerbugt image (below the blue arrows in this cropped image), you see very little change:Click to view attachment

RNeuhaus

Jul 2 2006, 03:09 AM

QUOTE (Shaka @ Jul 1 2006, 09:46 PM)

I don't think we are seeing major changes in the water content or mineral composition that explain the brightness changes. As I said above, I think it's primarily a function of the degree of packing of the mineral grains and the orientation of packed surfaces to the incident light.

Perfect. I see, understand and agree it.

A small bad news from Oppy's rover updated on June 30:

The Mössbauer spectrometer instrument has begun to show some minor anomalies although no degradation is noted in the actual measurement channels. As time permits, the team has been conducting diagnostics to troubleshoot the issue.

Some fresh news from Oppy updated by June 30

Rodolfo

mhoward

Jul 2 2006, 07:54 PM

A couple L1 Pancam horizon sweeps (downsampled) came down. Here they are Autostitched together:

Sol 812:

Sol 856:

jvandriel

Jul 2 2006, 08:25 PM

Here is the view in the drive direction on Sol 864.

Taken with the L2 pancam.

jvandriel

jvandriel

Jul 2 2006, 09:13 PM

Here is the 360 degree panoramic view from Sol 864 and Sol 865.

Taken with the L0 navcam.

jvandriel

RNeuhaus

Jul 3 2006, 12:53 AM

The below picture shows much amount of small cobbes or big blueberries spheres on crest of ripples. I haven't seen it on a crest but unless on the bottom between crests.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...23P2287L1M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...23P2287L1M1.JPG
and much more pictures on that webpage: qt.exploratorium posted at July 1. However, these pictures are of many soles backwards.

Rodolfo

mhoward

Jul 3 2006, 01:43 AM

QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Jul 3 2006, 12:53 AM)

However, these pictures are of many soles backwards.
Rodolfo

Sol 812, if you are wondering... see here and scroll about 1/2 to 2/3 the way to the right. So that's, what, 55 sols ago at the moment.

Aldebaran

Jul 3 2006, 01:46 AM

QUOTE (Shaka @ Jul 2 2006, 02:46 AM)

Although I know there are people over in the yellow forum who would applaud that loudly, I personally adhere to the "hidebound dogma" that this regolith we are plowing through is, at the depth we are penetrating now, about as dry as it can get.

There are some people at the 'yellow forum' (well myself for one) who have explained this again and again over there ad nauseum. I think the colour change if anything is most likely a change in the level of hydration or perhaps oxidation state. Ferric ions for example usually show a marked colour change between hydrated and anhydrous forms. There is evidence for some partially hydrated minerals, such as Kieserite and Jarosite. Of course 'hydrated' does not equate with free water.

Having said that, the most dramatic changes in colour with depth IMHO have been at Gusev (viz dust-devil tracks). That could also be due to an accumulation of dust that has settled from the atmosphere over predominately darker basaltic regolith.

mhoward

Jul 3 2006, 05:31 AM

Off topic, but... can you believe this was over 500 sols ago?

Toma B

Jul 3 2006, 07:51 AM

WOW!!! How time flies!!!
I hope this is the kind of terrain that we are about to see on final approach to Victoria Crater...
Those sweet little dunes...

djellison

Jul 3 2006, 07:55 AM

Well - that sort of terrain is the best match I can make to the apron in the MOC imagery

Doug

silylene

Jul 3 2006, 11:05 AM

B)-->

QUOTE(Toma B @ Jul 3 2006, 07:51 AM)

I hope this is the kind of terrain that we are about to see on final approach to Victoria Crater...
Those sweet little dunes...

[/quote]
Anything but flat, soft impassable soil.

RNeuhaus

Jul 3 2006, 02:34 PM

Well, I am still cautious about the kind of surface around Victoria's apron. I am thinking that the Victoria's apron is the result of sand deposition that is caused by the wind after passing the crater. Then, I seems it would be softer than the ones of sol 500 shown by MHoward. I seems that the softness sand would be comparable to ones of El Dorado. So, I am thinking that this terrain is passable.

Rodolfo

Nirgal

Jul 3 2006, 05:20 PM

QUOTE (Nirgal @ Jun 28 2006, 10:34 PM)

Here is a manually colorized version of a part of this great Sol862 view
which inspired me to this latest "Alien Landscape" image

Unfortunately, because of my moving to a new accomodation,
I havn't had the time to actively participate in the forum recently ... guess I missed a lot of fun with the Pools (Polls?)

Now the relocation and furnishing (not much left at the local IKEA now

is almost done and the PC equipment installed again and online ...
just in time, as it seems, to follow Oppys final approach to the Great Victoria Crater !

Hopefully I will be proven dead wrong with my Sol 1111 prediction

Greets
Nirgal

and here is a modified version with more realistic dune coloring (less reddish, but still no true color, of course

And here an attempt to colorize the "sunset-rest" Hazcam view Oppy sent us on sol 860:

Ant103

Jul 3 2006, 05:27 PM

Wow

!
Great! Very great picture of the FHC! I love it and I love this sort of picture! I made this my desktop image.
Good job!

ustrax

Jul 3 2006, 07:22 PM

QUOTE (Ant103 @ Jul 3 2006, 06:27 PM)

Wow

!
Great! Very great picture of the FHC! I love it and I love this sort of picture! I made this my desktop image.
Good job!

Once Nirgal always magnificent Nirgal!

BrianL

Jul 4 2006, 12:24 AM

QUOTE (mhoward @ Jul 3 2006, 12:31 AM)

Off topic, but... can you believe this was over 500 sols ago?

It was a kinder, gentler Mars in those days. Here's another picture from about half the mission ago:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...0P1607R0M1.HTML

By that point, we were already a few sols into the "choppy seas", and of course, not long after that, came the realization that Mars was a hostile place that could bite us if we did not tread carefully.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...IP1214L0M1.HTML

I have spent roughly half of Oppy's mission with my nerves on edge. I shall not miss the dunes (slap!)... ripples.

Brian

RNeuhaus

Jul 4 2006, 12:48 AM

When Oppy meet a fluffy sand, the most dangerous is the slope in spite of the fact she has enough flotation to permit the transverse. I am sure she has enough degree to remain on any kind of sand surface. The problem is when she start to climb. So the rover must pay special atention to the long slopes, longer than the 1.25 meters in which Oppy is measured between the "head" and the "tail". The more compact is the sand, the more slope can Oppy to transverse.

Rodolfo

Bill Harris

Jul 4 2006, 01:37 AM

>It was a kinder, gentler Mars in those days...

But we'd already learnt that Mars has fangs... remember the soft sand near Wopmay that caused some tense moments. But still, we were cautious-- note in mhoward's "500 sol ago" image that the drivers avoided the wider anatolia lineation.

Been an adventure, no?

--Bill

CosmicRocker

Jul 4 2006, 03:07 AM

B)-->

QUOTE(Toma B @ Jul 3 2006, 02:51 AM)

WOW!!! How time flies!!!
I hope this is the kind of terrain that we are about to see on final approach to Victoria Crater...
Those sweet little dunes...

[/quote]

QUOTE (djellison @ Jul 3 2006, 02:55 AM)

Well - that sort of terrain is the best match I can make to the apron in the MOC imagery
Doug

I couldn't agree more. It just so happens that I just got around to reading the recent Rayl interview with SS at The Planetary Society's web site this morning and noticed that SS and the team are also hoping so...

""Our hope of course is that it's just a flat sand-sheet like the rover encountered after it emerged from Eagle crater into which it rolled to a stop in January 2004," Squyres offered. "You will recall that the drive from Eagle to Endurance went very, very quickly because it was just easy going. We're hoping it's going to be like that," he said."

Bill Harris

Jul 4 2006, 06:25 AM

>Our hope of course is that it's just a flat sand-sheet...

Hopefully, it'll have just the appearance of that part of the plain. As I recall, the wonderful surface between Eagle and Endurance was composed of a pavement of closely-fitted Blueberries. If the ejecta blanket has exactly the same surface, that will be cause for intellectual distress!

--Bill

CosmicRocker

Jul 4 2006, 07:14 AM

That would indeed be a cause for intellectual distress, but I think it involves more than closely packed berries. I was guessing it was related to the thickness of the Qal in the vicinity of elevations. (It would be nice if the formatting options allowed for subscripts.) This is just a guess, but for some reason the region around Endurance has apparently retained less fine sediment. It seems like not a bad model for Victoria, but I agree, it is still a crapshoot.

edstrick

Jul 4 2006, 10:13 AM

I have been wondering if the Victoria ejecta blanket.... which must have included a lot of crushed, cracked and mangled sulfate rock.... presumably with blueberries.... isn't covered with the residual lag deposit of those blueberries after the sulfate rocks had been planed down level. That still wouldn't explain why the drifts haven't migrated onto and across that surface, but SOMETHING is going on to suppress the drift texture as seen in the MGS images. Maybe it's a giant japanese rock garden, tended by Marvin the Martian's Zen colleagues....

Ant103

Jul 4 2006, 10:16 AM

Sol 860 for not change

I made as a try a crossed-eye animation of the move of Oppy.

What do you think of this?

Bill Harris

Jul 4 2006, 12:25 PM

The entire soil/regolith/sand issue is confounding. Where did it form, how did it get here, where is it going? Clearly, from the presumed prevailing wind direction, it is created in the north or northwest and is moving off-stage to the south or southeast. Why is does it lie as a flat sheet around Eagle crater and why does it start to form transverse ripples south of Endurance crater? What happens to the SE of Victoria? As far as we know, the composition is of three components: the hematite Blueberries, basaltic sand and weathered Burns formation (consisting of MgSO4 evaporite, oxides of iron and the silicic matrix, alas, no phyllosilicates). The Blueberries have weathered out of the Burns formation and concentrate as a lag deposit, the weathered Burns formation lies below the blueberry desert pavement and likely continues to react and weather using atmospheric water, the basaltic sand likely comes from an "underlying basaltic basal unit" brought to the surface by impacts or weathered from outcrops off-stage.

Many of these questions may be answered by looking at this ejecta blanket and Beagle crater and the other wonderful roadcuts provided. I'm thinking it will be surfaced by basaltic cobbles (or boulders) with a small component of Blueberries (since they are ubiquitous here) and minimal sand. Elsewise, I like edstrick's latter explanation...

--Bill

antoniseb

Jul 4 2006, 12:47 PM

QUOTE (Ant103 @ Jul 4 2006, 04:16 AM)

I made as a try a crossed-eye animation of the move of Oppy.
What do you think of this?

Wow, that's great! too bad we don't have the images to do this for long lengths of the jouney!

bigdipper

Jul 4 2006, 03:41 PM

QUOTE (Ant103 @ Jul 4 2006, 10:16 AM)

I made as a try a crossed-eye animation of the move of Oppy.
What do you think of this?

I like this technique. Would it have helped in the Near Rim/ Far Rim debate?

lyford

Jul 4 2006, 04:21 PM

I think only counseling or a trip to the pub would have helped with that debate, bigdipper

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