I am looking for a map that includes meridiani and margaritifer sinus with longitude and latitude grids to see the correlation between Oppy and the good old Mars 6 probe but I'm not having any look so thought to leave the challenge here...
Here are the coordinates:

Opportunity:
1.98° N 5.94°W

Mars 6

23.90° S, 19.42° W

Yes...I dreamt about Oppy meeting the old Soviet probe...But they're too far for that...

It could be a long long journey. This is the same as traverse the United States from West Coast to the East Coast... (or across Valles Marineris).
This will be more realistic when MSL will land on Mars, it can cover more distance a day.

I dreamt about it, didn't say it was reasonable...
But what a vision it would be to see the old, dust covered, full displayed, Mars 6...
Here she is...:

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/image/mars_6.jpg

You're talking about MSL, and ExoMars is there already any information on how much distance it would be capable of traversing a day?

Well - go for a very optimistic 250m/day, 1km every 4 days, perhaps 10km per month, 120km per year...1000km's is a very very long way

Doug

But I'm not thinking about that!!!

I just wanted to see a map!...

Is that the distance? 1000kms?

This was the closest I could approach so far on the Mars 6 landing site...

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustrax3/msm6.jpg

From here:
http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/projects/bayes-grou...6/S/20/022.html

Try starting here: http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/MDIM21/

Unfortunately those maps don't have a grid but there seems to be enough (<unsure>) data to manually add them.

Try this - not ideal but it's a start.

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mars_maps/

Phil

Here are some Mars-6 tidbits...

ustrax, why don't you try this one:

http://www.ralphaeschliman.com/atlasofmars/10axsm.pdf

Wooo!
Thanks a lot guys!
At a first look at the links so kindly provided, each one of them will be useful...
Let me dig deeper into it!

Actually, Opportunity is in the southern hemisphere. According to http://mars.google.com/, her coordinates are 1.95° S, 5.53° W.

It may be easier to go "downstream" to meet Pathfinder, even though it's a bit further. By the way, what's the name of that "river"?

Yes...The N was a writing error, but I got the coordinates from the Analyst's notebook:

'The geographical coordinates for the center of Opportunity's landing target are 1.98 degrees south latitude and 5.94 degrees west longitude. The targeted landing area is an ellipse about 85 kilometers (53 miles) long and 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) wide.'

Edited: And yes...Google Mars has it all...

Ares Valles

Doug

Mars 6 will likely not only be covered in dust, but also in many tiny pieces.

But we do need a mission to go there to find this out for certain as well as
complete the scientific work that Mars 6 never got the chance to do.

A question: Was the landing area for Mars 6 chosen on purpose or were
the Soviets just trying to get it to land anywhere on the planet? If the former,
what made the region an appealing target?

I couldn't find out so far if the site was chosen or not but I found this:

'Soviet scientists reporting on the descent and crash-landing of Mars 6 calculated that it landed at 23°54' south latitude and 19°25' longitude in the region called Mare Erythraeum. The landing site was "situated in the central part of an extensive lowland region," part of the global zone of depression extending for several thousand kilometers north and south of the Martian equator. Most of the landing zone (about 75 percent) was heavily cratered. Part of this terrain analysis was based on Mariner 9 data, but the characteristics of the actual landing zone were determined by the radar-altimeter readings obtained during the parachute descent of the Soviet craft. Additionally, Mars 6 instruments indicated "several times'" more water vapor in the atmosphere than previously estimated, news over which Viking scientists were cautiously optimistic, since it enhanced the possibility of discovering some kind of life forms. Mars 5 photographs provided additional data on the planet's surface features, and while most of the Soviet findings correlated with previous knowledge and predictions there was one major anomaly.'

From here:

http://www.solarviews.com/history/SP-4212/ch10-2.html

so, what was the anomaly??

It crashed

Doug

This:

'One of the experiments carried on the Mars 6 lander was a mass spectrometer designed to determine the gaseous composition of the Red Planet's atmosphere. Although the recorded mass spectrum data were not recovered, engineering data on the operation of the vacuum pump appeared to indicate unexpected quantities of noncondensable gases. Soviet scientists interpreted the data as an indication that the atmosphere might contain as much as 15 to 30 percent argon (contrasting with l percent in Earth's atmosphere). The Americans had been operating on the assumption that the thin Martian atmosphere contained less than 3 percent argon. A concentration approaching 15 to 30 percent would force some rethinking about Mars and about Klaus Biemann's mass spectrometer experiment. It would mean that the Martian atmosphere had been much denser in the past than the specialists had believed. That would have made the existence of liquid water possible, but it posed a question what had happened to those atmospheric gases? That was the puzzler. A great concentration of argon would also require some changes in the use of the gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer, since inert gases like argon tended to impede its operation. Obviously, the Soviet Mars missions had not answered many of the U.S. questions, but they had added another element of excitement to the first Viking landing. Everyone would watch closely the results of the entry science team's experiment to see just how much argon it detected as the A lander made its way to the surface.'

Doug...Maybe this thread should be moved to Past and Future?...

Right. This was because the voltage readings from the spectometer pump indicated it was sucking in far more "air" than it should, indicating that the atmosphere was thicker than occultation measurements had indicated. The best way to explain such a discrepency, it was reasoned, was that it was a inert gas, which would explain its absence in occultation data, and the most likely inert gas was argon. However, the actual explanation was a faulty voltage reading or a faulty pump. This was significant, because Viking would have failed in an atmosphere that much different that the one it was designed for, and was too far along in the design process to be changed. Thus, Mars-6 provided a real scare. But I still say it is amazing that it came as close to succeeding as possible considering that due to onboard failure, it hadn't heard from earth and had therefore been completely autonomous for five months prior to landing!


Had it landed, and the spectrometer data been downloaded properly, the confusion would probably have cleared up. Perhaps this should be a Mars-6 thread. in past and future.


I believe it was a pretty random site, based on trajectory, not appeal. I think it might be interesting to find it because we know the mass of the probe, we know what it was made of, we know its speed, and we know when it it. So if we could image the impact with MRO, it may actually be useful for studying surface properties. And, since unlike MGS MRO has color capability at high resolution, it might be able to come up with a positive ID. The problem is that it is a needle in a haystack.

I agree with you on moving the thread.
I've been trying to figure out the landing site, Google Mars points out the place but with very poor resolution so I've followed Mr. Tesheiner's ( ) link:

http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/MDIM21/

And choosing the correct quadrant:

http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/mdim-bin/data...at=15S&lon=338E

I could see a little more detail on the place and if that is the correct location could it be plausible that Mars 6 smashed into the elevation right ahead, does this contradicts any official explanation for the crash if there is any?

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustr...dingsitem6b.jpg

Here, Google Mars images and the astrogeology cropped one:

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b14/ustr...ndingsitem6.jpg

Maybe you imagery guys can improve the original one...

Edited: Links corrected...