An article in New Scientist says about the location of recent digging:



Is Cupboard on "the edges of a pentagon"? If not, where would those edges be?

Had to chuckle at the wonderfully sarky comment on Mark Lemmon's pix page for Sol 78's planned activities...

Document "Stone Soup" trench (because Dodo, Goldilocks, Upper and Lower Cupboard aren't enough names for 1/4 square meter of Mars)

Wow is right. I like 'em both! I prefer your colorization, but wonder what the "official" version would look like. Isn't there supposed to be some bluish casts away from the sun center somewhere?

Could replicating the colors on Mark's NASA release of the Peter Pan, and using that as a color template for the sunset shots work? I'd try it, but I'm not a pixel jockey like you and some of the other folks here. (I've tried!)

I like them both, too, but have to vote for the original. Certainly there must be ice and/or CO2 crystals in the upper atmosphere that will spectrum-out the sunset light...it can't all be ruddy, all the time!

The "pentagon" is in "Tuscon" ... (check out the story...)

Close. Stone Soup.

Planetary Society Weblog: Phoenix sol 76 update: Digging at Neverland, Cupboard, Stone Soup [...]

Phoenix sees frost...

Awesome! Now they can work on a dawn panorama...

Ooh. Are all those green and blue sparkles in the full-size image (e.g. the green one at bottom centre) transient reflections off ice crystals caught in a single filter? (On a brief look, I haven't found a similar but older false-colour press-release image to compare to.)

Colourisation of the first frost...

Click to view attachment

"Before and After" image here...

Ah, thanks:



That jibes with the NS article that they'll be looking for perchlorate concentrating at deeper levels.

The beginning of the end.

As this frost starts getting thicker and thicker as time goes on, would it have any particular science value?

And is frost going to be an issue to the point where Phoenix will find itself often shoveling it out of its trenches? Or will Phoenix die before then?

Sad to say...but, yeah. Hurry up, guys, tempis fugit.

Hungry, if the Viking 2 experience provides any sort of reference, no, they won't have to shovel it out; for the first few weeks of winter anyhow it'll sublimate away pretty fast after sunrise. As the days grow shorter, though, it'll persist & pile up; not sure if Phoenix will live long enough to see the ground perpetually covered in frost before there's just not enough solar energy available to keep it powered up.

While it is a sign that temperatures are dropping, they did note that currently the frost is only present earlier than 6 AM. We still have some time left before Phoenix freezes over. It is kind of cool to finally see some frost after speculating so much about it. I had previously noticed a few "frost spot" locations that were apparently being monitored from time to time. This particular site was named "Winkies and Quadlings."

I found one of the previous observations (sol 60) with false colors that most closely matched those of the frost image (sol 79), and slapped together a gif animation showing the scene with and without frost. The frames are straight RGB composites from the raw jpegs.

Click to view attachment

Very nice indeed, Tom, thank you!

Brr. I feel the cold chill already, and was reminded of this song by The Bangles, a remake of a Simon & Garfunkel original: "Hazy Shade of Winter". She's gotta live fast & die young, unfortunately.

That's a classic song that I haven't heard in ages, nprev. Thanks for the nostalgia fix.
There are plenty of metaphors in those clever lyrics that might be applied to Phoenix's situation.

Very nice animation Tom. As Nick said, BRRRRR!!!!

Had a go myself - slightly wider angle view than yours - which is hanging in the Gallery now...

Thanks for the song link Nick. Not a huge fan of the song itself, but any excuse to see Susanna Hoffs again is greatly appreciated

S and G obviously wrote this verse about the Lazarus mode on Phoenix



Hang on to your hopes, my friend
Thats an easy thing to say, but if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend
That you can build them again
Look around, the grass is high
The fields are ripe, its the springtime of my life


Roy

Remember everyone, the solar arrays are dark, so therefore will be warmer than the surface as they absorb more solar energy.
Certainly the first frost IS the beginning of the end, averyage Sol temperatures will only get lower now, but I do not think it's signalling the imminent end of the Phoenix Mission & certainly IMO, Sol 124 for the extention mission end is not unreasonable.

What I expect instead, is that surface operations will reduce, as more time will be required to charge the batteries & leep the internal heaters operating.

Perhaps the RA & TEGA will have to be mothballed in the relatively near future, as they do use a lot of power, but the SSI, Meterology suite etc use relatively little & they should operate right to the bitter end.

Interesting observation & certainly now early morning obs should be made compulsory every sol now, to monitor the build up & sublimation of frost.

When does it form?

Before Midnight? After midnight?

Does anyone know what the temperature was when the frost was imaged?

Andrew Brown.

Strangely enough, I heard that song, that version, for the first time in years -- yesterday on the way in to work while contemplating how one would follow-up these observations.

Don't go too far down the beginning-of-the-end track. There is of course some truth (nextersol is the first sol of the rest of your life ...). But there is more than one variable that determines whether frost forms. [incidentally, this line of thought is purely speculative and based only on released images--we'll know more later]

Ah... I get it... ( nudge nudge...)... you're saying that the "frost" is actually the condensed breath of subsurface martian lifeforms which worship The Bangles as gods, but you can't say anything until the - (wink) - Proper Authorities have been briefed and the comeback album is recorded...



JOKE!!!!! <------ please read.

Then there will be peace between Man & Martian. I too worshipped The Bangles, but only from afar, alas...<sigh><swoon><drool>...

Oh, man, that was soooo not supposed to be leaked yet...

Beautiful to see this frost..... but a harbinger that time is marching on for Phoenix.

nprev... must admit I am from the S and G generation but the Bangles are a heckuva lot more fun to watch

Thanks all...

Craig

Yes, they are, aren't they? A very talented and IMHO underappreciated group in many ways. The fact that every one of them is stunning of course plays no part at all in my estimation (really!)

Really really...always thought that song truly kicked a**. They looked every bit as good as they sounded! (Must confess; I share Stu's infatuation with Susanna, but we ain't gonna fight for her; she's taken.)

(cough, splutter) Steady on there, I didn't say I was infatuated! I actually preferred the bass guitarist, the striking redhead who never smiled. I think she was called "Michael" tho, for some reason.

Anyway, Bangles were ok, but if you want to see real 80s talent then look no further than the GoGos, who not only gave us some great tunes as a band but also gave the world Jane Wiedlen AND Belinda Carlisle, who gave us the classic "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" the 12" of which I could always rely on to fill dancefloors when I was dj'ing school parties... (warning: video contains bizarre jogging masked children... twenty years on I still have no idea why...)

Sorry... I think I'm scaring the younger members now... I'll shut up.

Sorry;I damn sure am! (Cool; now all I gotta fight is her husband!)

I prefer the S&G version of the song, for a couple of reasons: first, they wrote it; second, it's one of those sliding-key things that Art Garfunkle liked to play with, and that his voice seems uniquely suited to; third, it's the first version of the song that I was familiar with, and in such things are preferences forged.

Besides, we sang that song in Chorus in high school, and performed it at a choral concert in the fall of my senior year, and it was the S&G tempo and presentation we used as a guide. The Bangles' version is punctuated differently, from a percussion and general rhythm perspective.

Now, if you were to ask me for a preference between the Bangles and S&G for sitting around and chatting in a clothing-prohibited sauna, well... the Bangles win that, hands down. I'll always Walk Like an Egyptian for those girls...

As for the lines that feel to me very much a part of what Phoenix is doing right now, there are two little clips I'd like to point out:


Seasons change with the scenery,
Weaving time in a tapestry,
Won't you stop and remember me...?


and...


Look around,
Leaves are brown,
There's a patch of snow on the ground....


-the other Doug

... and if there are any young whippersnappers out there thinking "What's all this fuss about the 80s?" then take a look at this, and then you'll know why we oldies shake our heads at your 'hippety hop' music and think your bling-draped gangsta goons are so silly!

Oh, and our cartoons were much better than today's too...

At first I thought they were the usual suspects, ccd noise/cosmic rays, but now I think they are true reflections. Other morning frost spot images (taken before the first frost) don't show such sparkles, and in the sol 79 frames that do show them, there are many that coincide exactly in their locations between the R, G, and B frames.

I don't know about that, but you're scaring me, and I'm almost 40!

So, about this Mars lander thingy... I can't help but notice we've less than a week before the end of the original, 90 sol mission.

Here you go, "the other Doug"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yheo2AgNywU

Love the little trumpet duh duh Dah de DA

GROOVIE!!!!!!!

Three years after they performed this I had hair below my shoulder blades..... (memories... it was the springtime of my life)

And Stu... ahem, every generation "does their thing". Tolerance!?

Apologies to Doug for getting WAY off topic... promise to behave after this

Craig

I've been pondering this too, and there just seem to me to be too many of them, and of so many different colours, for them all to be noise or cr hits. Will definitely be worth keeping an eye on this area - and others, tho this one seems to be the fave frost hunting ground - for more frost as the sols pass. I hope we'll see a concerted effort now to monitor this area and observe the frost forming and creeping towards the lander as the days and weeks pass, should tell us a lot, as well as giving us some truly beautiful pictures.

Speaking of which, will we see anything as dramatic as this Viking pic, do you think..?

Join ya in way OT...The Bangles really did do it better, all due respect to the original composers.

(Good Lord, I've created a monster!!! Everybody back to Phoenix activities, now, now, now!)

Stu, with respect to that V2 pic: sure hope so, and more.

On topic now....

Really am looking forward to watching the frost develop over time.

Hope that they can eke out enough power to continue to get MET data (which seems to be the forgotten instrument complement, but I am just as fascinated with their data and wish we got more of it. Understand they get temp measurements from three differnet heights along the mast. Love it if they would publish a daily for each.... think in midday your toes would be a lot toastier than your head) well past the time when TEGA AND MECA are done.

Also imaging of the MET mast and the surroundings for as long as power holds. I assume MRO will image as long as the area stays sunlit and assume MRO will image again come sping.

Really COOL. In fact... GROOVIE does cover it!!!

Craig

How long until we see something like this...?

Click to view attachment

BTW: if anyone else has been wondering what "Winkies" and "Quadlings" - the main rocks in this scene - are named after, apparrently they were two of the tribes of the Land of Oz.

Actually I am hoping for something similar to this
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7323592@N07/434469147/

But this will be well past the H2O frost point and into the CO2 ice regime. Assume well past the point of any power reserves on Phoenix. And I assume this will probably be well past the point where much sunlight reaches this latitude.

Craig

Thanks! I wondered about that. I'm almost learning as much about fairy-tales and mythology as Mars.

Question: where does "Fiducials" come out of. The modern American financial system Fairy Story?
(No wait... that's fiduciary...)

Where? An optical microscope diagram? That's where I've seen it: they were test images, or marks on the wheel, maybe the MECA babies text. Wikipedia: Fiducial



I think both fiducial and fiduciary are related to matters of trust.

Well that explains the "SSI Fiducials" taken from SOL 1 through SOL 9 of the same bit of lander and surface. I wondered about those. (It also gave me an excuse for an obscure and lame joke, sadly...)

Hey, wayyy beyond cool... freakin' COLD! "Frosty the Mirror"
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

But all the roadsigns say "Bridges may freeze before main road" or something like that. The surface has physical contact with mass below it, so I'm not sure if the difference in albedo outweighs the factors of thermal inertia.

Moreover, remember the martian regolith is already very dark -- about 15% albedo? Something with 3% albedo doesn't absorb 5 times as much solar energy -- only 1.14 times as much. Moreover, specular surfaces can be surprisingly cool because they actually *do* reflect a lot of sunlight, but you don't see it unless you're in the glint.

More frost...?

I think so Stu! Here's a rough hack at the sol 83 morning mosaic (minus one frame).

Sol 83, 06:07-06:39 R8/RB/R2

Yes Stu, I confirm .
See this pan I've made (same sol of your picture). We clearly see frost patches on the left, and on the solar pannel, at the middle :


I've also made an animation of the LIDAR (the first pictures taken?) on Sol 82. I'm wondering what are these shinny things into the laser, frost on dust particules?

Awesome work, both of you Frost Hounds... waay ahead of me!

Love this little "frost patch" ( cropped from your image Ant, hope you don't mind...)

Click to view attachment

It seems like there's probably not too much in the way of "weather" going on here besides the diurnal and seasonal effects. I would guess that this is a one-way train. If there's frost one sol, there'll be frost -- and slightly more of it -- the next sol. Winter or bust.

Yep. Fun to watch it develop, tho...

Cooked flies...

Yeah Stu, looks almost like a frozen slop