Everyone, wakeup! Nobody noticed that two days ago Opportunity left the site she was investigating for the last couple of weeks?

Here's a navcam mosaic taken on sol 3203; we're already on sol 3205.
Click to view attachment

Some of us noticed Oppy's now back at "Broken Hammer," previously visited sols 3098-3101.

Here's a view of drive north on sol 3203 (blue line) based on the metadata (vertical line is north):

And a further bump north on 3205:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol3205

She basically just turned right and backed up a little bit on 3205. (Compare 3203 and 3205)

Further short drive on 3206:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol3206

Interesting - the sol 3206 drive was westward back to "Flack Lake".

A micro from Sol 3200 that actually lines up to one side of the micro from Sol 3192. Might try to stitch them later.

Click to view attachment

There's some doubling up of features at the mid-seam, still learning some tricks to line things up better.

(Edit: The above image will line up with the one from Sol 3192 if it's rotated 180°. Sometimes I don't know which way is "up"! By the way, Photoshop refuses to auto-stitch these two latest micros with the ones from 3192. Would have to do it manually. )

LPSC-44:

44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (2013) sess252.pdf
Tuesday, March 19, 2013 [T252]
MARS EXPLORATION ROVER: RESULTS FROM ENDEAVOUR CRATER

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2013/pdf/sess252.pdf


--Bill

In Fig 2 of this abstract we finally can see the high-resolution CRISM view of the smectite signature on Matijevic Hill. It would be interesting to see that overlaid on a good quality map, but the background in that image is very low resolution so it would be hard to do.

Dear me. That smectite location is nothing like the numerous, previous CRISM overlays published in papers and articles. Previously I couldn't understand reference to Opportunity being 'in the sweet spot' - for instance:

http://www.planetary.org/explore/space-top...ck-on-2012.html

Does this mean that the previous indications of extensive smectite indications to the south are exaggerated and that the smectites are more localised?

I think that is just an overlay of the Whitewater Lake exposure as seen by the rover on a background Crism image. I don't think this is a Crism image that in itself delineates the smectite exposure in an obvious way. (The overlay has much higher resolution than the background, and much higher resolution than Crism.)

Could be most anywhere in this area-- the CRISM res is so low.

I want to see "Secular City" next door...

--Bill

Thanks much for that link. Some of the abstracts make it appear that the devitrification spherulite idea for "newberries," first debated here on UMSF, is gaining traction. In that regard, I found this abstract, from a different session, interesting also:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2013/pdf/2064.pdf

It begins with "Blueberries, newberries, and accretionary lapilli..." and describes gray-hematite coated basaltic accretionary lapilli, about 7 mm in diameter, resulting from explosive volcanism in Antarctica, including in basal surge beds that are said to mimic fluvial or eolian beds. For purposes of comparison, keep in mind that martian basalts are probably considerably more iron rich and less silicic than the ones from Antarctica.
-dburt

And thanks for the "Newberries" PDF. That Mt Darwin photo looks almost... Martian. And in keeping with Martian environments, remember that Antarctica wasn't always as it is today.

This will prove to be a great LPSC, with the detailed work at Cape York and the initial work at Gale. And I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing "hey, I just noticed this at Gusev" from old Spirit data.

The Gifts that Keep on Giving, no?

--Bill

I wondered about that myself. But the text saysand the Fig 2 caption saysBoth statements indicate that the red area was determined by the CRISM data rather than ground (or orbital) imagery.

About the resolution, the abstract says the regular resolution is 18 m/px. This seems to correspond to the resolution of most of Fig 2. But the text also describes the oversampled, higher resolution CRISM observations, with 5 m/px resolution. That seems to match pretty well the size of the pixels in the red, smectite patch in Fig 2. So my interpretation is that the red area is the set of pixels with smectite signature from the 5 m/px observations, overlaid on the regular resolution CY CRISM image. We may have to wait for a full paper to come out to know for sure.

Not sure about this... to me it looks like the very dark blue background is supposed to be the clay - the largest area being at the south end where older observations placed it and the original reason for going to the south end first. A smaller patch of dark blue under that red patch is the CRISM detection in that area and the red is an overlay of the Whitewater unit as mapped by the rover, showing the spatial match.

But we'll have to wait and see. I will be looking out for this at LPSC.

Phil

I think you may be right, Phil. Fig 3 is an average over all the pixels in the red area. It would seem surprizing that there'd be enough S/N in each individual pixel to define the red area that precisely based on the CRISM data.

And I'd really like to see what is in the region lower down on the Bench to the NE. Stratigraphically lower, older in time, further back into the "warmer wetter" era. Probably more of the impactite/ejectite sequence, but we won't know til we look.

--Bill

There was a quite long drive executed today, sol 3212, placing Opportunity almost at the same site as on sol 3104.
Here's today's navcam mosaic.
Click to view attachment

And here is the one shot on sol 3104.

catching up on old news here.. remarkably uncanny image!
by chance a recent movie rental stuck in my head makes me i see 'engineer helmet'!
evoking schlock-fodder from the lower left of that old Spirit image! (sorry, but had to.. resistance was futile)

I've been meaning to drop into the archives and look at images and notes from that timespot. Seems that I recall that Beagle was post-Victoria ejecta blanket and uncovered interactions between the ejecta and the paleo landsurface. And there were a few odd hillocks observed as we transitioned from the typical Meridiani surface to the weathered/eroded/weathered Victoria ejecta material.

MERs. The gift that keeps on giving.

--Bill

Quite the protruding newberries, really fantastic structures, from sol 3207:

Click to view attachment

Another one with more consistent lighting also from Sol 3207. This micro overlaps the previous one I just posted:

Click to view attachment

Beautiful, but can we cut with the formalities and just call them newbs?

Or newbys?

Some discussion of future plans in the latest PS report:

I quick GIF of sol 3208 and 3209 micros. Each one is a stitch of 4 images, so not the best of lining everything up between sols, did the best I could under time constraints and in need of more Photoshop lessons!

Click to view attachment

Oppy picking newberries, closeup view:

Click to view attachment

some newbie (SOL 3207) fun with Gimp (tried to minimize shadow) and StereoPhotoMaker:
Click to view attachment

Nice patterns in the sand, nice view, makes for a good composition!

Click to view attachment

It is a nice view! Surprizingly the tracks on the left, from sol 3104, don't look very different from the new ones on the right, from 3212. At least from this angle and using navcam.

Another nice micro of late, Sol 3214.

Click to view attachment

Had to reduce the size to meet upload limitation, need to find some place online to post full res size, minimal compression.

Looks like a new DD for Oppy, peeking out from behind the central mound:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol3219

Edit: blink comparison with sol 3214, making it easy to see the DD:
Click to view attachment
It has to be very big, because it's a long way to the central mound.

Nice one, Fredk! Isn't it in the crater floor near the south end of the mound rather than "peeking out from behind the central mound" ? But yes, it must be quite a big one.


Phil

Can someone explain me (here or in another appropriate thread) why they decided to repeat exactly the same loop after 3.5 months instead to go toward Solander or other interesting places? Thanks!

Added: perhaps I found by myself the answer! from Squyres words reported in Dec,4 update,

it's obviously a tremendously interesting site, and I'm gonna guess that they think that it's also representatve of the entire crater rim. Therefore, there wouldn't be much point in mounting a lengthy traverse to a geologically similar locale till they've wrung as much data out of here as they can.

There are several layers of Mars history right there, I hadn't thought of it with the awareness of a geologist. I keep thinking "drive! drive!" lol

Yes, I must force myself to recall that main purpose of MER mission is geologic survey and not establish new drive records nor take breathtaking panoramas of new places... It's hard to accept such philosphy after many years of spectacular views!
To moderators: Sorry for the OT, I'll stop immediately this argument because I know isn't the purpose of this thread!

Mod: moved the discussion to the main thread.

You may have a look to the latest (Feb 06th) report by AJS Rayl too. Here's a paragraph talking about the current survey.

Lots of interesting detail in the latest PS report. On future plans:


And the recent silence was due to another flash fault, coincidentally timed with MSL's:

That's music to my ears!

Many thanks, fredk, for your always-excellent selection of the key pieces of news from Salley's also-outstanding updates.

It'll be exciting to be roving again.
...and now, Opportunity gets to climb a mountain as her sister did...

fredk: I had to also add that there is this interesting piece of information from one of your earlier update summaries...

I am excited to think about the possibility of that stratigraphic exposure.

By the way, yestersol (3240) she drove south to the area below Kirkwood. The Update mentions she might conduct the very cool streak test at "Kirkwood or a place like Kirkwood".

Exactly. Here's the navcam mosaic shot after the drive. The rover is right on top of some older tracks from sol 3060.
Click to view attachment

Actually, if we look to the RHAZ image, that's the site Opportunity was on sol 3057.
Click to view attachment

This doesn't exactly belong here but I'm not sure where else to stick it (so to speak). It's a text file containing descriptions of Opportunity's activities for every sol of the mission up to sol 3060. It is just the data from the PDS Analyst's Notebook mission summary, but in a different file format, in case anyone may find it useful. Well, maybe it does belong here since the image right above shows the sol 3060 location!

Click to view attachment

Phil

Old and new tracks, 180 sols apart:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...2M1.JPG?sol3244

Interesting protruding features again on this close-up from Sol 3239. They would pass as good public art if made into large scale bronze or granite sculptures. If I had the money I'd commission exact replicas to be made of the more interesting and beautiful shapes we've seeing over these many years on Mars, give them out to the principle investigators and engineers, maybe place a big one in front of JPL! They would make for a nice merging of planetary science and art, of which we don't see much.

Click to view attachment

I like that idea. Maybe we wouldn't even need to do it on a large scale, though that would be impressive.

It would be pretty cool to simply render some of these Martian rocks in 3-D at true scale, and I think that is something that is totally doable with currently available technology. We can already generate digital, 3-D models from the stereo imagery. Three-D printing and machining technologies are rather well developed these days.

I'd guess that JPL and/or Caltech already have the devices needed to turn this kind of trans-planetary visualization into a reality.

I'm a little surprised they didn't approach Kirkwood from the other side this time.

It might have been interesting to investigate the contact between the Kirkwood and Whitewater areas.