I think I may have inadvertently stolen the luck from both rovers. A 60-ft tree in my back yard blew down yesterday. It grazed the corner of my house, taking out the gutter and downspout, and the top came to rest less than 3 feet from my neighbor's house. A couple of feet in either direction and there would have been major property damage to one house or the other!

At least Spirit and Opportunity don't need to watch out for falling trees!

Well, lucky for them they didn't land near here.

Well, if no one else is going to mention it...

It was all sunshine and daisies at Gusev today. Spirit drove 1.7 meters today, and she's had a fairly significant cleaning event... 306 whr! The last time she cracked the 300 mark was about the time she escaped Tartarus.

I'm beginning to take that "conservation of luck" thing seriously...

In the stamp posted on the tracking site it looks like a turn in place to face the direction of the next drive.

Just curious. Some of the highest natural radioactive grounds are related to volcanic springs. Is there any way Spirit could tell about the local radiation levels?

Unfortunately none of the on-board instruments seem to be sensitive enough to measure the radiation levels. We have plenty of components that can be affected, but none that can determine the nature and intensity of the radiation. At least, this is what I was told whn asked about it last week.

Paolo

We wait for a series of excellent images.

Wait? What is this wait you speak of?

false color hand stitched from stamps

Even in stamp form, that's really something.

Now somebody go kick the server that's jammed, please. (Lightly.)

Even with the move between the mosaics still sort of fit together

Some "stamps" from the latest drive (sol 1889). It looks like the drive ended due to excessive slippage.


Here are similar shots from the previous site (sol 1886) for comparision.

We've seen this movie enough times now to know how it ends. Yes, I'm a pessimist, but we get that way for a reason.

After a few sols of trying, they will get out of the problem and continue.

It happened at Tartarus, it happened after WH3, it happened on the way to McCool hill, it happened near Larry's Lookout, it happens again and again, it even happened at Purgatory and other places at Meridiani. Yet every time, they've got out.

So yeah - we know how it ends, it ends great. There is no just cause for pessimism.

Remember that in this part of the West Valley route, we would have to move somewhat uphill if we got closer to HP, and downhill away from HP. It looks to me from those thumbnails like the latest move was somewhat towards HP, so we might expect difficulty. They seem to be attempting to get up onto the smooth, sandy patch up ahead just below HP. Even if they can't do that, there are potential routes farther from HP that wouldn't mean as much (if any) climbing.