We seem to be headed toward Hawking rock -- so is a new topic appropriate? And if so, what is it? Someone has mentioned a meteorite. Other obvious possibility is a hunk of ejecta. Or even a piece of the "original" terrain sticking up through the ejecta blanket -- like a petrified tree stump ?!? (Just joking . . .)

Well, currently it is about 175 meters away and appears to span 3-4 pixels of the pancam images, which are 1024X1024 images spanning about 16X16 degrees, so a little quick trigonometry tells me that this rock may be only 15-20 centimeters in size. Its uniqueness seems to stem from its darkness (very dark, considering that it is sitting on dark material to begin with), and isolation. It offers sufficient contrast with the background material that it was clearly visible from about half a kilometer away.

And that's about all we know about it. We've seen meteorites before, apparently they're relatively common, and tend to be dark, so it is a reasonable hypothesis that Hawking is a meteorite. On the other hand, it has also occured to me that it could simply be a generic rock with a distinct lean towards the north which is always in shadow. We ought to have a much better idea by the end of this week

20 centimeters? centi-meters? A major topographic feature that is EIGHT INCHES tall? Sheesh, I knew that the terrain here was fairly flat but this underscores how flat.

I'd suspect that it is a piece of the dark cobble. Heck, 20 cm ain't even a boulder, that IS a cobble.

--Bill

Following the latest drive, we can now "range" Hawking with reasonable accuracy.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...TCP2365L2M1.JPG

As of the Sol 916 position I measure it at 95+/-10 meters from the current rover position, at a bearing of 158.3 degrees (to the center of the rock) azimuth [of course azimuth is +/- 1.5 degrees]. Another drive ought to put us within 20-30 meters of it, perhaps less.

[edit] A bit of quick trig puts Hawking Rock as about 27 centimeters wide by 18 centimeters high (about a foot wide for the english units folks). Pushing the high end of my earlier estimate. Taking the range error into account, it is between 24 and 30 centimeters wide and between 17 and 20 centimeters high.

Sol 916 position based on Hawking rock:




This map is based on algorimancer's long base parallax location of Hawking rock, it's current range ( 93.3 +/- 4 meters ) and heading relative to the right rim of Episilon crater ( 20.7 degrees).

It puts Oppy about 30 meters east of the "official" map.

The lines on the larger map are headings to the brighest rim spots ( 6.0 and 25.9 degrees) relative to the right rim of Episilon.

Hmmm.

Unfortunately my wide parallax location was weakest in the east-west direction, so I wouldn't be too quick to criticise the route maps Perhaps we should split the difference.

I wouldn't sweat ultra-precision accuracy. With no real landmarks (except for that glorified pebble ahead) there is no way to cross-check. This is dead reckoning at it's best. The important thing is to _not_ get too frisky and drive over the edge...

--Bill

Here's my estimate of Opportunity's position on Sol 916, as predicted backwards from my Hawking position estimate, using the currently measured azimuth and distance, discussed in more detail in the Route Map thread.

http://www.clarkandersen.com/R1500822_NWVi..._Hawking916.PNG

Tesheiner (white cross) and I at least are in pretty close agreement. I may have mis-plotted Phil's position (white oval), or Tesheiner and I could both be off.

[edit] Based upon the current drive direction imagery, it appears that Oppy is aiming for Epsilon crater, and it if so it may make its closest approach to Hawking Rock at about 22 meters to the northeast of the rock near the end of the next drive. Hopefully if this is the closest it gets it will at least pause to take a color image before moving on to Epsilon.

Algorimancer et al, way cool analyses re Hawking's exact position! Also, the estimates of Hawking size were quite interesting -- not exactly the 2001 monolith!

Regarding what Hawking and the other black cobbles are, I left out at least one possibility in my original post: hunks of whatever smashed into Meridiani Planum and created Victoria in the first place!?! (I assume that such is different from "ejecta" -- this is the "ejectee", if you will.) As such, it would be interesting to determine to what degree it has resisted weathering, etc. Given that we're going to drive right by it, I would be surprised if we didn't veer over to it to have a look -- although there are plenty of other such black cobbles we'll be passing close by . . .

Mmm, still locating the beacon at the far rim, Horton?

Tis but a flesh wound. I've 'ad worse...

--Bill

Perhaps Hawking rock is really sparrow rock? And what was the air speed of this fully laden rock?

The real question is the clarification question: African or European?

Okay, I posted the Sol 917 estimate of Hawking's position in the Route Map thread. Currently I put it at 22.6+/-1.8 meters from Opportunity, at an azimuth of -138.2 degrees. The distance agrees very nicely with my predicted close approach distance (22 meters), and Oppy's drive may have been a little shorter than I'd expected.

Sadly, there are no pancam images from the current (probably closest) position. Here's a blow-up of the best navcam image:

Click to view attachment

Based upon this image it looks to me like the darkness which has long been the distinguishing feature of this rock is due to nothing more than shadowing.

Congratulations. That is pretty impressive, and yet another demonstration of your program's utility.

I thought I'd try something I never tried before...to simulate a pancam image from a navcam, and also to lift the veil of shadows while I was at it. It's probably not terribly useful technically, since it is only a "simulation."
Click to view attachment

Algorimancer, NICE enlargement of Hawking. By the way, if Hawking is a piece of the meteorite that created Victoria, I think I should have called it an "ejector" rather than "ejectee" -- but it is probably ejecta . . .

Is that a baby buggy (stroller) on its side?

Thank you, but credit goes to the Lanczos3 smoothing in the FastStone image browser I love good free software. It also let me clip the region of interest, create a new image from it, and enlarge it while applying the Lanczos3 smoothing.

Well, what I thought it was last night when I posted it, was an attempt at humor. As you are now the second person to ask me for an explanation, it is now painfully obvious that it was a dismal failure in that regard. Perhaps it was considered to be in bad taste by some. In my concept of humor bad taste is irrelevant. It wasn't a baby buggy, but rather Dr. Stephen Hawking in his wheel chair, in a rather awkward position. It was simply the only way I could make an image of Hawking conform roughly to the shape of Hawking rock. ...and that is the story of how my brief career as a comedian came to a screeching halt.

CosmicRocker, I didn't think to try to blow the image up and look at it. If I had, I would have laughed my ass off! And I'm sure Stephen Hawking would as well!!!! Why don't you post a bigger image?

Hey cosmic,

Listen, the guy appeared in Star Trek and The Simpons. I'm sure he'd have had a good old chuckle at your pic.

He's not dead yet! For all you know, he's reading this right now.

I had no idea the problem was a lack of recognition caused by the image size. The image looks Ok when I download it on this end. Now, I am more interested in learning more about the graphics problem.

His sense of humor and his appearance in that Simpson's episode were both things I considered before desecrating his image for this purpose. I didn't save a larger version, but I have enough of the pieces that it wouldn't be diffficult to reproduce one if the demand is there. At this point, it might best be left to everyone's imagination. This must be the first example I have ever seen of a poor joke that has gotten more laughs after it's third explanation.

Surely the second example, after the initial explanations of the IAU's hilarious "A planet has to have cleared its area" joke yesterday...

Well, Earth hasn't cleared its area, so we're clearly not living on a planet anymore.

Just to document the official name given to this rock, it was "Bradley." Since it was targeted in all the filters, it must have been important to someone. This is the false color composite, and no, this one is not a joke.
Click to view attachment

Wonderful, and thanks for pointing it out, I tend to skip over the subsampled images and wouldn't have noticed it. Good to know someone other than the small group here found it of some importance, but I don't understand why they couldn't simply have driven up to it and given it the attention it deserves. I'm guessing that most of the folks in the drive planning meeting wanted to get to Victoria ASAP.

Me too! Oppy was dead-center in Bradley for most of the drive, then altered course on the last Sol. Perhaps she can tiptoe over to Bradley for a closer look whilst the IDD is being evaluated?

"Hawking" was an OK name, but Bradley is more personal...

--Bill

Re the idea that Hawking/Bradley is worth a short look, someone mentioned that its darkness might just be a result of shadowing. However, there are small black rocks everywhere we look in the ejecta field -- surely not all the result of shadowing, which means that, as the biggest such hunk, Hawking/Bradly IS worth a SLIGHT detour. Have we passed it already?

Nope. We're sitting about 25 meters away from it. You could hit it with a rock with no trouble if you were standing there Seems like a good test target for the IDD.

Nah...I bet you'd need to practice a few times to get used to the lower gravity and near-zero air drag.

Andy G

Ladies (Diane) and Gentlemen, please direct your attention to the latest set of MI images in the "Trundling toward Victoria" thread. Here is a copy of my latest post there:

"Holy s___ ! The first two MI images zero in on what is clearly a conchoidally fractured pebble ! The first unmistakeable such example I recall seeing. If one found such a pebble at a paleolithic habitation on earth, there would be no difficulty in describing it as a "core", that is, a pebble from which sharp flints are struck! I am of course not suggesting that this was produced by "intelligent" manipulation, but it is certainly indicative of a new type of specimen -- perhaps the result of the impact ??!? And could this be a "chip off the old block" of a rock like Hawking/Bradley? We've got to get a closer look at the latter . . ."

Well, who's 'responsible' to un-officially name the rocks that both MERs encounter ... we've had the STS-107 Columbia crewmembers, native American tribes, South Pole stations & researchers, etc ...
I believe someone asked Squyres during an interview where the inspiration for naming the Martian features came from ?