I guess at some level you have to say that they were not built to rove - but to do scienec. The roving ability - whilst out-cooling science by 1000 to 1 - is simply a means to get somewhere to do the science.

But hell yeah buys - dump maz and get to those frickin hills

Doug

Esa's crap at the whole publicity thing.

Doug

Yours looks like it's inside the sand box at JPL and is being lit by strip lights

Mine looks a bit grey

There's a chap over at the Habitable Zone who's convinced that NASA doctors all the images released so they all look the same wishey-washey beige colour. He did work on the same image set and low and behold - got the rock looking about the same as most nasa pictures

He's in touch with Justin Maki ( imaging god ) about reverse engineering the processing of the images as we see them I'm just a tempremental artist - but perhaps one of the more technically apt people could get in touch with Justin about this?

Doug

I've gone off using the Haemetite as a grey benchmark (blueberries my arse)

Well - I always love these as you can reference the colours you're looking at - with the actualy colours of the IDD - especially the stars and stripes. I'd say this is fairly 'real colour' imho - as, basically, if the flag looks right, then the rock must be right also!



Doug

great stuff

Doug

Far more important discovery than anything the MER's have found imho - this is the big one - there's not to many ways to generate methane at mars, modern day vulcanism seems unlikely - general outgassing a little more likely - but the most obivous answer is biomass.

Doug

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...00P1516R0M1.JPG

Good grief - that's been on board for >55 days and has just been sent down. I thought they were being carefull with the flash memory

Doug

1 days rove.



We need some sort of applet or little VB app to do those sums for us

Doug

rear hazcam showing a turn around
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...30P1312L0M1.JPG

front hazcam showing looking into the crater
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...30P1214R0M1.JPG


Driving back toward the crater again

Did oppy forget something?

Doug

Well - after Seaney Sean Sean Sean waffled on a bit, evidence that the rocks were layed down as sedimentary rock in a salty sea.

It's on route all right - but not till after the crater when they start heading south

Doug

Spirit woke up on sol 77, which ended at 8:24 a.m. PST on March 22, 2004, to "One Step Closer" by the Doobie Brothers, since the rover was to make its final approach to the rock target named "Mazatzal" today.

Before beginning the .9-meter (2.95 feet) drive to Mazatzal, Spirit analyzed the soil target "Soil 1" at its current location with the microscopic imager and Mössbauer spectrometer. During the Mössbauer integration, Spirit also took panoramic camera images and performed miniature thermal emission spectrometer analysis of the atmosphere and Mazatzal work area.

At 1:25 p.m. Mars Local Solar Time, Spirit completed the Mössbauer integration, took a few microscopic imager images of the impression left on "Soil 1" by the Mössbauer spectrometer and then stowed the instrument arm. Spirit then proceeded the short distance toward Mazatzal and took hazard avoidance camera images to confirm that its final resting place put the intended rock targets in reach of the instrument arm.

Following the drive, the rover acquired more panoramic camera and mini thermal emission spectrometer observations of the atmosphere, and of interesting areas near the Mazatzal site including targets named "Sandbox," "Saber" and "Darksands."

Spirit finished up sol 77 by getting the mini thermal emission spectrometer in position for morning observations on sol 78.

Spirit will spend most of Sol 78, which will end at 9:04 a.m. PST on March 23, analyzing Mazatzal with the instruments on the robotic arm.

Oh - I think the Viking Orbiters were in highly eliptical orbits anyway - from the get go. They just raised the low point to increase the time before orbital decay killed it.

The higher eccentricity in the orbit made it more appropriate for data relay and deploying a lander ( deploy at the far point in the orbit and you only require a tiny delta V to intersect the atmosphere a few hours later )

Doug

MY HILL




Doug

LOL - I'm not talking about the 80km distant gusev wall, I'm talking about the tiny little guy just peaking up over the left edge of the columbia hills

I think it is indeed - http://mer.rlproject.com/index.php?act=Att...ype=post&id=554

Doug

Not as far as the gusev wall, but certainly 5 - 10km distant

Hints of more gusev wall probably one they get to the high point of the crater rim which is a little bit further around.

Doug

iirc - V2 Orbiter was whacked up into a high orbit (to avoid any planetary contamination complaints) before it died.

"The orbiter developed a leak in its propulsion system that vented its attitude control gas. It was placed in a 302 x 33176 km orbit and turned off on 25 July 1978 after returning almost 16,000 images in 706 orbits around Mars."


Unless they used radar tracking to find exactly where it is - gravitational pertubations, atmospheric drag and other issue will mean it'll be quite hard to specifically say where V2O was at the time of that picture - but probably easy to calculate if its orbit would have allowed it to be in that particular place.

Doug

First person to mention mars bars gets a kick

I still want to see a cut-out model of Beagle 2 on the back of my corn flakes.

Doug

Orbit too low and after a few years, atmospheric drag would slow it down till it re-enters.

Viking 2 is the obvious candidate. Right place, right time, and the sort of brightness onem might expect from a larger orbiter.

Doug

I dont see anytihng even remotely on the scale of the blueberries in the Venera image - and one should expect that going on the very low resolution of the camera that they wouldnt be visible anyway.

Ditto Pathfinder - at the distance of Yogi - the IMP resolution is nowhere near enough to spot blueberries. Those three features in a row are probaby holes big enough to put your finger in.


Doug

No - I've played with this imagery in the past - and in wavelengths siimilar to L2-5-7, you dont get the same sort of response as one does with the subsurface features at Gusev, or the complete surface at Meridiani.

It's also a little funny to see you say you can see blueberries in two black and white pictures.

You didnt watch snooker on a black and white television when you were younger did you ?

Doug

Yup - half a world away, and we've got more blueberries

I think the image is more clear when un-enhanced. But yeah - it's just rock

Doug