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Can't help wondering if that's meteoritic rather than a concretion, especially with that fragment next to it...but this isn't really my area, I'll admit quite happily

Amazing amount of movement! Thanks, Ant, for pointing that out. Just to remind folks, the big recent cleaning event was sol 2298, so in between those two views. It was lucky they managed to bracket the event like that.

I noticed that "softening" of the disturbed soil, but couldn't decide if it was wind or "physical slumping" that caused that "decrepitation". Not the terms I'm looking for, I'm at a loss to recall the terminology. But there are little details that don't look windblown.


PS:...I want to call it "efflorescence", too, but that's not right, either. And has loaded connotations...

Sol 2314 view of Endeavour

This is like Lawrence of Arabia!

And why not? Arabia Terra is next door to Meridiani Planum.

Phil

From the latest update, the dust factor is continuing to climb (although that might be due to the tau recalibration?):


And from Maxwell:

Or Dune, with the whole 'avoid the sand, go on the rock' method of travel.

Though I doubt sandworms are very likely here.

Yes, there a sort of a conservation of dust in the models. Dust coming off the window goes into the sky in the model of the Sun images. Dust going into the sky comes off the deck in the power models. Opacity was off for a while, it was just hard to find a good time to switch in the new calibration. Surprising people with a "dust storm" and "cleaning event" that are only in the models is a bad thing. But tau was reported around 0.2, when seasonal averages suggested 0.4. Accounting for dust coming off the pancam put this year right on top of previous years (with occasional brief spikes, as seen previously). Sadly, there's still plenty of dust on the window, although the deck seems to be looking good.

Thanks, Deimos, it's always interesting to hear what goes into the numbers like that. It makes me curious what kinds of uncertainties the team puts on the tau and dust factor values. Regardless, the relative change in dust factor after a real cleaning event like on 2298 is unambiguous, I guess. And the one number that presumably doesn't depend on any modelling is the Whrs/sol, even as the tau and dust factor that make it up do. And 533 is a very comfortable number.

Has Oppy been watching some old episodes of "The Dukes of Hazzard"?

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So Stu, are you saying that Oppy's recent sighting of a DD was really 'Daisy Duke'!?!

Maybe Oppy should hold off on the "NASCAR-victory-burn-out-spins" until she actually reaches the crater...

Awww, let her have her fun. She's earned a bit of binkying.

Meanwhile, I think is is "Valparaiso", next target for intense study...?

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Re the "Dukes of Hazzard" shot...Yee-haw!!! (Great anaglyph, Stu!)

Seriously, that's one hell of a scary-looking digout. Look at how the tracks are along the sides of the larger trench. Wild speculation: Is this an artifact of drive s/w improvements? It almost looks like she turned into the skid & downslope (which of course would be the proper response to the situation), and it doesn't look like she loitered there waiting for advice from Earth to make the move.

Stu, you've pretty much nailed the colour on that new image. I know you don't aim for it, but that's really close to the calibrated colour we've seen.

Thanks Fred, appreciate that. I thought myself at the time "Hmmm, that looks pretty realistic", but got there purely by good luck as you guessed!

Here's a nice (I think, anyway!) view of Oppy's instruments about to begin their work...

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I assume this is Scott's new maneuver we are looking at.

No, I think just getting to the right place for the IDD work. The new drive thingy was the previous drive.

Phil

I don't see anything unusual about the MIs taken on the Sol 2317 stop, nor anthing out of the ordinary on the Panmcam context images. I figure that they are documenting the close-up appearance of the bedrock since the gross appearance is subtlely changing.

--Bill

Yeah, "Dukes of Hazard" (DoH?) maneuver = "J-shaped bump" mentioned here.

That's actually pretty lame for a DoH maneuver. If Oppy really wanted to get into the spirit, she should've taken a good long run at a big dune and gotten some serious air-time.

When we see that ( and it's happened once ) we'll have a long normal drive - and then a drive that's like the old drunken sailor walk, but magnified a LOT. It'll be 17.5 deg turn off direction and then back again, then 1m drive, then 17.5 deg off, 17.5 deg back - 1m drive.

==/\==/\==/\==/\ that sort of thing. HOWEVER - because the rover itself is more than 1m long, it'll result in a messy trail. It'll be very obvious out the rear mirror once we've done it for 10-20m or so.

Could this event be attributed to the electrostatic influence from a dust devil which could disrupt the electrostatic attraction between individual dust grains while at the same time providing the wind force necessary to move the freed up particles? Such may explain the 'decrepitation'.

So glad to see our route mapper Tesheiner back with us! And on his new map, Alert Bay and Port Hardy - Hah, I used to live up in that area. Winter Harbour actually - rather an interesting place.

Phil

Welcome back, Tesh, really missed your updates!

Couple of pics to start the day... On this first one, is that light flash a reflection off part of the rover? Light sneaking through a gap in it? Pretty, wherever it's from...

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And an interesting 3D view of one of the rocky plates' edges...

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Hey Stu,
You missed it man! The light reflection image is upsidedown.
It reads 'AI'...obviously a message as Oppy becomes self-aware

Which is why it took an Aussie to notice the message

Wait!?! Which one of us is upsidedown?

Would Uranians debate who is left or right?

And I come back from vacations just to find that ... you all need some.

Now seriously, this following sol 2320 is planned for driving. Hope for a loooong one.

"Wait!?! Which one of us is upsidedown?"

Which one of you is hanging on to the ground to stop yourself falling into the sky?

(hint - I know I'm not)

Phil

I tend to agree with Phil - it's just common sense that it's those down-under's who are upside-down.

But something's always worried me about this. If you look at a globe (be sure to hold it the right way up), those of us at a respectable 40-50 degrees north should actually be having a hard time clinging to the ground sloping 40-50 degrees towards the south. I suspect something's amiss...

Yes, I still can't understand why the Rovers, scheduled for less than 30° slopes, still hold where there are: this has to be the biggest discovery of the MER program.

The song "I'm Sitting on top of the World" was apparently composed at the latitude of Mississippi. So that should tell us something useful.

Phil

This thread is now six degrees from everywhere!

and, welcome back Tesh!

Hard to locate us from these few images, but it could be a long drive:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2320

71m according to the tracking data. I don't see any signs of 'Maxwell motion' in the tracks - just a standard drive this time by the looks of it.

A polar view of the navcam mosaic is very helpful to pinpoint the rover's position on a HiRISE image at 25cm/pix. The dune crests match quite well.

I should have said "hard for me to locate us". It's another matter for our resident expert, of course!

Ahh! This is music to my ears.
From Scott Maxwell's tweeter account: We have a whopping 3 hours of drive time today, so we're trying a full version of our Oppy drive-distance improvement strategy. Woo-hoo!

100 drives of 100 metres and they would pretty much be there

Just to clarify for anyone waiting on this drive. I think Scott was talking about 'today' as the planning day, the actual drive sol is 2322 which hasn't begun yet.

So as I write this... hopefully it should have happened.

Phil

That's right according to the flash clock on the MER home page, which at the moment reads sol 2322, 18:46.

But if I understand correctly, that clock is roughly 12 hours out. The clock at the Mer filename site shows sol 2322 07:14.

Not that it matters too much. Hopefully we'll see the results of the drive later today regardless...

Another look at Valparaiso...

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Looks like ~76m by the tracking data - 70m blind 6-7m autonav.

Not quite the 20m of autonav we were expecting and it looks like only ~1.5 hours of driving not the 3 that Scott tweeted that they had. I look forward to news/images...

Here's the fhazcam image with the 15deg. turns left/right clearly visible.
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C'mon baby, do the Maxwell Motion...

Today's navcam mosaic.
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Some details on the driving from here and here: