They're different parts of the planet. Look at them from orbit - one is dark (Sinus Meridiani is a renown dark feature from astronomy) and one is much brighter with dark dunes. The Washington Scab Lands don't look the same as the Gobe Desert

Compare Gusev and Gale and they're really not that different.
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA16101_modest.jpg
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/PIA16441_modest.jpg

Are you suggesting that Mt Sharp is just a pile of terminal moraine?

Where is the evidence for the glaciers themselves - the glacial valleys?

Some people like to just process images as they are, some like to add fill-in skies, people like to treat the imagery differently. Why not go ahead and do a navcam mosaic with a filled in sky yourself if that's what you want to see? That's the amazing thing about all this data being out there - anyone can have a go and do their own thing with it.. That's something to be thankful for.

This place was founded long before MSL even left the drawing board - it's certainly not 'devoted' to MSL. It was started as a place for people to share/compare/discuss the processing of imagery from Spirit, Opportunity and then Cassini. Yes - it has well grown outside that remit - but that remains the core purpose of UMSF. It was never nor is it 'devoted to' MSL.

In many respects - what you are saying is that it's remarkable that there's no soccer game being played in the middle of a cricket pitch.

The astrobio rule (and latterly the manned spaceflight rule) were put in place and maintained to maintain UMSF as a home for the discussions for which it was intended - without the flame wars, arguments and other digital blights one can see on any number of other internet venues when the question of astrobiology arises. That is the provocation that spurred it - to defend the core founding purpose of UMSF from the fringe theories and craziness that often blights places that invite those conversation. It was never intended to be all forums for all people. That's how and why I founded the place and currently, how the admin team are running the place.

Will rules have to be tweaked and adjusted to accommodate sensible discussion - no doubt. But history tells us that people will abuse that opportunity and generate unnecessary work for the admin/mod team.

Remember - this is not the only forum on the web. Many other forums exist for the discussions of spaceflight, MSL, astrobiology and so on. If anyone feels a compunction to discuss things outside the remit of UMSF - they are, of course, free to have that discussion elsewhere.

I'm more a fan of MarsClock. Very very simple, but does the job
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?...YXJzY2xvY2siXQ..

So are we in the 'Eyes...' team. The EDL viz will be updated once the reconstruction is finished.

Unlikely - it's just terrain seen at a different time of day at a different angle. You're not accounting for the autonomous stretching done to the image.

Four flights, one still to fly, one playing Grasshopper in Texas? Would that be 6?

I'm not sure by what measure you're making that claim...but of all the following launched earlier and are still working and doing great science.
Cassini, Acrimsat, ACE, Cluster, SOHO, WIND, Geotail, Terra, Landsat 7, Chandra, Hubble, XMM-Newton, TRMM

You might want to take a look at this regarding shape files..

http://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/DAWN/kernels/dsk/

Dust storms will do other things - not just put more dust in the atmosphere. That atmosphere will get warmer, and taller. It's a complex interplay. There will be an effect, I'm sure.

FredK's point is that things nowhere near the plume are also changing color during the animation (and they wont have done so) - so there's a problem with the correlation of the images. You're not comparing like with like.

First time use of two astonishingly complex lab instruments was always going to take a while. I'm fairly sure we'll have dozens upon dozens of instances in 2013 when we're wishing they would put the brakes on

We are within days of the first ChemMin run.

Not the first time they've not checked in with someone before publishing their work. In my case - a new version of the Columbia Hills DTM movie was rendering at the exact moment they decided to put my older version on their website. Had they checked in first, I'd have asked them to wait a day or two and they could have had something even better.

It's a very odd practice.

Great mosaic though!!

No - they will be absolutely fine. They'll be dented and dinged and have holes in them...and they're carry on working just fine.

That's a temperature probe was stuck to the ChemCam housing during thermal-vac testing. After testing it was removed, but a 'scar' was left behind.

That's not QUITE the same as the one from 85.

Did someone say Stereo?

I concur - it's the turret we're seeing.

Lots - http://geo.pds.nasa.gov/missions/messenger/mla.htm - just not a gridded data set yet.

Are you asking for less information?

It's crazy. Utterly crazy. The infrastructure required at a DSN site to succesfully receive those signals is enormous - utterly enormous. If you're going to upgrade the DSN, upgrade the DSN....you don't need to put any part of it on the moon to get the job done.

The brush has a larger and more diffuse footprint than the RAT itself. Outlying bristles could easily cause that exact pattern

It's clearly not - look at this image of the same area from a different time on the same sol

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/ra...0327M_&s=62

It's just scratches on the top of a milled metal surface.

Little? That's one of the heatshield push off springs - about the size of a large beer can.