"Sitting in" on the MER SOWG youtube webcast was really cool! "Local time" for Opportunity makes me wish I were there - I could use an extra half-hour each day!

The scheduling of Deep Sleep, Nap, and other status nicknames brings our dear MER even closer to human-like!

Looking forward to more webcasts,

Brad

oops! Exploratorium website redesign... page names changed...

if you need your regular dose of images go to this page:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/mars/spiritopp.php


And you can pick the camera from the list on the right.

Phil

(Memo to the internet - redesign pages if you like but leave URLs the same if at all possible!)

I hear that, but at the same time I have to give them full credit for not breaking MMB! Looks like only the top level pages changed. So far.

Speaking of which, it looks like the sol 3019 drive went well.

No much to see into the crater from here. Let's go to the creek...

We are at the creek. The drive went well, we are at the position we selected. I haven't seen all the telemetry yet. Post-drive imageing will come down tonight but the Hazcams are nice.

Paolo

Indeed they are. I'm surprised no one has mosaicked the images of Sao Gabriel yet; I mean come on, it's been a couple hours already.

Should I admit I get lost on a 40m+ drive?
Nice drive, nice little aestetic crater anyway.

A more direct link to the opportunity folder: "http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/" with all cameras.
link
Same for Spirit...

The Creek!

Click to view attachment

Thanks, very nice 3D view!

Darn. We should have gotten here sooner. It's all dried up.

Colour view of Sao Gabriel crater...

Click to view attachment

Looks like a sinkhole.

3D view of "Whim Creek"...

Click to view attachment

Check out the shadows - you can really see the increased tau:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol3019

Oh my...

Click to view attachment

Nice. Looking forward to the stereo version

Is it my imagination, or is Whim's floor anomalously smooth and depleted of smaller gravely material compared to adjacent terrain, almost as if it had been swept clean somehow? Curious as to how that might have happened.

Ok, so it's not a canyon, or a vertigo-inducing crack, but come on, this is something beautiful and special, isn't it..?

Click to view attachment

Here a couple standalone cross-eyed pairs :

Click to view attachment

And a couple more. I'm about persuaded that it is a crack, based on these.

Click to view attachment

MERB3020WhimCreekNavcamLeftTrimmed on Flickr


MERB3020WhimCreekNavcamAnaglyph on Flickr

A perspective view northeasterly:


MERB3020WhimCreekNavcamPerspectiveLeft2 on Flickr

Perspective view southeast:


MERB3020WhimCreekNavcamPerspectiveLeft1 on Flickr

Left 360x90 equirectangular facing east (a polar might be good...?)


MERB3020WhimCreekNavcamLeft_equirectangular on Flickr

A polar would be really good.

This makes one feature quite clear. There's a rather abrupt transition in "fill" to the right of Oppy's shadow (marked in red in this clip).
Click to view attachment

Thanks for the spectacular mosaics, guys!

Maybe the floor has accumulated more dust than the surroundings and so most of the "gravel" is covered?

We need pancams. In color, please Hopefully that's next on the agenda.

Wow!!! Thanks for all the image processing! What a fantastic sight! How I've looked forward to this Martian feature for so long. This shot captures a lot nicely: the creek, foreground crater, slope of Cape York, and distant Endeavour Crater all in one.

Click to view attachment

By the way, the flaky-looking dark rocks at bottom of image look interesting.

A detail of previous image, those layered rocks at the base. Maybe nothing special about them.

Click to view attachment

Very good pictures. I have the impression that by the Creek zone is an fracture of land due to the gravity of lower mass of land and it leaves many fragmented rocks and filled with sand deposition. That zone is very flat and there is no sand deposition, this deduces me that this zone is very windy and leaves the surface as gravel or flat rocks.

.

Today's I sequenced a drive, a short 10m drive across the creek to hopefully place some rocks in the IDD work volume. During the next few days we will possibly bump to finalize the IDD target and then begin an IDD campaign. Next week I was told will be mostly remote sensing but no drives or IDD activities. Therefore, today I likely have sequenced my last drive on Opportunity. The feeling I have at the moment is exactly the same I had 20 years ago when I moved from Italy to Portland, OR: a mixture of fear of the future and excitement about what is laying ahead. From this moment on I will follow Opportunity's adventure from the back seat, just like all of you have been doing for years. Do you mind if I sit next to you?

Paolo

Paolo, we'd be honoured.

And thank you for your part in this incredible adventure.

Here... (pats seat)... there's a great view from here.

Hear, hear! Grab some snacks, and get comfortable, man!!!

I agree with you and think it is a combination of both.

My take on Doug's polar view:

Click to view attachment

Phil (checking in from a very rainy Vancouver)

Congratulations, and thanks, for having been a key part in such an epic piece of space exploration history.

Paolo, thanks for letting us sit next to you and all your colleagues!

After all these years of wondering if we would ever see Whim Creek (the dagger) up close ... and now today ... here we are.
The MER missions have given us so many of these exciting discovery days.
I still don't know what Whim Creek is, but I cant wait to read the geology papers on this feature, somewhere down the road.

MER team: thank you.
MSL team: good luck.

Another variation on a theme...

Click to view attachment

No idea why - but that reminds me of Homer Simpsons head.

Actually, it reminds me of my head!

Paolo

Wow... are we already on the other side of Whim Creek?

Click to view attachment

( More images: http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com/2012/...y-to-whim-creek )

Yup! The drive went quite well. Not sure if the geologists will like what they see in the front, but we got a flagstone in the IDD work volume. We got down the full 10x1 and the lower tier NAVCAM already!

Paolo

MERB3021WhimCreek2View1 on Flickr


MERB3021WhimCreek2NavcamLeft on Flickr


MERB3021WhimCreek2NavcamAnaglyph on Flickr

Quicktime VR versions of the full 360 Navcam pan: left eye; anaglyph. As usual my anaglyph panoramas have some ugly seams but perhaps get the point across.

I don't know... this site has got to be right up there in the list of incredible MER views, for me anyway.

It's a beauty.

I can't believe they drove right across! The other side looks like a steep drop off, Oppy must have been at a steep angle. Lots of nice new images, but have to get to work now

Click to view attachment

We hit 23 deg but it was for a really short time and that was expected. It is not a big deal. Driving at 23 deg for a long drive while avoiding big rocks is a different thing but here even if we skidded a bit it would not have had any consequences.

Paolo

Not for an experienced rover driver like Paolo, anyway! What an exciting final drive - congratulations and thanks for getting us this far!

I join the gang to thank you¨Paolo. And don't tell us you'll try this 23 deg angle on your next drive on the next rover
Should be exciting learning everything all over again on another vehicule.
Good luck and see you there.

My version of the polar pan:

Click to view attachment

Phil

Paolo,

I have to chime in as well and thank you for your excellent work.

I've been closely following the "dagger" and very glad that we finally got there. I was hoping for something that was obviously hydraulic but at least we now have a clear image of it.

So I guess the consensus is that the "dagger" is a crack and not some aeolian feature?