Putting on my tinfoil hat for a moment - what about a re-imaging of the infamous 'blair cuspids'

P

This MSL EDL video was played tonight on stage at this Kobie Boykins presentation. It was fantastic. The video was longer and extended beyond the YouTube version to include more surface operations. It included a nice segment where the laser ablated a rock and an instrument recorded readings from the "smoke" wafting away and the hole in the rock. Spiffy demonstration.

The longer video also depicted a core sampling drill that could be used on rocks or on the "soil". The core sample (depicted from penetrating a rock) was slipped out of the bit and placed INTO the MSL for some unspecified analysis. Very cool. I hope the whole video makes it onto the web soon.

Kobie Boykins is a MER solar panel designer. Someone in the audience remarked that the MSL video showed no solar panels. He responded (paraphrased): "No. No solar panels. I'll let you speculate on what its power source is, since I'm not allowed to publicly discuss it yet."

Voyager II saw some (apparent) white peaks on Iapetus off the (presumed) west end of the equatorial ridge structure.

We (hopefully) get to understand their significance in the upcoming September flyby.

Dark crater floors of Hyperion and Cassini Regio on Iapetus might have been understood as variants of the same physical process (if it turns out to be).

I wouldn't go as far as to say we got to see the surface in 1980. We could have seen it if someone pulled this tricky processing on the data, but it's questionable whether that was possible back then.

In any case, here's an interesting theory about Saturn ring spokes Emily wrote about a while back. It's apparently based at least partially on geometrically calibrated Voyager data.

The more likely answer is that the Mars 3 relay orbiter went out of range for the
lander or there was a communications problem with the orbiter. The whole bit
about the dust storm disrupting things has been overblown, pardon the pun. I
believe that Martian winds are not quite as fierce as on Earth, even the ones that
whipped dust all over Mars in 1971.

Note that the Soviets were quite big on blaming natural causes for the failure of
their space probes, rather than any problems with their Glorious People's Technology.

When Mars 1 stopped transmitting before it reached Mars in 1963 (even though it set a
distance record at the time), the Soviets blamed a meteor hit rather than any problems
with the communications equipment. It was purely a guess on their part, as they had
no way to detect such a strike, especially one that would knock out the probe as a result.

At least we know that Mars 3 is intact on the surface and its parachute and heatshield
are not too far off. As for Mars 2 and 6, I wonder how easily MRO can tell a relatively
recent artificial crater from an older natural one?

Thanks for the enlightenment, AOAV, and belated congrats to Phil!

So, Rhea falls more nearly in line with the rest of the icy moons in general character as far as a history of major impactors. Does this imply that the Saturn system was riddled with large objects above the normal background level, and if so does this say something about the age of the ring system given the apparent antiquity of the craters?