The rovers shadows look a bit subdued... is there a dust storm?

The images were taken quite late in the day, at 16:20. It may be that.

It's just the dust on the lens ... after five years ...

I wouldn't call those images dust-storm indicative. Very long shadows mean late in the day, mean decreased contrast between shadow and lit surfaces.

Yeah... I've always wondered what the Rovers are really capable of when they are as fully dedicated to driving as they were for prolonged stationary study campaign in the past like at the looong "Olympia" Stay or just recently during "Santorini".

Just imagine what such a 100-or-so Sols stop would mean in equivalents of dedicated driving, even with a moderat 50 meter-per-sols average, such a driving-only period would put us 5 Kilometers further towards our goal

And I'm fully aware that the driving is not an "end in itself" but serves the science in the end. So I'm
always kind of thinking of the Rover's wheels als the ultimate long range science instrument deployment tools ...

So we're done with the hard part? What were we ever worried about!

Here's my map for the whole second leg of the journey...I believe this time I won't be so lucky...
And 8 months seems now a lot of time seing how Oppy is flying...

EDITED: new pancams images are at exploratorium but no sign of Endeavour...

I think the real "parking lot" terrain that Rover Driver mentioned is still some 2 or 3 kilometers away to the south east ...

That is correct. Parking lot=no ripples.

Paolo

They were taken but not downlinked yet except for the thumbnails.

... and no "Anatolia's"

A bit further south from the Sol 1797 position there is a somewhat weird feature.



Looks like the dune's are disturbed with (seemingly) very dark sand blown away over the bedrock, or a very long shadow. Area is clearly darker then its surroundings but it doesn't really look like a 'hidden crater' or Anatolia type feature. There are a few more spots around where patches of very dark sand seem to be covering the bedrock just to the lee of some dunes, but this is the most prominent. It these are high dune's, casting a shadow, then it doesn't match up with their 'wavelength' unless they are very steep.

Can't really think what to make of it...

I for one don't think we are on 'parkinglot' material yet, the dunes may be smaller but there are more 'disturbances', especially further south, and some of them might be potential dust-traps.

Regards,

Geert

Doesn't look like there is a drive today, but there is one planned for sol 1800.

As Tesheiner explained in the map thread, Opportunity moved backwards ~10 m and then forwand for a net gain of about 4 m. Must be a good reason for such a drive--but I'm coming up blank--Paolo can you explain? Drive images are down at the Exploratorium.

On 1797 the RF drive currents where high. My take on it was that it is due to wheel soil interaction but other felt different and we canceled the 1798 drive. On 1800 we drove backwards that in the past help redistribute the lubricant, then drove forwards the same way we drove on 1797 and we'll see what the wheel currents look like. At the end of the drive we also did a few steps in a way they match the natural curvature of the RF wheel as another test to see if the currents are back to normal.

Paolo