Why do we always "play off" science against driving ? .... As if the driving was just for fun.
How about the equation "driving = science" ...
For, in a sense, the driving could be viewed as a very long range science instrument deployment ... the deployment of our instruments to Endeavour, for example.
Rather it seems a question of priorites as in "science here" vs. "science there (at Endeavour)" for which I would always vote for the latter

just a thought.

1709 looks like 95m SE - onto the edge of a large area of pavement. I've tacked a guess onto Tesh's 1707 map, but leave it to him to do a proper version for the route map thread.

Doug

Nice driving ground.

Big dunes on the side of a sand clean area, could it be a "cleaning event" place?

Cool-o! There are some pretty long fractures out there on the pavement!

Are there fewer blueberries in/on the rock there than on average?
(Kinda looks that way to me)

I don't think they have yet determined whether these rocks have been swept clean, or deposited on the sand.

Sol 1709 Navcam QuickTime VR (1.7 MB)

Apologies to any japanese members, but this is the most beautiful rock garden in the solar system

It has a nice view, too (as Doug already posted). The drive direction mosaic this time spans 108 degrees from due east to due south.



This may be an obvious comment after five years, but stitching these mosaics is kind of addictive. Edit: Replaced it with a higher res version.

Beautiful!
So many times we have thought about this ground, far from Victoria...and now we're here...seing it for the first time...impressive!

Doug, if your map is correct, it looks like the paths, the hypothetical and the real, converged once more...I feel more comfortable now...

Click to view attachment

An Island in the "Sea of Sand"...

These are the first eastward-pointing pancam views in a while. I believe this is a piece of Endeavour poking over the horizon, perhaps our first view of our long-term destination since Victoria?
Click to view attachment

There's an interesting boundary cutting across the bedrock "island" before us. You can see it clearly in this navcam - the bedrock is darker on the near side of the green line than on the far side:
Click to view attachment
I've identified it in the orbital view (green line), together with the sol 1709 location:
Click to view attachment
Any thoughts on what we're seeing here? Topography/shading? Light or dark coating on one side? Different composition of rock?

I noticed that too.

Good eye. You'd be a good person to hike through the Grand Canyon with, Fred.

They know we've caught on, and don't want to tip their hand anymore.

Perhaps this indicates that they are looking for areas on the runway to get up close and personal with. I would be very surprised if this meant a long range turn to the SE.

In effect, it's a nice place to drive, which is remember me a famous french bicycle race named Paris-Roubaix. There are tracks were you must have roll on true pavements of stone (like thus we can find in old town center).

Just for fun, I have played with the last FHC view (reprojected into equirectangular, and colorized).

I'm wondering if somone can make a QTVR of this (and if my reprojection is good with a 120° of FOV)?

the solar conjunction nears (see LASCO C3 movie) http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mpeg/

Left hand is Mars, the other Mercury.

Maybe it's such a neat view, they decided to make a 'poor man's panorama.'

It's labelled "pancam_drive_direction_R12", but you might be right. Maybe 200 years from now this is where the "scenic overlook" will be located.

Nice and different view Ant!
Regarding Paris-Roubaix, this race is (nearly every year) run during rainy conditions hence slipery pavments.
The pavment here is the only place where we're sure not seing any slipery.

Ant103 ... a superb image !!!

Echoing EGD, good eye! Inasmuch as the semi-planar surface of the bedrock appears wind-scoured (sand-blasted), and the contact is fairly linear, I'd guess that we're looking at two different layers of rock (slightly tilted up, perhaps; "very weakly dipping" to the geologist), rather than a difference in coating or topography. Just a guess, mind you.

-- HDP Don

If we have a 600kb attachment every time you get comfortable, the server will be full before we get to Endeavour.

What time of the sol was this taken, and where was the sun relative to Oppy and this patch? It seems that it's only brighter in the center of the photo, almost as if we were seeing "opposition effect" brightening.

The boundary identified by Fredk can be clearly seen on a polar view of the navcam mosaic.
Click to view attachment

On another topic, sol 1710 seems to be driving day too. I wasn't aware we came out of restricted sols.
Now, let me move to the route map thread; I was out on a business travel so today's update is a little bit late.

Could it be due to the crease/fracture in the rock? Is the darker pavement lightly dipping down to the ESE into the crease, while the brighter pavement sections are rising (wind exposed) up out of the crease? I'm assuming the darker pavement is due to a sprinkling of sand on the rock surface.

A closer comparison of the two surfaces should nail this. If there is no sand on the nearside pavements, it's gotta be due to the rock itself.

-Mike

that stitch makes it clearer that the darkening at the edges is an artifact of the imaging system - the edge of every frame is darker than the middle.

Sorry man..bad ustrax...I promise to restrain myself in the future...

Staring more at Fredk's image, it looks like the brighter zone of pavement is a narrow band that goes in an arc around Oppy's position.

HiRise imagery shows a dune "change" extending to the W along the boundary.

There seems to be another similar pattern to the N, and there *might* be a few others in the area. (I'm still pretty clueless as to the dune patterns, why are the big sand traps oriented SW/NE?)
Click to view attachment

Indicated in green on this image above (modified from Eduardo's Opportunity Route Map)
[Infilled small Erebus-style crater indicated with red dashed line]

-Mike

This is acceptable

re : "I wasn't aware we came out of restricted sols", are you talking of Oppy or Yourself?
You deserve restricted sols, Eduardo, you realy do...

I can at last say that I agree with Don.

Yesterday I forgot to post this alternative colorization of Ant103 reprojected HazCam frame... cool!

I love those hazcam reprojections. I hope you guys will continue to make more for us.

I can't help but wonder if the boundary between the layers of rock being discussed might be the slip face of an ancient dune or ripple that is currently being exhumed.

Driving in two consecutive days !
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...cam/2008-11-15/

What a nice view!
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...89P1211R0M1.JPG

Those arcs look a bit like the beggining of underground sublimation features --like in the scalloped terrain.

Looks like they are trying to get as far as possible before a wheel breaks from over-use.

(Like the old joke about the guy painting a fence wildly and a neighbor comes along and asks, "Why are you painting so fast and running around like a crazy person?" and the guy answers, "I'm trying to finish the job before I run out of paint.")

It's nice to see that Oppy is practicing "leave no trace" hiking:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...89P1312R0M1.JPG


(BTW: Almost zero blueberries!!!)

Whoah there! We don't approve of them new-fangled 'auto-rovers' than can drive a tenth of a mile on two consecutive sols. Wait... actually, I do! I have no idea where we are, though; I'm pretty much lost without the tracking data, which hasn't updated yet.

Cape St. Mary is still on sight in this navcam picture.
Click to view attachment

> I have no idea where we are, though

I'm doing a polar view to pinpoint the new site on the map...

I may be wrong, but it looks like it was just a small bump and we're south of the sol 1709 position, maybe 10 or 15 meters, maybe less. I think the arc is still visible behind Oppy.

I *think* this might be relevant to the darker pavement/lighter pavement discussion above:
Click to view attachment

It's an image from way back on Sol 1679 when Oppy was last looking over Victoria Crater at the Cape Agulhas Promontory. What caught my eye is how there is a flat bright section (layer?) of rock face that is bordered by a darker region. Even weirder is how blueberries are sitting right at the border between two parts. Shouldn't the blueberries have rolled down into the cracks? I'm assuming the center part of the pavement is ever so slightly raised compared to the edge.

Any ideas for an explanation?

-Mike

You are right. Here is the boundary again:
Click to view attachment
Perhaps they are interested in examining the pavement here.

A small bump indeed, if we consider the average driving distance these days.
20m due south.

Is there any possibility that, because we're still in restricted sols (IIRC), the drive has been anticipated because it was quite "evident" and they could have instructed Oppy to do so if such and such criteria was met?

These landscapes are really strange looking, eerie, desolate, yet oddly beautiful. The intricate pattern of cracks reminds me of dry flats on Earth.

just a quick one (with colorization and simple fisheye-correction applied to FHZ)

Click to view attachment

@Vultur: I second what you said about those strangely "barren-beautiful" landscapes: they also never cease to fascinate me

Sol 1710 Navcam mosaic (looking N, previous Oppy position is at top center):
Click to view attachment

(fredk's light pavement/dark pavement border area is at upper center and slightly to left)

-Mike

Polar projection of Sol 1710 Navcam pan:
Click to view attachment

Nice big cracks! (if the polar projection is straight, does that mean the actual crack is curved ?)

-Mike

Comparison of Polar projections.

View from 1709 position looking S at future 1710 position, and view from 1710 position looking back at 1709 position:
Click to view attachment

One of the big cracks across 'The Runway' lines up and is visible in both images (annotated in red below):
Click to view attachment

-Mike