Doug I know this isn't exactly a "sub-element activity", but it's certainly a small image.
Can someone tell us anything about this MECA plaque. They don't seem to have captured the entire thing in their shots and it would be nice to fill in some of the blanks. I've inserted some assumptions in the attached merged image.
Just love these sort of personal touches which have stories linked to them. My name is on the mini-DVD...who else on UMSF signed up?
Click to view attachment
Astro0

--Split MECA posts to a dedicated thread

I'm on the DVD

I read about the MECA plaque a while back, now where was it?...

Ah yes the BBC Phoenix blog (near the bottom):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7408033.stm

Ehhh...about everyone I suppose...Certainly my name is on it. Next time we should get our name on it automatically since we're UMSF VIP treatment.

Just join the Planetary Society to get that treatment.

I assume everyone here is a member already. If they're not, they damn well should be. As a Brit who can't pay US taxes, it's the only thing I can do to contribute in a meaningful way to this sort of stuff.

Doug

It's amazing to think that some of the MECA babies are now 10 years old (although technically they were born during the creation of the Mars Environmental Compatibility Assessment for the canceled Mars Surveyor 2001, not the Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer for Phoenix -- same basic instrument, different name)

Doug, if you really want to pay US taxes, I'll be glad to work out a plan by which you can help me "contribute."

Jonathan

I'm on the DVD, and I'm both happy and embarrassed to say that it was a pointy remark from Mr Ellison on UMSF that prompted me to join in the first place, and to punt funds at various other related projects.

My name is on the disk, as are the names of everyone in my immediate family. It's kind of like riding in economy class. It would be so much nicer to have a place in first class, the plaque on the lander.

As for the microscopic imager, does anyone know what it was that it recently imaged?

It'll have imaged the sample collecting areas on the disk as a baseline before covering them in 'stuff' I would have thought. I was suprised we didn't see a OM guy at the press conf yesterday.

Doug

Even my dogs are there...
My dearest Lhoba and Mr. Bingo who, having passed away without witnessing the arrival of Phoenix but that makes me dream that there he is...quite happy and ready to dig all the way to the ice...

The first optical microsope images of Mars dust have been posted at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/main.php

• http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/phoenix/col...mhh_800-600.jpg
• http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/phoenix/col...mhh_800-600.jpg
• http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/phoenix/col...mhh_800-600.jpg
• http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/phoenix/col...mhh_800-600.jpg

I'm looking forward to the informed discussion here on UMSF about just what these images show, because, hands up, I haven't a clue. They look fascinating, but as for what's in them...

At today's press conference they more or less said that they are probably grains kicked up by the exhaust during landing, but they can't be sure they're of Martian (rather than Phoenix) origin until they grab what they know is a Martian sample with the arm and look at it. There was some discussion of the white grain (definitely not ice - it would have sublimed before the image was taken).

Wow. These are very interesting images of possible martian sedimentary particles. It's really hard to say too much about "grains mounts" such as this. You can look at the grain shape, it's opacity, and it's color - but it's hard to make any comprehensive analyses based on only that information.

A grain that is interesting to me is the pinkish, rectangularly shaped one that is "southeast" of the middle grain noted in the microscopic image. Halite frequently shows up as rectangular grains and can be stained pinkish by hematite - but then, other minerals can be pinkish and rectangular too. (shrug)

My first guess was salt or silica, but I'm no geologist, and Emily Lakdawalla has posted a more informed opinion on this:
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001497/

Re. requiring a volcanic origin for silica: I'm guessing a grain of that size could be lofted and carried to a polar position, given a few billion years...


- CH

Isn't this the kind of thing that the atomic force microscope could help settle? Silica flakes and salt crystals have rather unique and recognizable structures at atomic force scales, don't they?

-the other Doug

First sample sprinkled onto the microscope inlet:

http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/i/SS017EFF897...5_12370R6M1.jpg

Hope not too much went into the far right wet chem sampler MECA inlet...it does have its own open/close valve, but what happens to material already in that little hopper? Or is it open at the bottom until the MECA valve is in the "accept sample" position, so that any unwanted material just falls though?

Airbag

Sounds like the team is happy with the sprinkle into the Microscope.

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/06_12_pr.php

The images of the first sample have come down. Click each image for a link to the full size:

phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_4869.jpg



phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_4867.jpg



phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_4859.jpg



phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_4870.jpg

Interesting amber crystalline-looking particle (blue arrow).Click to view attachment
I hope we see lots more.
Speculation time!

Cubic? With (if I may be so bold) a corner taken out.

Click to view attachment

Oddly, I see a cylindrical 'hatbox', complete with lid, but then I'm a planktonologist with search "expectation" for centric diatoms.
NO, I don't claim it's a diatom!! I just mean I'm not the best person to identify it.

We had a comment on that arrowed grain earlier in this thread - the left half of that image was from the first batch taken about a week ago, before the soil was sprinkled...

Am I right in my impression that the consensus is that any ice particles would have sublimed away by now? If so, can these whiteish particles or grains be anything else but salts?

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

(Edit, having seen fredk's animation of particles vanishing from the trenches in the other thread: I meant that isolated icy particles on this microscopic scale would have sublimed away )

The images seem a bit out of focus?

Decepticon,

They're trying to focus grains that are fatter than the depth of focus of the instrument. In the geological world, we take a rock, or a pile of grains, glue it all together with Araldite/Epoxy, cut a slice, and grind it down to less than 30 microns thick. We still have focus issues.

here, they're taking raw grains up to 1/10 mm size (100 microns) and trying to focus them.

Focus and resolution are not independent entities. if you want to "see" grains 1 micron in size - as we do, then anything bigger than 1 micron will be out of focus.

Thanks for that explanation!

Yes, but the instrument is designed to take multiple (8) images at different focus distances, each with a depth of field of 50um. These multiple "vertical slice" images are then used on the ground to reconstruct an image where all parts (up to 200um deep) are in sharp focus, just as was done for MER's MI images, but on a much smaller scale of course. So I expect that eventually we will see images where all grains are in sharp(er) focus - assuming that was not already done!

Unfortunately, the Optical Microscope (OM) images do not show up on the otherwise very useful Phoenix SSI raw images directory web pages so there is no obvious way to tell how many "different depth" OM images have been taken and/or downloaded so far.

Does anybody know if the raw OM images are available online anywhere?

Airbag

Even before I could ask It was answered!

I can't wait to see this!

Give how easy it is to misidentify mircrosope images to those untrained in the art (as shown even in this thread), i'm sure they wouldn't release raw images until they had a chance to caption them. You wouldn't want a stray flourescent fiber from a laboratory Kimwipe sparking "Life Found on Mars" headlines.

By that token no raw images would ever be released because cosmic ray hits would inevitably be (and have been) interpreted as artificial objects in the distance, UFOs, etc.

Which was not the case of Holland against France yesterday

I just love it when images like this come together.
From the very small (on Mars) to the very big (our Sun).
Phoenix and SOHO images side by side make an interesting comparison.
Click to view attachment
Enjoy
Astro0

... damn! That's actually more than a bit profound, but won't get into it here.

EDIT: Ah, what the hell: perception is an integral part of existence. Maybe we see things of wildly different origins in similar ways just to try to make sense of it all. We are limited in so many ways.

I found that grain to be of interest too.

I also thought that it looked more cubic than round. I even speculated that it might be halite. But of course, halite isn't the only mineral to break into cubiform shapes.


One interesting quality of the grains is that many of the larger grains are rounded - which suggests a fairly high degree of abrasion. It's not surprising, given the degree of aeolian activity on the planet...

Interesting image and explanatory text of various substrates and soil samples for use with the Atomic Force Microscope:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/...ic_rotated.html

Airbag

From the caption: "The strip third from the left, with a peg spacing of 5 micrometers, has been most successful in collecting the particles."

To put into perspective, grain sizes less than 4 um are considered "fine-grained". On Earth, once compacted and cemented together, these grains could form fine-grained sedimentary rocks like mudstones and fine-grained shales.

-Mike

You know if no one had said anything I too would have thought those we the same type of image of the microscope view.

We are made of the same stuff stars are made of.

By the way, I asked about the status of OM images on the raw images website, and was told they're reworking how the captions are generated for the images, and that once they're done with that work the images should start showing up again, hopefully within a few days from now. I don't know if this means that older images will be posted or not.

--Emily

Could it be iron pyrite?

Translucent?

Looks tetragonal

This little animation just cries out to be shown on a big screen... Hold onto your chair arms though... !

This may be of interest - Dr Tom Pike - MECA - Diary on BBC News website


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7408033.stm

Sample delivery to MECA ?

Probably to WCL
Click to view attachment

Looks like my kids were playing around there.

It's interesting that of all the scientific data amassed by the spacecraft, only photographic data is released immediately in (somewhat) raw form. In the spirit of getting greedy, why not, for example, raw temperature/pressure readings throughout the day from the weather instruments, or dust readings from the laser?

The photographic data that we get is "obfuscated" slightly by the auto-levelling process used to make the images look acceptable for general purpose web browsing, that also eliminates much of the risk of anyone confusing the quickly released images for calibrated data.

The more basic non image data (like temperature measurements) present a problem because there is no acceptable way to carry out a similar sort of modification of the data that preserves an effective presentation of the form of the data without being too specific (so as to prevent confusion between uncalibrated and calibrated data).