Pancam view of small crater on Sol 2436.
Taken with the L2 cam.

Jan van Driel

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Looks like more than 140 meters driven today!!!

139m according to the tracking data.

Metre by metre, stone by stone, Santa Maria is being revealed...

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Santa Maria from ~700 meters away!

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Looks even better in Phil-o-visioned version!

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Now clearly visible in the Navcam view.

Updated animation of approach to Santa Maria...

http://twitpic.com/3di5jc/full

If we have moved 139 m, then we should be almost right next to "Invisible" crater that is crossed by the 4 kmE grid line. I'm guessing it is just next to us on the left, maybe a bit NE. Guess we will see when more navcams or pancams come down.

Edit also see black circled crater in this post

Santa Maria really makes me appreciate the value of having detailed orbital imagery of the route. Can you imagine if Oppy was 'flying blind' with just her cams, encountered what looks like an innocent small ridge like what we're seeing right now, and just kinda drove over it...?

And the annoying bump in the topography that has been obstructing our view of it for so long is now also being revealed in its true role as the perfect grandstand.

Not totally sure of the ID's here. I don't really want to start a nearside/farside debate, but I think we can see the near rim on the right and the far rim on the left.

I think you're right, James. And the crater rim is probably tilted away from us as well so the far side will not be visible until we are closer.

Phil

Some tweets from Scott


And


That drive is tosol

Here's a question for the geologists. We hear that the nearest clay minerals may be not too far ahead. What is the role of the Santa Maria impact in this? Are the clays expected to be a few metres down over much of this area so that a relatively recent impact might have dug some up, or is Santa Maria irrelevant to the quest for clays?

I'm not sure they saw clays near Santa Maria, but rather sulfates and other water containing minerals. I may not have the details exactly correct. I think the end of the month summary of what's been going on at the Planetary Society describes this.

The clays are understood to be very old. This area of Meridiani and the layers below it (therefore all of Santa Maria's ejecta) are much younger than the uplifted formations that make up the Endurance rim where the clays have been identified. There is no expectation that any clays would be in the vicinity of Santa Maria.

If the "telemetry" is correct, Salyut crater should be visible on the fhazcam pictures.
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Edit: Mmm, no.
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http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...8TP1205L0M1.JPG

There's a really prominent dark spot on the near rim in today's navcams. Could it be one of Stu's rover-sized boulders?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...8WP0653L0M1.JPG

Without a doubt, absolutely yes.

Stu, what have we told you about leaving your boulders lying about? Now go clean up your crater before Santa hears about this.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww, man!!! It's not FAIR!!!



None of you minded when I rolled Wopmay into Endurance, did you? Just because it looked like a dinosaur brain you were all like "Ooh, what a cool rock!"

You want those boulders moved, YOU move them.

I well remember Jeff Favretto's daily rover report in which he said "Wompay looks like a brain. IT IS NOT A BRAIN OF COURSE". Jeff was worried that he might be starting a new silly theory. I thought I was the only person who remembered that he used the word "brain", but obviously you did too.

IN one of his lectures, I'm sure Steve used the phrase 'Petrified Dinosaur Brain' to, in jest, describe Wopmay.

Lookit that...

http://twitpic.com/3duyyr

(detail visible in and around Santa Maria, 3D pic)

Now that's more like it...

http://twitpic.com/3dv1ll/full

Boulders and rocks visible around the crater, and detail on the far wall too?

Tomorrow the third consecutive day of drive. We're getting closer to Santa Maria at a tremendous rate.

02443 p1205.08 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_haz_penultimate_0.5_bpp_pri17
02443 p1205.08 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_haz_penultimate_0.5_bpp_pri17
02443 p1211.03 0 0 0 0 0 0 ultimate_front_haz_1_bpp_pri_15
02443 p1211.03 0 0 0 0 0 0 ultimate_front_haz_1_bpp_pri_15
02443 p1254.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_haz_fault_pri15_4bpp
02443 p1254.02 0 0 0 0 0 0 front_haz_fault_pri15_4bpp
02443 p1301.06 0 0 0 0 0 0 rear_haz_penultimate_1bpp_pri17
02443 p1301.06 0 0 0 0 0 0 rear_haz_penultimate_1bpp_pri17
02443 p1312.07 0 0 0 0 0 0 rear_haz_ultimate_2_bpp_pri15
02443 p1312.07 0 0 0 0 0 0 rear_haz_ultimate_2_bpp_pri15
02443 p1354.01 0 0 0 0 0 0 rear_haz_fault_pri15_4bpp
02443 p1354.01 0 0 0 0 0 0 rear_haz_fault_pri15_4bpp

That inner wall of Santa Maria is beginning to look like Burns Cliff in Endurance. Nice to see some details now.

Phil

Looking at the new pics in stereo, it's clear that the near side of Santa Maria is still obscured by a near horizon. When we finally get a clear view, it's going to be stunning.

Speaking of details, Phil, here's probably about the best we can do now. Average of L2 and R2, both frames slightly rotated to reduce the finest noise:
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Now we're talkin'. Sol 2442

Looking at James' orbital/pancam matchup, and squinting at the latest view, I think what we're seeing is almost all near rim, except a couple of bright bits of the far (inside) rim peeking through where I've circled in black:
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And this 3x stretched anaglyph (cropped and specifically adjusted) seems to support fredk's analysis. A big boulder can be seen just below/before the notch* in the near rim through which we can see parts of the far side.

*That must have come from my subconscious. Fortunately, there will not be too many sols this time for a tug-of-war between near and far rimmers.

Sniff. A notch in the near rim. I'm... I'm getting all emotional. The memories...

Two new images added to the navcam directory (2010-12-07), easily overlooked.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...QDP1962R0M1.JPG
Beautiful view of the Voskhod crater.

Made some new panoramas etc, but they're all BIG images, so rather than posting them here and clogging things up, I hope you'll go over to my blog to look at them there.

http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com/2010/...ching-base-camp

"Approaching Base Camp..."; that's an appropriate title.

Sorry, I don't agree on this one! If we stay there and take full resolution pans of Endeavour, I could agree, but Base Camp means definitively something else, believe me

You're much more of an expert on this than I am, Climber; just went with the name because there's essentially nothing else between Santa Maria and Endeavour as far as major features/points of interest is concerned. Not meant to be a 1000% accurate comparison, just a nickname.

I think the 'Last Chance' analogy was a good one. Last scenic overlook before Endeavour as well.

I know what you mean Stu and I'm very much on your side regarding artistic vs scientific pictures. Anyway, a Base Camp is a place you come "down" to very often while attempting to get to your goal. I hope and believe we're not going to come back to Santa Maria.

Gotcha. I just have this image of Oppy as a weary explorer reaching Santa Maria and heaving a sigh of relief that she's got a chance to rest before attacking Endeavour for real. I see her tootling around the crater for a week or so, maybe a little more, photographing all its layers, outcrops and boulders... but always aware that over her shoulder, on the far horizon, is Endeavour, which is her ultimate goal, calling out to her, siren-like. And after finishing her studies of Santa Maria she takes one last look to the north-west, recalling her epic journey so far, then turns her back on Eagle Crater, Endurance, Victoria and all her other stops, and, with a deep breath, tugging on her rucksack straps, she sets off for Endeavour in earnest...

Ok. Just me then.

(and before anyone sneers "It's a robot, it hasn't got feelings, stop humanising it..." don't bother, I've heard it all before, and honestly don't care. We're all here because we love the rovers, and their missions, in our own ways, and no way is better or more appropriate than anyone else's. )

Ooh! New pics...

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Looks like the buggy is off down the hill with no brakes!!

3D view...

http://twitpic.com/3e2rgw/full

Just before Santa Maria, there is a downward dip in the terrain corresponding to a sinuous outcrop line leading off to the NE and SW. This could represent some sort of real geologic boundary (maybe the edge of a layer we will be below as we continue East). This edge is easily seen in the satellite pics, and the slope zone is seen in the elevation maps.
I will wager this boundary gets some rover attention, which could be frustrating to some, with the Santa Maria crater beckoning just a short distance beyond...

Personally I'd like to see a nice big colour pan before we lose too much height, but I don't suppose a grandstand view however magnificent can compete with the serious science priorities.

Hardly any point in posting these anymore, since the view improves so much after each drive now, but here's one more L2R2 average + tiny rotation to reduce noise:
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In 3D, it now looks to me like we're seeing pretty much all the way to Santa Maria on the right side now, but the left side and middle section is still obscured.

I'm surprized how prominent the dark streak looks, that trails out of Santa Maria to the NNW.

Even though we're now driving pretty much directly towards Santa Maria, there was some transverse movement between 2442 and 2443. So here's a long-baseline stereo view from those two sols:
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You can clearly see depth towards the left side. But I think our approach was more directly towards the middle-to-right side of the crater, so there's less transverse movement there and so less depth in the anaglyph. (Actually, if you look really closely, the depth seems to reverse at the far right, which makes sense because that's on the other side of the direct line of approach.)

But you can pretty clearly see that we are looking through a slot to the far side near the middle of the crater, and that we can't see the far side at all on the left side.

Great pic! for the first time I feel like I'm *really* seeing Santa Maria from the surface.

To my eyes, though, there seems to be a faint horizontal line dividing the outcroppings on the left, which becomes much more prominent when I put my 3D glasses on. It appears to me that the lower portion of that section is 'near side' and that the high white hill is actually behind it.