Didn't see it earlier, but the RAC took this one through the legs at 10:30pm on SOL 96 with the sun about 1 1/2 degrees up. Very eerie...

Cute little animation here on my Gallery page if anyone wants a look...

shifting shadows

Very cool Stu!

I thought those were RGBs so a color shot could be attempted, but can't suss out the UA lg#s.

BTW: did the question of frost on the gear strut ever get "resolved"? The low light in these shots makes it look like those are big clumps sticking to the gear. My current wondering is if the heat of the engines didn't warm up the dust so that it got a bit sticky, just like the rasp maybe heated up the ice samples and gave them some stick. Then the question of frost - the clumps look lighter - gets answered, how? That north gear is mostly shadowed so the metal keeps colder than the surface and the frost can stick around?

They were RGB-lit, but from what I could see, the lights didn't brighten up the scene enough to make a color image. The ambient light is just too bright for the colored lamps to make a significant contribution (at least to the level of detail visible in the raw images).

Oh, right. The RAC doesn't have filters - just the lights.

Those images look to me like flash photos taken inside a cave. Very cool.

It is very cool,

Also this @ 22:30 LMST on Sol 96. Holy Cow in complete shade.
Click to view attachment

Andrew Brown.

Nice image, 3488. The more time passes, the more the spotty leg puzzles me. I've not seen any suggested mechanisms that account for three key features (as I remember them, happy to be corrected!):

1. The phenomena is only apparent on one leg, of three;
2. The "spots" were apparent in the first post-landing images, but their apparent size and density increased in the first couple of weeks on the surface;
3. The existing lumps don't appear to have continued growing as the sun sinks lower in the sky and (presumably) local surface temperatures decrease; they reached their current state and stopped.

Dust and soil blown around at landing time, perhaps with a thin melted surface film of water, was been the proposed mechanism that most appealed to me, but it doesn't seem to account for points (1) and (2).

What have I missed?

Hi imipak,

My guess is that the sublimation has ceased from Holy Cow & Snow Queen.

I think that you are correct linking the cessation of the growth of the globules on the leg with the lowering Sun.

'Night time' temperatures have lowered on average 5 C / 9 F since the Solstice & that is maybe enough to make the difference. Either way, the end game for Phoenix is drawing closer now but hopefully, she will survive to mid - late November when solar conjunction is nearing & power levels will be desperate.

We are already seeing daily morning H2O frosts now, maybe in the shadows persisting into the afternoons.

Below I've cropped & enlarged the Sun just beneath the horizon on Sol 101 @ 01:23 HRS LMST.
Click to view attachment

Andrew Brown.

It's strange, and irritating, that the strut close to the camera is pristine, while those intriguing splotches absolutely cover the more distant leg, too far away to get a good look.

I think the interference between the jet plumes and the surface being not homogenous might have made the dust spray in an interesting fashion. It's neat the way the dust piles up in drifts on the boundaries of the "competing" plumes and I wonder if there might not have been some of the spray that got kicked up that little hill, into the underside/radar of the lander, then fell back on that leg strut. Still wonder if the stuff was sticky 'cause it got heated by the jets, somewhat like the RAC's rasping friction heat, and has stayed stuck.