Well, since Opportunity has left Victoria Crater, it is time for a new thread.
To the next phase of exploration. May she find exotic cobbles and visit exciting new craters.
-Floyd

According to the Planetary News Report of A.J.S. Rayl, Opportunity is ready rove. Due to wind gust on sols 1620 & 1633, and less tilt, she is up to 620 watt-hours from 370. Quoting from the report: ...Opportunity will soon begin the much-anticipated study of an assortment of cobbles on the plains, perhaps on a field of the intruder stones just to the north, though that is not yet set in Martian stone. "We haven't picked the first cobble yet," Squyres said, "but that's something we'll be thinking about in the next few days."

Hehe... Well there sure are a lot of cobbles and ancient craters out there for the team to study. I can't wait to see where they go, next.

Would it be possible to get an old route map marked up with notable cobble sightings? Give us an idea of where they might be headed.

The Santa Caterina area on the north rim of Victoria is a good candidate.

Phil

http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_ins...162B_dstar.html - Granada I think it's called....probably only a couple of weeks good driving back around Victoria - and some diversity visible even in the approx true colour

Doug

It would be interesting to try some trenching in, around, and through the cobble piles to see if there is evidence of impact near the surface. If the cobbles were deposited in ancient times, then probably no impact evidence remains, but if they arrived on a recent timescale we might see some deformation or compression of the subsurface soil particles.

Is there any risk doing some trenching regarding the weel issue?

This is in the imaging plan for sol 1648 (tomorrow):
01648::p2446::18::16::16::0::0::2::34::pancam_cobble_field_L257R2

First target maybe?

The following 3rd September Opportunity Update talked about where the rover would drive to next:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...tml#opportunity

I do not think that this update has been discussed yet in UMSF.

This Update said:

"...The rover also acquired images of a planned study area known as "Bright Spot" because of the large amount of sunlight reflected from its surface..."

The Update also said:

"...Sol 1639:...Opportunity took images of "Bright Patch Two" with the panoramic camera..."

Is it possible that "Bright Patch 2" is part of "Bright Spot"? This seems to be the PANCAM photo of "Bright Spot 2" that is being referred to:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...OYP2571L2M1.JPG

The way that I read the Update, "Bright Patch 2" and "Bright Spot" are new targets several meters away from Opportunity's current location and are not simply located on the large sand ripple on the rim of Victoria? Does the direction of Bright Spot give any indication as to whether Opportunity will be travelling North, South, East or West next?

I'll double-check later but AFAIK these features are all located at the current site.

I'm not sure, "Bright Patch 2" is as your image link shows, right in front of Oppy. Could "Bright Spot" be the "bright_dust" sequence taken on sol 1641:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...4P2442R2M1.HTML

The drive yestersol (1648) was a short one in this direction, so this looks like it may be the next target. (Next drive is tomorrowsol (1650))

I was kind of hoping Bright Spot was the Beacon and they were going to head over and examine it. Mind you, that would be a long hike over to the far rim, but it is on the way toward Ithaca.

Brian

Speaking about driving, I would expect much more moves now that the IDD "shoulder" motor is left unusable.
Think of it; if you want to sniff/look at a target to the left/right of the centerline the rover must be moved instead of just moving the arm to the target's position.

Well, looking at today's front and rear hazcams, I think they are asking for an embedding if they continue trying to get to Bright Whatever. Front wheels seem to be digging in and rear tracks look like some churning going on. That's a scary looking drift.

This bright ripple they are trying to get stuck in is now called "Bagnold"

Good to meet you!

Hmmmm...
Bagnold -> Long Range Desert Group -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Unditch1.jpg

...he lived to 94.

( Ob.xkcd: http://xkcd.com/214/ ... )

guess we won't be looking for cobbles

Why would you say that? These rovers have found cobbles almost everywhere they went.

Most people seem to be estimating that it will take 1 year for Oppy to reach Endurance. However, SS estimates that it will take 2 years. I think that the reason for the difference is that during these 2 years Oppy will be parked for around 365 SOLs doing science.

Cobbles may still be very important, but since cobbles are present everywhere then Oppy may as well drive in the direction of its next big science goal as it searches for cobbles.

Optimistic. The reason for the difference is more likely to be periods when Opportunity is stuck or taking evasive action to avoid being stuck. The route will be a long maze of many little obstacles.