The only thing missing is the Wicked Witch saying, "I want your little dog!"

That animation is cool... and creepy.

Psssst, guys... wanna see something ?

I was bored - should be attacking this huge pile of editing, but really not in the mood - so I thought I'd try animating some of the microscope images from Sol 112, just see if any little grains shifted... I think this classifies as "shifting", don't you..?

Click to view attachment

Cute or what?

... and in colour...

Click to view attachment

... and a "jewelised colour" version on my Gallery blog...

Good eye Stu. This is amazing. I took the one from your web page and aligned the backgrounds (somewhat) to sort of stabilize it. It then makes the whole pile come alive.

[EDIT: IMPROVED IMAGE UPDATED 9/28 ]

Reaction #1: woooo-weeee!!! Disco dancin' dust grains!!!

Reaction #2: Damn. Wish I'd thought to do that...

You're a genius Dan!

Great animations, but you guys obviously know something that I don't because my initial reaction is:

Reaction #1: woooo-weeee!!! Disco dancin' dust grains!!! (apologies to Stu for borrowing his words)

Reaction #2: This is the weak magnet - why is it so!!!

Is this a function of a variable magnetic field or just vibration of the wheel with the weak field enabling some movement? What are the magnetic parameters for the magnetic cells? Are these pemanent magnet or coil? Is this a deliberate feature of the OM capability?

I'd have to think it's wind moving the grains, young grasshopper...

-the other Doug

I would agree since they appear to be moving at random, whereas if this was due to the influence of a magnet they'd more or less be rocking back and forth together.

Wind? Within the dark confines of the OM? Ommmmm - old and wise Master Other Doug, the ways of the lander designers and the subtle effects of the Martian environment are more wonderous than ever I thought.

Wow! That's really nifty, EGD. I'm not sure which forces could be controlling the disco dance. I'll throw electrostatic discharges into the suggestion box. OMG, that is really nice. I suppose motor vibrations transmitted through the solid members of the lander might possibly cause a similar effect, as fredk suggested elsewhere. You would have to know the timing of all motor operations with regard to the timing of the capturing of the MI images.

It would be helpfull to know the lengths of time between the images. I'm too busy to look for that information. Mars exploration continues to be quite a lot of fun, is it not?

They drive a motor to pull focus - so that could cause vibrations to move material.

Wind passing overhead can cause airflow in the bottom of a screwhole, among other things... and these are very, very small and light dust particles, for the most part. The same particles might blow up into the air when exposed to non-sheltered winds... in the "dark confines," which aren't exactly hermetically sealed, I bet the winds could create enough airflow to account for the movement we're seeing.



-the other Doug

edit -- I'm being *very* good, I think, by not pointing out how much it appears like one of the larger grains is being moved around by a teeny tiny little winged insect, which appears to the grain's left edge about halfway through the animation... and yes, I know, it's just lighting and underlying grain movement. But, man, that really looks like a tiny little mi+e-like insec+ in that one shot. Amazing what the pattern-seeking human mind thinks it can see in the darndest of places...

-dvd

Some of the other 'free thinking' forums have already determined the likelihood of biological influences in these OM without the smiley icon - ferromagnetic structures must of necessity be biological. But fair enough - each to his own.

On a serious note I would plumb for vibration combined with the weak magnetic stabilising influence. I don't think that under the current atmospheric pressure the recorded wind speeds could have this effect through what must be a miniscule path to the OM interior. But how can we know when even the most minor information on the magnetic parameters seem to be a state secret. We still haven't had the somewhat dubious press release on variation in atmospheric vapour pressure clarified in absolute rather than relative terms. In fact even the relative terms are not defined. As pointed out by Marsbug, a somewhat sloppy press release.

Before we go too far on the dancing dust motes, do we know whether or not the Sample Wheel Translation Stage (SWTS) moved between these images. If it rotated this sample away and then returned to it later, we would have a simple explanation.



Steve M

If it is indeed wind causing the movement of the grains, wouldn't the smallest grains be affected first, rather than the larger (heavier) grains? Or would the larger grains' higher profiles make them more liable to be affected by the wind?

If it is a magnetically induced effect, then obviously only the large, moving grains are feeling that effect. But other than size, there doesn't seem to be any obvious visible differences between the moving and non-moving grains. Most of the visible physical differences (which are many) certainly don't discriminate by whether or not there is movement.

In the animation one can see that at each frame the focus is different. They have done this before. By taking a picture at various focal lengths they can combine the images and get a final image that is in focus everywhere. The only problem, however, is that if there is any movement of the subject matter between pictures this image processing trick won't work! :-)

Which trench were these "dancing" samples taken from?

Stone Soup trench

Texas A&M University Phoenix SSI Raw Images Directory:



Imaged sol 112 (Raw Images).

Thank you.

The movement seems confined to the dark grains while the yellowish dust seems fixed. While it looks like some of the yellow dust has conglomerated and is 'dancing to the beat' on closer inspection the yellow dust is adhering to darker particles and it is the particles doing the moving. Is this magnetic or static adhesion I wonder. The dust itself seems highly magnetic as where there are no dark particles involved it clings doggedly to the substrate, even with the weak magnetic attraction. (Weak being a subjective term as we have no idea of the cell parameters).


It is a beautiful picture and a really cool effect. But without any indication of the cell properties or the likely sample constituents from other analysis tools then a pretty picture is all it is.

Well, sometimes a pretty picture is enough

Speaking of which, here's another almost-certainly scientifically useless animation, showing changes in frost (and a bit of new digging, too?) on a trench floor on the morning of Sol 113. Images used in the .gif were taken at 06.34(ish) and 07.10(ish).

Click to view attachment

... and there's a colourisation here of the same view taken at 18.13 on the same day... frost's still there, and the floor has been hacked at quite a bit!

"Shifting Shadows and Flashing Frost"...

Frost spots caught forming in a Sol 114 sequence..?

Thanks for the gif, Stu. I think we're seeing tiny ice crystals with flat faces that reflect the sun to the camera when the sun's at just the right angle. Not all of them brighten steadily - some brighten and then dim, so I think they may not be forming during the sequence, just sitting there, waiting to catch the sun at the right angle.

Can anybody substantiate this?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26781854/

MarsPhoenix Twitter:

Ah, didn't think of that. Makes sense, thanks. I'll amend my Gallery blog accordingly

Sol 114... Snow White... low angle Sun... frost twinkling away...

Click to view attachment

Priceless

Some new Snow White colourisations here, if anyone wants a break from dreaming of conquering the Endeavour Peaks...

Some nice shots showing the RAC LED's in opperation, here's the red ones:
http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/i/SS116ESF906...8_1D790RAM1.jpg

Can anyone figure out what we're seeing here: there's a change in the border of the rectangular black area between the two banks of LEDs between these two frames:
http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/i/SS116ESF906...6_1D790RAM1.jpg
http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/i/SS116ESF906...0_1D790RAM1.jpg
The lighting hasn't changed much as you can see by the shadows. Is that the RAC camera apperture?

Sol 116 Raw Images

The RAC and SSI shoot each other.

That's a LOT of fun

Hahahaha, it's Disco era all over again!

Robbie the Robot, eat your heart out!

We've got the colors; now all we need is the Close Encounters... theme music! dum...dum..dum...dum...dummmmm

Phoenix twitter has this info :

"I've been given a pretty cool assignment: use my arm to move aside a rock. It will be interesting to see if it works & to see what's under! "

Any clues as to where this will take place and why ?

I can just imagine her resolutely humming "ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive...stayin' alive" as the cardice condenses in due course

Headless. Sol 117. To get to the other side -- or, to see what the ice is like underneath.

JPL Phoenix Mission News: NASA's Phoenix Lander Might Peek Under a Rock

Thanks, your great numberness

Head shake...
Click to view attachment

There is a transparent cover deployed in the earlier image and protecting the optics in the last, with a border. The aperture is within the black area.

Headless has been moved.

Headless moved, alright...

Click to view attachment

( full size version here )

Stu - I've gotta say it - Your 3D work is spectacular. I could have almost reached through my screen into that trench and picked up that rock!

Thanks Hugh, appreciate that. Here's a colourised version...

Click to view attachment

Check this out:
http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meeting/sep-08/index.html

Especially this presentation:

http://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/meeting/sep-08/P...nix_results.ppt

Which is a nice summary of Phoenix including a very nice graph of power levels over the course of the mission so far. There's a nice topographic map of the site too.

Phil

NASA will hold a televised media briefing on Monday, Sept. 29, at 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT). Briefing participants will provide an update of the Phoenix Mars Mission.

The briefing will be carried live by NASA TV and on the Internet at: NASA TV

Notice on the available power profile slide there is a mention of a "Lazarus Mode" which seems to imply they are going to put Phoenix into some sort
of state that 'might' allow them to 'resurrect' Phoenix in the martian spring.... The existence of such a mode implies they are not 100% convinced the
mission will end with the onset of winter.

The Lazarus mode has been discussed for a long time. I don't think anyone is expecting it to realistically come into play, but it's just common sense to put the code in there to give the vehicle a chance were that situation to arise.

Doug

I would say "they" are 99.999999% sure it will not survive winter. It never hurts to plan for the best possible outcome...

I'm pretty sure that the CO2 ice build up (which will kick in in earnest at around Sol 210 IIRC) will eventually lead to Phoenix being encased in many tens if not hundreds of kg of solid CO2. I may have been mistaken in the data I extracted from the Mars Climate Database in this post from earlier in the year but I think it is certain that the ice build up will break off the solar panels even if it is not sufficient to literally crush Phoenix. I certainly don't expect Phoenix to wake up but I'll happily eat my words if she does.

The one thing that I wonder about, and we may never know, is the way they talk about the panels breaking off from the build up of CO2. My gut feeling is that the CO2 is going to accumulate from the ground up. Indeed the shadowed regions under the lander will likely see the first significant growth of solid CO2 and that area will likely always have more of it until the whole region is buried. That would mean that while the panels may wind up embedded in the ice, they probably won't ever be holding up a heavy load. My guess would be that any CO2 deposition on the panels will probably occur when the ground is already waist deep in the stuff.

Does anyone know if Phoenix has been imaged by an orbiter while its Lidar was turned on?
If the orbiter was directly overhead when the lidar was on, could the orbiter see the lidar beam or light from it?
I could imagine so since a laser being pointed straight into the camera sensor should be detectable!
If so, I wonder if toward the end of the mission when Phoenix does not have enough power to run its radio transmitters, could it
send a "I am still alive" signal to the orbiters by blinking its Lidar at them when they are scheduled to be overhead. (I presume operating
the laser takes a lot less energy than operating the UHV/VHF radios...)
Also, in general, I wonder if any atmospheric science could be done by imaging the lidar beam from orbit.