Sorry to be putting corrections on top of corrections, but I don't believe we've heard anything official about our first destination at Endeavour. The west rim is certainly the most obvious guess, but we've had mention of rumours otherwise. In reality, perhaps a decision may not be made for some time.

Also, I was skeptical that we couldn't see the new piece of the west rim from Victoria, especially when we had those great views around sol 950. Looking again, I'm pretty sure it is visible, for example in this frame on the far right horizon:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...CNP2386L7M1.JPG
The shape looks a bit different now, but then the parallax is greatest for this closest bit of rim. The azimuth is about right.

Anyway, I agree with an earlier post, that there seems to be something hard-wired in us to want to squint and try to see what's coming up on the horizon. I can't wait to see more and more appear...

I think your right - but frankly I'd be astonished if we didn't end up on the west rim. If we're going to the twin peaks we are REALLY going the long way around. And if we are going to the FAR rim then surely we'll swing by the near rim first!

Must be one of the three, as SS says we can now see where we are going:




Thanks for that. I didn't remember seeing it before (although that feature does look familiar now you post it)

Can't wait to see more and watching them get bigger and bigger.

That's Jiigurru...
or Medusa, or Athena, or...well...you name it...

EDITED: Could someone point me on a map where exactly is that piece of the west rim mentioned by fredk? Thanks!

The latest press images include an orbital view with all three pieces of the rim identified as well as Iazu (see annotated version).

And thanks for reminding us of those older posts, Ustrax. I loved your expression "malfunctioning pareidolia"!

I'm not quite sure but it looks like a butte, this isolated hill with flat top and vertical sides - such common rock formations in Monument Valley.

It is surely a butte, illuminated from the west (left), even though the ripples don't show shadows enough to confirm the illumination angle

The shape reminds me of a nearby standing stone of dubious provenance, but "Long Stone" would be a pretty insipid name. How about "...Stone'enge!" ? (the ...pause, and the exclamation mark, are vital for the effect)

To me the feature looks more like a partially buried crater with dark sand piled along the east (left) side. I can almost make out part of the rim along the top.

We may have to wait for a second stereo hirise frame to settle this. Time to start another Great Debate?

Can Oppy be turned up to eleven in order to get there quicker?

Andy

Long, long time reader but first post.
Look at the horizon ! What a view.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...3AP2356R1M1.JPG

Maybe after visiting Endeavour...

That's great - lots of new features coming into view. Thanks for pointing it out.

Phil

That... is amazing. The left-camera view is good too: http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportu...3AP2356L6M1.JPG

Adding: And that's one of the drive-direction images.

Wow!...

Here's a noisy, aligned horizon, 6x stretched view:
Click to view attachment

My first impression was: "why would someone ressurrect an old thread to point out the hills we have already seen since VC?".
But then, after "focusing my eyes", I said to myself: "wait! wait! what's THAT!!!"

Great catch, Bill! And welcome to UMSF.

Are these faint distant hills the other side of the Endeavour rim?

Whoa, I'm starting to feel like we've finally made it across Saskatchewan and are heading into Alberta.

Oh wauw, the OTHER side!

What we are seeing are more parts (almost the whole rim!) of Iazu crater beyond and to the right of Endeavour. (The less hazy bit on the left is the near rim of Endeavour)

Here is the left and right pancams stacked, enhanced and stretched 3x with one of my 'inverse polar' images (each vertical column of pixels is one line of sight from our current position. Alignment using the pancam tracking data.

Click to view attachment

James

"Whoa, I'm starting to feel like we've finally made it across Saskatchewan and are heading into Alberta. "

Right on! In fact we must be getting near Calgary.

Phil

We're 2/3 of the way from San Antonio to Fort Stockton on our drive to El Paso. (if you want to talk about about long, awful drives)

Here's my version. Six frames - two wide, three layers to reduce noise a bit, with a bit of my patented vertical exaggeration. It will be nice to get the clean images from PDS later!

Phil

Click to view attachment

Thanks for the contrast enhanced views, people. I thought I was seeing those more distant hills in the raw jpegs, but never got around to messing with the images myself.

...or, as some down here might say, "miles and miles of miles and miles." I guess, if it applies to the plains of Texas or Canada, it also applies on a rover scale, to Meridiani Planum.

Yep, and the last service station was how many millions of miles back down the road?

Can anyone give me a mineral map of the rim of Endeavour (where Oppy is going to explore)? Squires said that the rim of Endeavour crater has a very different composition from what Oppy has seen so far in her mission, because the rim is made of very ancient terrain. What are we going to see there? basalts, water-related bedrock or something else?

The CRISM maps are here:
http://crism-map.jhuapl.edu/details.php?da...amp;y=-2.388585

That is just fantastic. To finally see proper topography at dead flat Meridiani is a real treat.

It reminds me of Spirit's first amazing shots of the distant rim of Gusev, just barely visible. I really hope over the coming days and weeks, Oppy will take more and more detailed images of the distant rim of its destination: Endeavour.

Once we turn towards the east we should see much more regular drive direction pancams of Endeavour. And as we head into winter the air should clear. So we've got lots to look forward to...

This link doesn`t work... what should I do? Thank you!

Wait and then try again. It worked yesterday when Fran posted it - the whole jhuapl.edu domain appears to be down at the moment.

Click to view attachment

This is one. I think red was olivine or iron philosilicates, green was low-Ca pyroxene and blue high-Ca pyroxene.

This new view includes the west rim of Endeavour, which is the closest bit. Since we first got a good look at the west rim, we've moved about one km south. That's enough to get a long baseline 3D view. Here's a flicker gif combining the pancam views from sol 1826 and 1898:
Click to view attachment

ustrax--how close are we to you track. I guess your predictions were in another thread, but how about providing a map of where we are going. I look at the map in the Route Map thread and can't figure out exactly where we go (other than East) after we hit the outcrop. South of the outcrop are large ripples.
James or Tesheiner or anyone else please feel free to add your suggestion/map.

I would be turning on the big outcrop, driving southeast to its southern end. Then just a bit of careful picking our way through the bigger drifts, and I think after them it's back on fairly easy ground all the way to the east. The drifty bit is longer than that by Porcupine but it doesn't look worse, so I think it can be handled.

Phil

OK, although I'm not entirely sure this is the right thread.

Here is my guess of a route to the 'parking lot', with a guess on timescales for good measure.

Here you have it Floyd, not as accurate as Tesheiner's but you get the idea...
Click to view attachment

Thanks Phil, James & ustrax---I have a much clearer "big picture".

For the first time, ever, timescales have been put on a Map at UMSF without epic epic ustrax

James making predictions and you writing "Onwards"...I'm a virus!

I'll go out on a limb here and say, not only will the "Endeavour Exit Ramp" be where we definitely make the turn towards that non-shining beacon in the distance, but that this will be the next pit stop in this leg of the race.

I thought that the rim of Endeavour consisted of sulphate rich sandstones with a similar appearance to those found so far. They may have been excavated from much lower in the 1 km thick stack of sulphate rich sandstones but would look very similar to an untrained observer to those found so far.

I think that to reach the really interesting clays beneath these deposits the floor of Endeavour crater would have to be 500 metres deeper than it is.

I believe that the closest outcrop of these interesting clays is the MSL South Meridiani landing site which is 75 km south of Opportunity's current position and the MSL Miyamoto landing site which is 150 km South West of Opportunity's current position:

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/...son_6_23_08.pdf

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/...om_Miyamoto.pdf

I am not suggesting that Opportunity could drive for a further 75 km. However, these two papers make interesting reading because they place Opportunity in its regional context. Also Opportunity is currently heading directly for the South Meridiani landing site and so if a Rover Driver was to fall asleep at the wheel then Opportunity might end up at the South Meridiani landing site by accident

I don't think Endeavour's rim will consist of the same rocks we've seen so far. The previous examples were in small craters excavated in those sandstones. My impression of Endeavour is that it's an old crater, part of the cratered terrain underlying Meridiani Planum. I think it's being exhumed by the removal of Meridiani Planum materials, but its rim materials will be very different.

Phil

I'm also anticipating the outside chance that the exhuming began before or during the presence of the Meridiani Sea* and as the rover gains in elevation I'm hoping we will encounter distinct eroded shorelines. Would that be cool or what? I'm very intrigued by what we've seen in the HIRISE images and the apparent discontinuity at the base of the slopes.

(Yes I know it could just as easily be more ventifact topography.)

Your "shorelines" could also be something else entirely, such as the outer limits of regolith creep or of ancient ground ice movement. Similar-appearing boundaries seem to be fairly common at or near distinct breaks in slope on Mars.

-- HDP Don

That's what I would expect, too. As a matter of fact, Steve Squyres discussed this topic at some length in the May 22, 2009 Science Friday interview. In short, he said Endeavor's rim rocks are completely different from the sulfate sands of Meridiani Planum, they look completely different spectrally, from orbit. He described the elevated rim as sticking up like an island, through the younger sediments.

In conclusion, to emphasize how different these rocks are, he noted that if Opportunity makes it to Endeavor's rim it will be like starting a completely new mission.

Yep they sure could be. They could be mud flows caused by excess rain on a slope where the vegetation was destroyed in last summer's wildfires. They could even be the perimeter of a massive melted ice cream sundae that re-hardened after it got cold one night. Everyone is entitled to their own wacky theory. However I wasn't using the image as evidence of anything. If you read my post again you will see that I used that image to describe my HOPE that shorelines would be encountered, and those are POSSIBLE locations where shorelines might be encountered.

Are you saying that "regolith creep" or "ancient ground ice movement" on Mars are about as likely as "mud flows caused by excess rain" or "a massive melted ice cream sundae"? Or are you saying that an ancient shoreline is about that likely. I can't tell if you are being dismissive of dburt's ideas or of your own.

He's highlighting the fact that DB failed to actually read EGD's post and used it as an excuse to push his non-aqueous meridiani theory which already has its own thread.

I've never heard of "the Meridiani Sea". My impression is that the prevailing theory is that periodically surfacing groundwater is sufficient to explain Opportunity's observations.

I think you are reading too much into throw away comments.

What different observations from Opportunity would we expect to see if the "terrain break" resulted from:

a shoreline?

a ventrifact?

from regolith creep?

from ground ice movement

(Are there key observations that could easily eliminate one or more of these?)

[Time to put yer bets down, we'll be there before we know it!]