I saw a crocodile.

Oh. Ok. Just me then.

I can't tell if the "South America" outcrop pictured in the Sub-Frame EDRs is seen in any of the larger images.
If it is, I can't pick it out. I don't know if Sub-Frame EDRs would be called crops.

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/all/opportunity_p1969.html

I thought it was Spitsbergen...

Phil

The complete outcrop looks nothing like SA, but the crop does.

Well, now I see an ichthyosaur. I guess, technically a fossilized Martian Sand Ichthyosaur (Imaginashus runwildus). Very rare.

Very interesting discussion on how Block Island could have soft landed without a denser Martian atmosphere. The description by Sterling K. Webb was quite interesting and contradicts Matt Golombek and the JPL news release. Webb suggests that Mars' atmosphere is more dense than Earth's at high altitudes. Because of lower gravity on Mars, the atmosphere is taller than that of Earth.

Can anyone here support the arguments of either Webb or Golombek?

I can only make some very general comments. Webb doesn't present any actual calculations of trajectories. Golombek refers to such calculations in the new press release:

Surely these model calculations would include the difference in height of the Martian atmosphere, and well as many other details.

When faced with differing views, I'll go with the guy who actually did a calculation!

Webb is right about the density at higher altitudes - I thought that the cut over was somewhere in the 50-60km range but my memory might be off and the atmosphere extends quite a bit furthur out than Earth's. I've no problem with most of his calculations regarding survivability either - it is certainly possible for this class of object to survive to "soft land" on earth and the process that Webb describes could lead to a higher quantity of objects of this class surviving to land one way or another. The one thing he doesn't seem to detail is the expected terminal velocity - that would still be in the range of km/sec for something of BI's shape and density. That doesn't really affect his argument though - even at those speeds a metallic block like this would probably survive intact.

I think he does miss the boat a bit in terms of the things he says about how long these may have been around - we're seeing a very ancient surface and even if the rate at which objects survive is incredibly rare there should still be quite a lot of them around and for my money that is what we've been seeing. 4 billion years may be a bit on the long side but I don't see any reason why BI couldn't have remained on the surface for a significant fraction of a billion years if not a bit more.

Thanks Stu, MII et al for the encouragement. Appreciate it. I will definitely try to do some more posts.

FYI - We use Corel Draw for our business (just happened to start with it years ago) and so the image was produced using Corel Photopaint!

Not to mention that the effect of Mars' atmosphere on things falling from space is more than academic for those intent on safely landing stuff on the surface. I'm sure the profile of the Martian atmosphere is as well known to them as to anyone. (Of course, the situation a billion years ago is another matter, more open to academic debate.)

This doesn't really belong in this thread, but there's a new hirise view of Victoria...


ADMIN: Thanks fredk - see this thread

Oppy before the U-turn. Nice tracks.

Roy

Just about the best track pic I've seen.

After the sol 1973 bump, we've got this tantalizing quote from the latest Oppy update:

I know how much UMSF'ers like to speculate, so any guesses which features they're referring to?

Made in China sticker!