The Mi mosaic taken on Sol 1373 after brushing.

jvandriel

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Every morning I check for the planned imaging activity on both rovers.
And according to "the codes" in the pancam data tracking webpage, Opportunity is expected to be moving again on sol 1380.


Edited: Found this note on the latest status report: 'Scientists planned to have the rover finish up work on Smith and then descend to the last of three light-colored rings of rock. This final ring is known as "Lyell."'

Thanks. Tomorrow is a good day to roll.

False alarm. Click to view attachment
None of the planned driving related sequences were executed.

Oh well. While I'd really like to get details from other locations, I do understand that they need to get their procedures together with the new limitations on the grinder and brush. Here's to some day in the unforeseen future when Opportunity knocks again.

Second attempt, now on sol 1382.




(I hope to not bang my head again on the wall ...)

Given it's now 1800ish on 1381 - this'll be down in about 24-36 hours.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...AEP1201R0M1.JPG
Edit: Is there an easy way to reduce the inserted image to a more modest thumbnail size?

Yes - don't inset a great big image into a thread, inline. Just add a link. Lack of inner monolgue also corrected. Doug

Here's the 360º navcam panorama.
Click to view attachment

> Is there an easy way to reduce the inserted image to a more modest thumbnail size?

Here's what I usually do.
Click to view attachment

Download the picture and reduce it's size to 200x200 (*), then attach it here (it's a small 6 kBytes JPEG). Insert the attachment into the post and add a link to the original image.
(*) The trick is on the image size. By doing this, we are neither overloading the forum's server nor the viewer's bandwidth.

I guess Opportunity has begun the move down to Lyell, the next lowest layer. I noticed that the sol 1382 image sets contained many repeated images. Some of the navcams and hazcams have two and sometimes three version numbers. There seems to have been a pattern, with the repetitive versions alternating between left and right cameras. I don't recall seeing image sets like this before. I am guessing this must be some kind of test, but does anyone have any ideas about which kind of test? I tried to check the PCDT site for possible clues, but it is not opening for me at the moment.

edit: The tracking site came back up, but it does not the show extra images. Might it be that the repetitive images were not taken on Mars, but duplicated somewhere in the processing stream after they came down?

Sure smells like buggy code to this grizzled old victim of much code that "works OK when I tested it", but which blows up weeks or months later... did any of the values encoded in the filenames rollover recently?

On an unrelated note... any guesses what the linear feature is? eg: here http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2407L7M1.JPG
I'm tempted to guess it looks like,... ahhh, no, I'm not making that mistake again It doesn't seem to be an artifact (as it's visible in all the different filters) or dust on the lens (as it's in focus and not visible in other directions.)

Edit: hmmm, looks like a lot of noise (cosmic rays?) in the right-hand side of this frame: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2407L7M1.JPG . Coincidence?

Looks like a line of rock - we've seen lots of little peak's running along the edges of the pave like rock.

Doug

Yeah, those little lines of 'peaks' are very interesting. Guess they're leftovers from erosion of the softer sedimentary material over time, but I can't figure out if the material was extruded into the cracks of the sedimentary "pavement" (presumably by ancient groundwater action) or if the sediments just formed over the peak material & it got shaped into these lines by erosion as well...

Polar projection from Tesheiner's Sol1382 pan with enhanced rover.
Click to view attachment

Astro0

We've seen similar features before, but this one looks like it may be very long. Follow it across the tops of these three frames:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P2407R1M1.JPG
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P2407R1M1.JPG
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...00P2407R1M1.JPG
It's almost comical how the feature seems to keep going and going and going, up and down, going... Then again, it's hard to be sure it's all one single feature from this angle.

Deja Vu all over again

16-Jul-2004
NASA's Mars Rovers Roll Into Martian Winter
The 'Razorback' Mystery

Click to view attachment

Probably a fissure filling. It is known that hydrothermal action can go on for quite a long time after impact beneath meteor craters.

Agree about the fissure filling. Don't necessarily agree about post-impact hydrothermal action in this case. Usually hydrothermal activity, whether caused by impacts or volcanism, generates some sort of pervasive wall rock alteration for a few centimeters to a few meters beyond the fissure (e.g., the high silica rocks attributed to such a cause at Home Plate, Gusev Crater). In this case there are no visible signs of alteration, an observation that suggests that the fluids filling the fissure were in more-or-less in chemical equilibrium with the rocks around them. In other words, they could have been normal groundwaters. Or the fissure filling could have some other cause altogether (e.g., capillarity involving frost condensation on salts or meltwater films). Hard to say. Clearly some sorts of aqueous fluids were involved, but not neccessarily in large quantities, or hydrothermal.

-- HDP Don

I remember reading Lunar and Planetary Science conference abstract on this "fissure filling".

It appears that a certain professor has proposed that these 'razor back' fins are analogous to similar features found in a few deserts here on Earth. His regular studies of this features have shown that they are formed due to deposition of minerals like gypsum in cracks by moisture. Subsequent erosion leaves these fins. Whatsmore, they are seasonal!

He thus concluded that the same fins at Meridiani may be attributed to an active or once active atmospheric water recycling phenomenon. His argument is very convincing. I myself am inclined to agree with him.

The paper may be found at http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/abstracts.shtml. The paper is issue #1888 year;2006.

That work was later published in Geology [Chavdarian et al.]
There is also a more general treatise available at Icarus [Pain et al.]

At least craters at Meridiani are consistent :-)

Here is my version of the Sol 1382 Panoramic view inside Victoria Crater

after downloading, anti-vignetting, " dust-removal "

and finally stitching.

Taken with the R0 Navcam.

jvandriel

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The same Panoramic view but now, I have added the images

taken on Sol 1391 with the R0 Navcam.

Again, all the images with "Dust Removal".

jvandriel

Click to view attachment

It seems that by going at first a little to the left and then "straight down the middle" it would be possible to drive quite a long way downslope on bare rock, or at least rock only thinly covered by fine materials.
What is even more interesting it seems that by doing so you would cross at least two and perhaps three probable contacts between rock units.

New batch of superres pans.

Interesting description there of Cape Verde:I wonder how close they'd dare get.

Also this new detail:

I wouldn't mind sending Opportunity to one of those promontories. Cape Verde seems to be the most dramatic of them all. The area surrounding Cape Verde doesn't look too bad. It wouldn't hurt, would it?

Let's just wait 'til after the asteroid hits!

jvandriel, your mosaic is superb!
I retouched some residual dust artifact and added artificial sky in this version:
Click to view attachment
This is the Polar version:
Click to view attachment

(Happy new year to all UMSF members, I will be back on Jan,05)

It could hurt at Cape Verde in terms of solar exposure. There should be a significant shadow southwest of the cape in the morning, which could only be avoided by working near the tip of the cape. Also, the tilt of the solar arrays will be more away from the sun (southerly) during the winter. Whether these deficiencies are dangerous would have to be calculated. Personally, I favor the nearside of Cabo Frio - for these reasons - as a winter study area. We could work our way gradually SE along its length, examining progressively deeper strata.

Thanks for noting those new super-res images. I enjoyed the comment regarding Cape St. Mary: "Like the Cape St. Vincent images, these Pancam super-resolution images have allowed scientists to discern that the rocks at Victoria Crater once represented a large dune field that migrated across this region." As noted in some posts last June, based on the initial imagery, Cape St. Mary seems to have some very nice exposures of what looks like "festoon-type" or trough or current cross bedding in the lower right hand side of the cliff. Everyone who commented on the images (3 people) agreed with this assessment at the time. You can now see them even better in the super-res photo (or even in the lower-res, "medium image"). How typical are such "festoons" of eolian dune fields, inasmuch as they were earlier held (uniquely - no corresponding channels or braided stream patterns, etc.) to indicated water flowing across the former flat eroded top of the dune field? Also, as always, why do the bulk of the cross-beds not look like at all like typical dune forms (that is, why do they mostly occur at very shallow angles, and at all scales intermixed)? To me they just scream "whoosh!" (of course, I may be predjudiced ).

In this regard, the Will Smith film "Independence Day" was on cable again last night (a frequent occurrence). I am always struck when watching that film by the weird but wonderful depiction of "alien surge" as the preferred method for destroying cities (radial, groundhugging, turbulent, fiery surge - scooping up cars and frying people - that mysteriously lacks any corresponding central explosion or expression of dissipation with distance). Wouldn't it have been simpler for the aliens to lob asteroids? Oh well. Sort of a nice depiction of base surge, anyway.

-- HDP Don

Typical dune forms where? Would the differences in pressure and gravity not render comparatively analysis a little dodgy?

Doug

There is a great scene of cruisers launching asteroids onto the planet, and they deal with the aftermath later in the series, with Narn plunged into an "asteroid winter".

I have re-examined the area around Cape Verde to see how close the rover can actually approach the thing.

The promontory is roughly 23m away (from sol 1333 position).

I have not taken into account the shadow (of the promontory) that will fall on the rover panels. Just the slope factor.

Please dont hesitate to refine my observations

{See attachment.}


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I would have to question the utility of approaching the capes, if we cannot get close enough to the bedrock exposures to examine them with the IDD instruments. Whether kept away by slope or shadows, Oppy could gather only minimal new information from 5 meters away. We should find places where we can reach the exposed cliff. Maybe you should repeat your diagnosis for Cabo Frio, Doc.

If they can close from 15m to 5m - that's quite a lot more resolution on the Xbedding.

If it was worth doing super resolution imaging to get a few 10's percent increase in resolution - it's worth driving a little closer to get a double in resolution.

But - not so close that it'll impact power and comms.

Doug

Lovely layers here Oppy, thanks...!

Click to view attachment

Doug - Agree in principle, but dunes on Mars are hardly unknowns - they've been imaged from orbit since long before the rovers landed. Clearly, Martian dunes can be quite large and the same morphological classification has been used (e.g., barchan, star) as for terrestrial dunes. Also, the interpretation that the Victoria cliff exposures were typical dune forms was from the NASA web report, not me. (I'm with you.) I questioned it, based on my own limited experience (limited to intense examination of the same Arizona - Utah eolian sandstone exposures to which the martian exposures have most often been compared). IMHO, they look remarkably unlike the martian exposures, except for being cross-bedded. The martian details are different, and very much messier (e.g., cross-bedded at every possible scale, and at a variety of angles, mostly low). Compare the images with those in any geology textbook and reach your own conclusions, however.

A variety of flow types (e.g, wind, water, surge) can result in cross-bedding. Distinguishing among them can be challenging, especially given that terrestrial examples of impact surge deposits are lacking. I fully agree with you, therefore, that such factors "render comparative analysis a little dodgy".

BTW, the same cautionary principle applies to high silica or vesicular rocks. On Earth, such rocks typically result from volcanism, but who's to say that on Mars they might not represent impact-related hydrothermal activity or bubbly impact melts? Oh well, I can safely state - not bubby champagne! Happy New Year.

-- HDP Don

What bothers me about that film is the final scene, as the radioactive pieces of the exploded alien mothership streak into the atmosphere, providing Will Smith's promised fireworks for Independence Day. They enter the atmosphere and streak across the sky in parallel. Shouldn't they appear more like a meteor shower, radiating from a central radiant point in the sky?

David

True, that was not correctly done, the rest of the movie was much more realistic...

Really? I don't see it that way. Think of a shower head, with your head as earth and the droplets as pieces of the ship. The mothership was presumably in orbit around Earth, so just barely have the water hitting the top of your head. All the pieces would essentially look parallel as they entered the atmosphere.

Meteor showers are from particles in their own orbit around the Sun, so they don't go around earth. You can simulate that by placing your head directly in middle of the stream. In this case, the droplets would zing by on either side of your head, with the shower head appearing as the "radiant".

...and if the ship were over the horizon behind you, all the streaks would be following the path described.

Perhaps this discussion belongs in its own thread. The question is whether the alien mothership is considered "unmanned" since the inhabitants weren't human...should we change this forum to "Uncrewed Spaceflight"?

Sorry, this discussion has got me smiling like an idiot, thinking about one of my fave scenes...

Wil Smith punches downed alien fighter pilot in the face. "Welcome to Earth!"

Aah, interstellar diplomacy at its best. None of that namby-pamby "Don't Interferre" Prime Directive stuff..!

And ok, maybe ID4 wasn't 100% scientifically accurate, but it still gives me thrills and goosebumps whenever I see it - and a ridiculous urge to punch-the-sky and shout "Yes!" when the mothership blows up!

What *I* liked the best was that scene where they plugged their computer into the aliens' machine and not only did the connector fit, the alien computer supported TCP/IP.

At least I finally understood where some of those weird folks in the standards bodies were coming from!

--Greg :-)

You mean like this?

These last few weeks make me wish Oppy had MSL's "remote sensing in situ" suite - easier to get zoom close ups and ChemCam without endangering the rover on funky terrain.

You mean the Zoom that has been, as of the last reports, descoped from Mastcam?

Doug

I do. But I haven't been able to check in as frequently over the last few weeks and so may have missed some bad news...

Like Mir, Columbia... can't find Skylab photos.

Re D Burt's reply 386, Agreed, and a couple of further points:

It is reasonable to guess that the ubiquitous large scale layering visible from orbit all over Meridiani might be in some way be connected to the ubiquitous small scale layering that Oppy has imaged. However, there is no suggestion in orbital images that the large scale layering is dune-like.

The dune-like bedforms visible from orbit elsewhere on Mars show no layering and none of the bedforms encountered by either rover appear to be layered. Granted, this could be more absence of evidence than evidence of absence, but still there is no direct evidence of any layered bedforms on Mars.

Interesting image from the MI camera:

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P2966M2M1.JPG

Looks almost like a f0ssi|ised amm0nite. lol

When an orbiting object breaks up the debris form parallel trails such as for Mir: http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp...entry_photo.jpg

But detonate a nuke inside an object and the debris will pretty much follow a spreading spherical path. Take into account the initial velocity of the orbiting object and those debris that entered the atmosphere would indeed seem to spread from a central point.

That is interesting, and the more I stare at it, the less I think it is pareidolia. Is there an an obvious explanation I am missing?