.

It's a great site, but it was rejected a while ago. The current crop of MSL sites (7 now in the running) can be seen here:

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/index.html


But don't despair. Jezero just happens to be one of the three sites (others are Arsia Mons west flank and Mangala Valles) chosen for the three-voyage reference mission for the first human expeditions to Mars. You can read a fascinating report on this here:

http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports/HEM-SAG_...raft_4_v2-2.doc

Imagine a 500 day stay in Jezero complete with pressurized rovers.

Phil

.

Yes, another delta. But I'm not sure it offers enough chemical diversity to be appealing, and to my mind the extended mission options are a bit limited. All these sites would be fantastic missions, though. My favourite was Nili Fossae but now Gale looks great as well. The presentations at the 3rd workshop should be interesting - they will all be on the web.

Phil

For totally nonscientific reasons, I hope they choose one of the more topographically interesting options.

Phil,

the article on Gale crater is compelling and exciting.

* MSL Landing Sites: Gale, Reconsidered
Edgett, Milliken, Grotzinger, Malin

I would love to see MSL climb the 5km high mound in the crater and study the strata!
it is twice the height (and sequence) of the Grand Canyon!

The images alone!

I am on the Gale Crater bandwagon!

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/index.html

I looked through the current landing site options, and the exciting news is that there are now at least two sites where the rover could sample both sulfate and multiple types of phyllosilicate material. Gale looks like a more exciting site, but the southern Meridiani site looks good, too. I wonder if the new CRISM data will reveal both sulfates and phyllosilicates in close proximity at the other sites under consideration.

An odd coincidence(?): "Jezero" means "lake" in Serbocroatian.

There's no such thing as serbocroatian anymore as the people here would say. Other than that, yes, I did find the name very interesting.

True. Gordan, is it more Serbian or more Croat, or is the word pretty much the same in both languages?

Both. Both languages are very similar as is bosnian. I wouldn't be at all surprised if other slavic languages had the same word for lake as well - slovenian language at least comes to mind.

It varies a bit, it is "Jezioro" in polish and "Ozero" in Russian. I think "jezero" in Slovenian too.

Let's call the whole thing off!

Thanks, you guys; interesting.

(Sigh)...sure do envy you polylinguists. I'm barely competent in German and Korean by American standards (i.e., I can call a cab & get something to eat), but that's it. I don't know how you all achieve such fluency without cultural immersion.