Excellent hypothesis, Rod. Now, who can design a critical test?

Note added in proof: Perhaps we should call it the Neuhaus-Harris Sloppy Sand Hypothesis.

Good Shaka! About the test, I have nothing on my pockets! Maybe MSL will carry an aeolianmeter which MERs are missing. This is a needed for wind speed and direction meters.

Rodolfo

Not a problem, Rod! This is a team effort, and others may have something on their pockets.
Allright, you guys, we can't wait till the 22nd century for anenometers...amenometers
...amemoneters...wind measurers on Mars! How can we test the N/H Hypothesis here and now?

Well, if the wind is more turbulent maybe we'll start seeing cleaning events here? Perhaps taking one pancam pic in the direction behind us to watch for dust movements along our tracks? Pick up a small quantity of dust with the RAT by brushing a vertical hole, then lifting it up and extending the arm, photographing how the dust moves as it falls?

Speaking of which, anyone talk to MSL about adding a flag/pennant yet to their rover?!?

O.K., hen (mind if I call you hen?), clearly you are trying to contrive a proxy anemo... wind measurer, but that would require an extensive program of wind velocity measurements all around, and also away from VC. I think this would be a big project even with custom-designed instruments. How would we know that this week's measurements are at all typical of the whole year, the whole century, or the whole millenium? It's scary to ponder how old the ripples are.
No, I think we need to find clues in the regolith surrounding VC today, that support or falsify the N/H SS Hypothesis.

Re MSL design: if they send a rover to Mars, with streaming video capability, without putting on something to wave or twirl or jiggle when the wind blows by... well, I fear for NASA's survival. Imagine looking at months of movies where nothing moves, until dust devil season rolls around again!

If they've nothing better, I'd be prepared to donate something like this:Click to view attachment

Hmmmm, Beagle Crater... like it! Nice thought on Steve's part.

means I have to go re-write my last story tho... grrr....

Rodolfo:

It's about time somebody flew an alethiometer, too. Obviously, the results would be very subtle when you put them under the knife, but - for example - you might see the detection of any Martian Northern Lights. It might also sort out - at last - the actual surface colours issue so that the surface doesn't look like we're peering through an amber spyglass.

Bob Shaw

Bob: If you have any pull, man, I'm sure it'll happen.

Joffan:

There's also the whole possibility of detecting Dark Matter - there's all sorts of materials out there!

Bob Shaw

Sure!

all MER pictures have deceptive colours and I have to wait until any graphic/picture fan designer who put any analgyph and sophisticated colours before to assent so!, before that is with glut feeling . But the land sand form or relief does not necessary have a colorful pictures.

Rodolfo

Shaka's not going to be happy. Now we have a glut of gut feelings.

Oppy has started to ride toward south but the following picture looks like that Oppy has again stuck into a sand but a little!! It seems that Oppy is trying to skip over a soft crest of ripple.
Rear
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...24P1311R0M1.JPG

Front. Doing IDD to figure out about the flufly sand
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...24P1151L0M1.JPG

Rodolfo

Oh boy...This will be a long journey...

EDITED: is it trying to skip the crest or ride the crest? Hang loose!

Here's a long-baseline cross-eye image of Beagle crater, from sols 823 and 846:
Click to view attachment
You can now distinguish a couple of features on the far rim from most of the visible rim which is near; they're on the right side of the crater. This 200% zoom might help:
Click to view attachment
Hopefully this won't start another near/far debate!

Thanks for those views fred, very intriguing! Looks like a fascinating place to explore on the way to VC. I've high hopes we'll find some meteorite fragments here.

fredk, we had same idea but I used Sol 833/846, so a different baseline (less than 12m, based on last Theseiner maps). Here the crossed eye with 5x vertical stretch...
Click to view attachment
they show clearly that foreground ripples stop well before CC and that east terrain (with higher ripples and dark features) has a complex structure. However, your stereograms is better in revealing CC structures (in particular right boulder seems in the center of crater while leftmost is in front of the close rim...)

Edit: corrected images / different sol

I look at the current ripples as "choppy seas", something (likely aeolian) has made them more active than the ripples we'vew seen since leaving Erebus. I'd guess a wind rotor on the downwind side of "Heck of a View" hill. Still, it's as though we're in dangerous waters with shoals all about, so we'll have to proceed slowly, with caution.

Sorry, I'm in a nautical mood.

We still need to keep a close watch on the evaporite bedrock underfoot (underwheel?) as we're getting closer to a major impact feature and we need to see what changes are happening.

--Bill

The CC has dented rim. It is funny. I am not sure about the width of the CC. Its width is only covered by the light color rim, isn't it?

Rodolfo

I was assuming that the width of CC (Beagle) was delineated by the distance between the highest white points at the left and right ends of the the white area we see. This would mean that the areas to the left of the "Left White Peak", and to the right of the "Right White Peak" are exposed bedrock outside the crater rim. What we see from our viewing angle is the typical cross section of a crater with raised rim.

Kenny

Now Oppy is still between 518-541 meters from Corner Crater. If Oppy transverse with an average of 10meters/sol, this will take about 51-54 soles. That is we have to wait until July 28-31. That is a very long time since the way toward to CC is of full suspensions.

Rodolfo

Sol849 stack of left+right images, with noise reduction and sharpening:
Click to view attachment
now we clearly see 3 dark boulders...

Bellissimo, Caro. I hope there will be no Civil War, if I suggest that most of the bright rim we see is on the near semicircle. The orbital view shows lots of bright material on both sides. Given that we agree this is a comparatively new crater, which should have a raised rim, we should see the near rim first. The dark spots should be shadows, since we have little reason to expect dark strata above hundreds of meters of pale sedimentary deposits. As with Victoria, we probably won't see much of the far rim or crater interior until we are within "spitting distance" of the rim. I still think Beagle is of secondary interest, compared to VC, so we won't linger there unless we get stuck like poor Spirit.

http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/p...DPP2428R2M1.JPG

There is two or three dark pointis at corner crater. Mayde they are rocks?

From overhead it's one of the most interesting small craters I've seen, for sure. Obviously VC's beatuifully sinuous rim is a different class.

I certainly hope we spend enough time there to get a good profile of the different areas of CC, even though I know the drivers among us want to investigate Victoria's secrets.

Could someone fill me in -- and my apologies if this is actually explained somewhere that I can't find. What are the origins of the two names "Corner Crater" and "Beagle Crater?" Is "CC" what USMFers were using to refer to the site, while "BC" came from the MER team? When/where did the name "Beagle" first appear?

--Emily

We got the name from Steve himself with help from ustrax earlier in this thread

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...indpost&p=57622

Woops, don't know how I missed that, thank you! --Emily

And climber replied:

and I reckon there's 12-15 drives left in the approach to CC, which at three drives this week and next week, then 5 the following week and 1-4 the week after. puts us around 13 July at CC, so yes, just a bit more than 20 sols - say 23-24. First Beagle Panorama and taking MIs by Sol 880.

The estimation range is between July 14 to 31 depending to the average speed meters/sol. More details, see at this URL. I promise to update it by this Wednesday.

I have reviewed the path route from now up to BC is of no new novelty that might stop to Oppy to peek for searching. There are two possiblities to reach BC:

1) Same channel up to the latitud of BC and then turn left (East) toward BC.
2) Turn on left when Oppy reach a pool of etched outcrop (about 10 meters from now) up to the proper East longitudinal before turning right hand to south in a straigth line to BC.

I prefer the option 1) for two reasons. there is interesting area on the west of BC and also the soutward road is "really good". So the rovers will be hypnotized driving on the same channel between crests of sand toward the BC.

Rodolfo

Corner Crater got its name because it's located at about the "top left" corner -- thinking of VC enclosed by a square -- on the approach to Victoria.

Here's my Beagle Crater Itinery

Arrival Sol - final drive
+1 - part one of 180 degree Pancam mosaic ( 4 x 3 frames L256R1 ) and matching Mini TES
+2 - part two of 180 degree Pancam mosaic ( 4 x 3 frames L256R1 ) and matching Mini TES
+3 - Full filter set targetted observations and small FOV MiniTES Observations of potential targets
+4 - begin drive around Beagle Crater
+5 - continue drive around Beagle Crater
+6 - continue drive around Beagle Crater
+7 - Replicated Sol +1
+8 - Replicated Sol +2
+9 - being drive to selected IDD work space
+10 - further drive to selected IDD work space
+11 - approach drive
+12 - +18 - IDD work on selected IDD work space and full filter suite Pancam imagery toward VC
+19 - back off and remote obs of IDD work volume
Repeat +10 to +19 for further IDD targets if identified, otherwise
+20 - leave Beagle en route to VC.

The imagery from BC-Pan1 and BC-Pan2 should also be used, with a few VC-direction L2/R2's to do some moderate baseline stereo imagery of the drive to VC to give a good sense of any obsticles out to 100m or so

Of course, any mission scientist or engineer could now rip my schedule apart - which is why I'm here typing, and they're over there driving rovers

Doug

A pic of Beagle using two pancams from the latest downlink, plus a hefty stretch. The geography of the crater is becoming clearer.

Phil

Click to view attachment

Thanx, Phil.
Are we close enough yet to learn something from an anaglyph? Any resolution of near/far rim features?

Especially if we encounter more festoons

Or if we don't.
I'd say Doug's research plan is quite a 'generous' investment of time to Beagle. Given the beckoning charms of Vikkie, I could see spending a good deal less than 20 sols playing with the dog.
At BC we will be able to directly assess the traversability of the VC apron. If it looks like a piece of cake, the PIs may be willing to blow some time in BC. If not... Time will tell.

Either way.

If the going to her majesty VC looks tough, we might as well maximise the science from her dog BC.

If she looks like an easy win, why hurry?

Woof.

Horses for courses.

Meeow.

(Anyone want to add to the Noah's Ark double entendres?)

Doug, I think your schedule sounds perfect. It will get a decent baseline of everything we can eventually pull out of the site, and give the guys in the back rooms a lot of data to chew over while the operators move on towards Victoria. And maybe gives us an idea of what else we might want to look for in any re-visiting of the boundary of Victoria's splash-pattern ejecta blanket.

The only pacing item I can see would be power -- are we still in good enough shape on the power curve with Oppy to be able to withstand the additional time sitting on flat surfaces, not perched on a north-facing inner slope of Victoria?

-the other Doug

Shaka:

No. Despite your belief that the citizens of certain nations are addicted to terrible puns, it's just not the case. In fact, regarding such wordplay, me no Laika.

Bob Shaw

Me, either, Bob. Now, pardon me, I'm having HAM for dinner.

-the other Doug

[Condition Yellow]

[Condition Yellow]

I wanted to make a couple of quick comments. I agree with dvandorn that the edge of the ejecta blanket behind Beagle Crater should make a very interesting science target, worthy of some time to study it. As Doug pointed out, there is also a lot of other science/investigation to be done around here, but I don't know if the decision makers will allow 20 sols for it. I also agree with CryptoEngineer (and perhaps others) who pointed out in the other thread that the ejecta blanket south of Beagle appears to be a bluff, but that a ramped approach to Victoria is available slightly to the east. That seems quite apparent in the MOC anaglyph of the area which I am attaching.

I believe our recently verbose and enthusiastic friend earlier requested anaglyphs of Beagle. I had made some from the longer baseline stereo-pairs provided by fredk and dilo. An extended baseline pair was an excellent idea, guys! I had tried to do some of Victoria earlier, but didn't think about Beagle. I'll also attach them, and attempt to draw a conclusion about whether we are seeing the near or far side of Beagle.

I found it difficult to come to a firm conclusion about Beagle's near/far visibility when I first studied the anaglyphs. But then I realized I should look to the MOC orbital imagery for help. On those, it seems obvious that there was a taller pile of stuff around its southeast side than anywhere else. After realizing that and going back to the anaglyphs made from fredk's and dilo's stereo-pairs, I convinced myself that most of the elevated rim we are seeing on Beagle is on the far side. Those two darker rocks we have been seeing are on the near side. There also appears to be a somewhat darker and lower rim on the near side. An elevated southeast far rim is also consistent with the low western extension we see.

(whoops, had to edit to correct an incorrect file attachement)

Tom:

I have taken your cropped picture to save me the time . It is evident that the BC is the product of a secondary impact crater by splashing by a rock coming from Victoria Crater toward the West side. You can see a 90 degree of angle of outcrop toward West from the BC site.

Click to view attachment

Rodolfo

I don't seem to have any recent confirmed power numbers from Opportunity but extrapolating out from the last confirmed value (540 whr on Sol 753) we have:
Current (Sol 856): ~ 382whr
Minimum: 339whr from Sol 937 to Sol 965.
Assuming a constant 0.18% incremental loss in power per Sol due to ongoing dust deposition.

So power is tight but it should remain just enough to get in an hour or two of driving in on most Sols.

He did, indeed, and, ever true blue, you came through! Thanx, Tom! (I hope that rings of enthusiasm; I'll save the verbosity for later.)


I usually prefer to leave this eye-strain exercise to Dilo, Rod and Tesh, who revel in it, but thought I had committed myself to taking a shot.
I looked at your first (stretched) anaglyph for quite a while, and eventually convinced myself that the third bright peak from the left end of BC, looked closer than those on either side. I can't see much to indicate height in the MOC image, though it seems apparent that the near rim casts a shadow over the majority of the crater bottom. I couldn't calculate sun angles the way Tesh might, but it at least suggests to me that the near rim has some height. In spite of that, when I inverted the MOC view of BC to line it up with the Oppster view, I thought I could see a number of feature correspondences that do put some of the high peaks at the back:
Click to view attachment
I could be quite wrong in this, because the MOC and Oppy viewpoints are 90 degrees out. Everything we see from Oppy could be near rim, but for now I'm supporting a near/far split.

[quote name='Shaka' date='Jun 21 2006, 09:17 AM' post='59252']
I could be quite wrong in this, because the MOC and Oppy viewpoints are 90 degrees out. Everything we see from Oppy [i]could be near rim, but for now I'm supporting a near/far split. [/i]

Shaka, I feel that all the "black stuff" we see correspond to the disturbed terrain that sit father than Beagle. I realy don't see what you see, and the reversed MOC pictures of Beagle you're using is quite confusing to me. By the way, why do you still use (on the picts) CC instead of Beagle? Could it be that when you'll see you were wrong you'll argue that you didn't talk of the same crater?

I would really like to see Oppy stopped at Beagle some 20 days.
Given the current pace, we'll be there at Beacon/Corner Crater by mid July, almost exactly when my summer vacations starts... and I don't want to miss the arrival at VC!

PS: No, I can't change/delay my vacations.

Rodolfo:

Yes, a secondary - but why associate it with Victoria?

Bob Shaw

Note: Does anyone else have trouble getting the "reply" button below each message to work? It works occasionally, but then fails repeatedly. I then try the "Addreply" at the bottom of the page, which usually works, but does not include any "Quote".

Oh well, I'll reply to Climber's Post #97:
"Shaka, I feel that all the "black stuff" we see correspond to the disturbed terrain that sit father than Beagle."
I assume you're referring to the black bars on either side of BC which I connect with yellow arrows. I just noted that the black bars seemed to correspond in location and size with a couple of black spots in the MOC image. They might not be the same, but why not?

"I realy don't see what you see, and the reversed MOC pictures of Beagle you're using is quite confusing to me."
Isn't that strange. I thought it an obvious thing to do - invert the MOC view - so that the left (east) side of the crater and the right (west) side lined up vertically in both images. Does anyone else feel confused by this? It's the only way I feel comfortable doing the image comparison.

"By the way, why do you still use (on the picts) CC instead of Beagle? Could it be that when you'll see you were wrong you'll argue that you didn't talk of the same crater? biggrin.gif"
Ha! Good one! Seriously, I just cropped BC from one of Tesh's route maps, which carries the old label.

Now, the key point I'm trying to explain is why the third white peak from the left end of BC in Tom's anaglyph seems to me to stand forward from the others. Does anyone else see this? Tom?