Sol 3 and onwards - imaging Options

[djellison]

Keeping with the practice of sol-by-sol discussions, here it is.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

LOL The press have such short attention spans. The mission has hardly started and most of them have gone. lol

[kwan3217]

Well, its getting to the point where they are saying "Well, here's a picture of the same part of Mars..." I don't expect them to do daily press briefings for much longer. We'll be better served by reading their web sites and blogs.

[djellison]

Not Sol 3 related - but it's a graphic image pulled out by Adobe Soundbooth of the Melacom recording from MEX If I had to guess, the bright part that finished at the bottom of the 'trough' would be the plasma 'blackout' period and the kink on the 'up' slope the 'chute deployment or the switch from 8k to 32k. The wider, brighter area covering most of the signal period, perhaps noise from HRSC or Spicam.

Doug

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[volcanopele]

It is probably the "You mean, we have to report from Tucson?" syndrome.

[elakdawalla]

Actually, a lot of the press from JPL were headed out to Tucson. They may just have run out of questions. Most of them are now heading on to Florida to cover Shuttle launch, I think.

--Emily

[imipak]

Not Sol 3 related - but it's a graphic image pulled out by Adobe Soundbooth of the Melacom recording from MEX

heh,.. when I played the file, my audio player's default visualisation module kicked in and produced this (it didn't fit onto one screen's width so I've crudely pasted chunks from two screenshots together to get the whole thing.) As scientific as a newpaper horoscope, of course but I notice the same harmonics (if that's what they are) show up in both visualisations though.



EDIT: Hmmm, Doug's shot shows a curve after the "bounce", whilst mine shows a straight line. Logarithmic vs. linear vertical scale perhaps? Any mathematicians in the house?

[ElkGroveDan]

It looks as though you and Doug have discovered a new subatomic particle.

[kungpostyle]

It looks as though you and Doug have discovered a new subatomic particle.

A Phoenon?

[imipak]

Doug discovered it first... I suppose that makes it Doug's Boson!!

*rimshot*

FX: *tumbleweed*, silence broken only by the sound of the wind whistling across the desolate Vastitas plain, the weather tell-tale slaps forlornly against the met mast...

[JRehling]

LOL The press have such short attention spans. The mission has hardly started and most of them have gone. lol

A few media outlets (worst of all, DrudgeReport) overhyped the mission with headlines like "Life on Mars?" which would naturally give the readership a hangover when they find out: that absolutely no evidence of any kind has yet been collected by the mission; that the instruments on the mission are not even capable of detecting life when they do start operating.

For those people who read headlines alone, the discovery of life on Mars is already ancient history, even though it never happened. But it will continue to "happen" every few years.

[Juramike]

I'm just curious, and horribly addicted: Which site get the images posted first? University of Arizona or NASA?

Must.....see....more.....pix.....

[um3k]

University of Arizona seems to post the images as they are received on Earth, nearly real time. Definitely first.

[volcanopele]

Emily, the workspace mosaic you said you couldn't on your blog, is it this one: http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=529&cID=8

[elakdawalla]

Thanks. I was looking at the NASA site for images and it wasn't there. How did you find it? I don't see it in any of the various galleries on the Phoenix site either...

--Emily

[volcanopele]

I just used the Phoenix website's gallery page. The image is thumbnailed there, but it doesn't show the entire mosaic in the thumbnail, so it is difficult to spot.

[mars loon]

At today's press conference, both the lack of questions and the lack of reporters was hughly dissapointing.

To bad we can't call in. I could think of several as I'm sure others could as well

A missed opportunity for all.

ken

[stellarlight]

Hi!

Have you seen this news?
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMAWQ1YUFF_index_0.html

I don´t understand how the sound of Phoenix can be so strange, they seem to be "computer sounds"...

Is that a "real sound" that we would listen if we were flying next to Phoenix?

Cheers!

[elakdawalla]

If you want to post a few here, go ahead and I'll ask a couple tomorrow (I didn't know the call-in number today but I do now). However, I probably won't get away with asking more than 2 or 3 questions, so I'll have to pick and choose if a lot are posted.

--Emily

[Gladstoner]

Question 1: "Do you have a workaround for the malfunctioning arm?"

Follow-up: "Do you expect the failure rate to be similar to that of the Mars rovers?"

.....

Question 2: "Is this the coldest place on Mars?"

Follow-up: "Is it the flattest?"

.....

(Removes mainstream-media hat....)

[nprev]

Okay, thanks! Here's a few; pick any you want or leave them as you will, Emily:

1. What is the reason for the "National Park" exclusion areas? Does this mean that they will remain completely undisturbed, and if so, why? (I only got to catch maybe the last 5 min of the presser, so the reference was a bit confusing).

2. How will the arm's biobarrier be prevented from potentially interfering with the arm's function over the course of the mission?

3. Is there a long-term site imagery plan in place aside from detailed mapping of the immediate area? There are some intriguing features on the horizon that might be worth further examination within the limits of SSI.

4. Are there any preliminary guesses about the weathered "sandstone" look & composition of some of the nearby rocks?

5. Based on previous MER EDL experience and now the Phoenix backshell & heatshield impacts imaged by MRO, in addition to the thruster erosion around Phoenix itself, it seems that the windborne dust coating of the planet is almost uniformly lighter optically than the underlying soil. Why?

Guess that's enough!

[Steve G]

Any idea if they intend - or are able - to use the Robotic Arm Camera to turn towards the spacecraft and do a self portrait mosaic? The lens can focus 11mm to infinity so focus isn't an issue. It would be great to see the spacecraft sitting on the surface. A good tourist shot if you will. Also, how about the unused MARDI camera? (Taking a shot at point blank to see what's under the spacecraft.)

[nprev]

I think MARDI is still very much an open issue, but maybe things might change, It was disabled due to potential EDL GNC interference, but possibly after they get comfortable running the spacecraft on the surface the risks of turning it on might be less severe...my opinion & hope, anyhow.

[Aussie]

I like nprev's question on any preliminary guesses about the weathered "sandstone" look & composition of some of the nearby rocks. If indeed they are sandstone what is the best guess on their provenance.

[Zeehond]

New pictures are coming in now. The arm has moved.

[hal_9000]

Anyone plan record the press conference?

[mcaplinger]

It was disabled due to potential EDL GNC interference, but possibly after they get comfortable running the spacecraft on the surface the risks of turning it on might be less severe...

The bug was with reading IMU data and MARDI data simultaneously. Now that the IMUs are turned off and unused, there's no risk in operating MARDI. The spacecraft guidance system isn't very challenged just sitting on the ground.

But I think it's unlikely this will happen until all other mission objectives are met, if then. It could take a nice image of the stuff underneath the rover, and I'm not sure the RAC can see that area (MARDI is on the other side of the met mast.)

Disclaimer: this post is based on public information. Any opinions are my own.

[Zeehond]

Anyone plan record the press conference?

To my knowledge, the next press conference is at 2 PM EDT? Previous press conferences can be found at space-multimedia.

[Zeehond]

The bug was with reading IMU data and MARDI data simultaneously. Now that the IMUs are turned off and unused, there's no risk in operating MARDI. The spacecraft guidance system isn't very challenged just sitting on the ground.

But I think it's unlikely this will happen until all other mission objectives are met, if then. It could take a nice image of the stuff underneath the rover, and I'm not sure the RAC can see that area (MARDI is on the other side of the met mast.)

Disclaimer: this post is based on public information. Any opinions are my own.

The MARDI system has a microphone too. It would be a great PR tool to record some Martian sounds with the sound of a moving arm in the back/foreground.

[Reed]

The MARDI system has a microphone too. It would be a great PR tool to record some Martian sounds with the sound of a moving arm in the back/foreground.

This was mentioned in one of the press conferences (yesterdays I think) and the answer was that it was possible but they would concentrate on primary mission objectives first.

[Zeehond]

This was mentioned in one of the press conferences (yesterdays I think) and the answer was that it was possible but they would concentrate on primary mission objectives first.

And I agree with them, a lot of complicated things to do first!

BTW, the black and white panorama is done, I think.

full pano

[bgarlick]

and the non-fisheye panaorama...

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_776.jpg

[Josh Cryer]

Quite enjoying the rawness of these new images! Makes me feel like I'm in command with everyone else trying to figure everything out.

Anyway, pull out your 3D glasses and enjoy this stereo image I chopped together. Brought back many memories. http://i30.tinypic.com/102pb35.jpg

[Zeehond]

Quite enjoying the rawness of these new images! Makes me feel like I'm in command with everyone else trying to figure everything out.

Anyway, pull out your 3D glasses and enjoy this stereo image I chopped together. Brought back many memories. http://i30.tinypic.com/102pb35.jpg

Any idea where I can find 3D glasses with the correct colours? I have red and blue glasses and blue and yellow/brown, but not red and green.

[tim53]

and the non-fisheye panaorama...

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_776.jpg

Sadly, as I suspected, Heimdal is obscured by a rise in the plains east of the lander. Unless the crater's hazed out by the distance, as Goldstone is in some VL-2 pans.

But the pedestal crater to the WNW is visible!

Me, I'm a horizon kind of guy.

-Tim.

[stevelu]

the instruments on the mission are not even capable of detecting life when they do start operating.

I've been wondering about that.

Are they going to vaporize all the H2O they collect to analyze it for organic compounds?

If I ran the zoo, I would definitely take a bit of ice, at least once, gently warm it to 5 degrees C or so, and turn the microscope loose on the liquid results. Long shot? Sure, but worth trying. Does anyone know these sorts of details about the science plan? and about what exactly the microsope is intended to examine? Mineral/crystal/etc. structures and (conceivably) oven-safe fossils only??

[Pando]

heh,.. when I played the file, my audio player's default visualisation module kicked in and produced this (it didn't fit onto one screen's width so I've crudely pasted chunks from two screenshots together to get the whole thing.) As scientific as a newpaper horoscope, of course but I notice the same harmonics (if that's what they are) show up in both visualisations though.

EDIT: Hmmm, Doug's shot shows a curve after the "bounce", whilst mine shows a straight line. Logarithmic vs. linear vertical scale perhaps? Any mathematicians in the house?

Ok, this is cool. I took the liberty of flipping the second half upside down to give a sense of continuity to the signal after it receded from the Mars Express. It's interesting to see the change in signal when Phoenix hit the atmosphere.

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[centsworth_II]

Is that a "real sound" that we would listen if we were flying next to Phoenix?

No. It's just the Doppler shift in radio waves between Phoenix and Mars Express. It would have been clearer if they had said "sounds of Phoenix's radio transmission" rather than "sounds of Phoenix".

[volcanopele]

Any idea where I can find 3D glasses with the correct colours? I have red and blue glasses and red and yellow/brown, but not red and green.

I got mine from work...

Not sure whether mine are red/blue or red/green, but these work just fine for that anaglyph:

http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/IMG_0231.JPG

[Reed]

These birds eye views really bring out the polygons:
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_816.jpg
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_815.jpg

[Joffan]

Sadly, as I suspected, Heimdal is obscured by a rise in the plains east of the lander. Unless the crater's hazed out by the distance, as Goldstone is in some VL-2 pans.

But the pedestal crater to the WNW is visible!

Me, I'm a horizon kind of guy.

-Tim.

Isn't that Heimdal at 130 degrees?

[CosmicRocker]

The polygons are gorgeous, and are probably the largest observable geological structures in this area.

Any idea where I can find 3D glasses with the correct colours?

I think that image is actually red/cyan. Your red/blue glasses should work reasonably well with those, as would red/green. I occasionally suffer from bouts of 3D blindness, but there seemed to be little 3D relief in that particular pair of images.

[helvick]

Some more questions for Emily (or anyone who can answer them here).

Exactly how icy does this area get during the winter? Does the area actually see a physical accumulation of CO2 ice on the surface and if so how deep does it get?

How much Daily (Solly?) power were the solar panels expected to generate on Sol 0 and what is the expected amount of power they will generate at the end of the primary mission?

What are the most temperature sensitive vital components of the lander? Once the onset of autumn and winter begin to bite and temperatures drop which systems are believed to be the ones that will force the mission to end?

Are the resting locations of the heatshield and backshell\parachute debris closer to the lander than expected?

[jamescanvin]

Nice new pics.

For those of you waiting for me to repost filename corrected and zipped versions. My renaming program choked this morning trying to get it done for you before work, I'll try and sort the problem this evening (UK time)

EDIT: Now updated - see my sig

[Phil Stooke]

"Me, I'm a horizon kind of guy."

Yes, Tim, horizons are where it's at!

An exaggerated relief view of this horizon would be interesting - I'm travelling, or I'd do it.

Phil

[Josh Cryer]

Any idea where I can find 3D glasses with the correct colours? I have red and blue glasses and blue and yellow/brown, but not red and green.

Hey Zeehond, I could have made it wrong, but they had stereo images plus a green filter too, so I added it. Quasi-color stereo image, like in those old Viking books I used to read when I was a kid. I was the only kid in our small town library to ever check them out. Maybe I'm just able to see into these sorts of images but it works just fine with me with blue/red lenses.

[Juramike]

Coordinated view of my pseudocolor HiRISE image and the most recent Phoenix lander surface panorama (lg_804.jpg):



Bluer in the false color image is darker colored in the original image (polygon bordersr and exposed rocks).

-Mike

[EDIT: "Sleepy Hollow" is the darker blue zone very close to the lander at 1 o'clock in the pseudocolorized image.]

[hal_9000]

Moving...

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[rlorenz]

Are they going to vaporize all the H2O they collect to analyze it for organic compounds?
If I ran the zoo, I would definitely take a bit of ice, at least once, gently warm it to 5 degrees C or so, and turn the microscope loose on the liquid results. Long shot? Sure, but worth trying. Does anyone know these sorts of details about the science plan? and about what exactly the microsope is intended to examine? Mineral/crystal/etc. structures and (conceivably) oven-safe fossils only??

Good thing you dont run the zoo.

If you warmed the ice to 5 deg C it would boil away quickly. Even exposed ice may sublime away in minutes-hours.

The ovens in TEGA are about 3mm in dia (see http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~rlorenz/TEGA.pdf )
so you can't get a microscope (which is an entirely different instrument elsewhere on the lander) into them
(the point is after all to seal the oven (and once you seal each one, you cant unseal it)
so you can look for water vapor, organics etc that are evolved. NB
big difference between TEGA on MPL and TEGA-II on PHX is that while the TA ovens are the same, the EGA
is very different - an absorption spectrometer for CO2 and H2O on TEGA-1, but a mass spec for TEGA-II that
might also detect organics.

But I dont think soil sampling is planned for a few sols yet.

[MahFL]

Still another day of arm unstow yet.

[Pertinax]

Even more questions for Emily (or anyone who can answer them here).

Is there a systematic observation plan for atmospheric halos scheduled as part of normal surface operations?

Will other mission raw data (MET, TEGA, TECP, etc) be available in rapid manner as the SSI data is?

(A statement rather than a question) Thank you for your dedication and willingness to open the further exploration of Mars to all who are interested!


-- Pertinax

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Is there a systematic observation plan for atmospheric halos scheduled as part of normal surface operations?

-- Pertinax

I think they had this planned for MPL? I remember a article in Sky & Telescope magazine, i'll see if I can find it.

I've found the magazine.. December issue 1999.

[Pedro_Sondas]

The scoop:





and the RAC:




http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=814&cID=8

[Pertinax]

I think they had this planned for MPL?

Thank you Sunspot. I though I remembered that as well. Did the plan carry over to Phoenix though? I thought that it had but over the past month have not been able to find any mention one way or the other.

-- Pertinax

[djellison]

It would be sort of cool to see the RAC with the 'lights' on imaged by the RA,B,C SSI filters

Doug

[ustrax]

I am happy...
On the 8th year of the 21st century I have made my first gif...

[Stu]

Oh dear god, we've created a monster! A MONSTER I tell you! Run! Runnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Thank you Sunspot. I though I remembered that as well.
-- Pertinax

I don't have a scanner, so I had to photograph the article with my digital camera.

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[Guest_Sunspot_*]

....and the rest of the article.

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[hendric]

Q: Can Phoenix wake in the spring without its batteries? Are they the most likely part to be damaged over winter? Could the wakeup "phone home" procedure end up saturating the telecoms orbiters (heh) if Phoenix tried to do it repeatedly?

Q: Do we have any photos at or near the Phoenix latitude taken in the early spring and mid summer for comparing changes?

Q: What amount of expansion/contraction is expected of the polygons? Will we be able to see noticeable changes?

Q: How late in the winter will MRO be able to view Phoenix? Will it take photos past EOM to watch the surface evolution? (and hopefully get some "engineering photos" of Phoenix's shadow across the surface!)

Q: What kind of effect is predicted on the ground ice accumulation due to the albedo change caused by Phoenix's landing?

Q: Is there a decoder for the windsock speed online somewhere?

Q: Phoenix got below the Mars Scout budget cap by using existing equipment. What is the phoenix's team feelings about building a new lander from scratch within the Scout budget?

Here's a great idea for a flash kid's game: Dig with the scoop and drop it into the instruments! My son could play for hours doing that. Hmmm, crazy thought for the "XM"...Write JPL in the sand.

Thanks Emily!

PS Some questions from friends:
Q: How long before Phoenix team members get "Order of the Phoenix" badges?

Q: Do they expect the digging to shift the lander at all?

Plus the usual "when is the mic going to come on?"

[djellison]

Q: Phoenix got below the Mars Scout budget cap by using existing equipment.

Ehhem...it didn't. The initial 'scout' budget was $325m. That went up by about $100m before launch. You have to include the $100m spent on the old '01 lander as well. Total cost about $520m.

Doug

[Stu]

Here's a question for you Emily (or any Phoenix people lurking in the undergrowth...)

At the risk of sounding slightly ungrateful when the team have done such a magnificent job getting the pictures published online so quickly, are there any plans to sort the raw images page into daily blocks, like the MER ones are? I just ask because it's a bit ungainly at the moment, with everything on the one page; I fear that after a week or so of pictures it will become just too big to use without having to go and make a meal or do some shopping while the page is loading...

I too would love to see some "sky shots", it's a real itch I want to scratch, you know? I remember seeing that Sky & Telescope article at the time it was published and thinking how cool it would be to see something like that for real, and now we have cameras and hardware to do such a beautiful scene justice I think it would be a real shame not to at least try. I'm sure they're going to tho.

(BTW: just found this interesting report from JPL on landing night... camera-work's a bit "Cloverfield" but I thought it gives a nice impression of being there...)

[jamescanvin]

As some of you may have noticed (thanks Algorimancer) the Phoenix raw image update on my site was corrupted earlier. For some reason things got garbled when I tried to FTP from work. It should all be fixed now.

James

[stevelu]

Good thing you dont run the zoo.

If you warmed the ice to 5 deg C it would boil away quickly. Even exposed ice may sublime away in minutes-hours.

The ovens in TEGA are about 3mm in dia (see http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~rlorenz/TEGA.pdf )
so you can't get a microscope (which is an entirely different instrument elsewhere on the lander) into them

Thanks for your reply.

"So, it's impossible. How long will it take?"
- Leslie Neilson's (yes, that Leslie Neilson) proto-Kirk character in Forbidden Planet

But, if I ran the zoo I would listen to my engineers. So my question would be -- back of the envelope estimate, how much cost & complexity would it add to a lander such as this to provide for a small, sealed 'sllde' (i.e. chamber) in(to) which ice could be melted, to then be imaged at say 200x?

Ideally several different magnifications of course, but let's start simple, especially as in this thought experiment it sounds like we need a lens assembly put in place for this single purpose.

I'm hoping that at least by the time we get to Europa such a capability will be included.

dont think soil sampling is planned for a few sols yet.

True enough. My excuse for bringing this up now is that I'm trying to manage my expectations, and to put the science that we can expect into context -- at least for myself.

Also, my martian friends, who were anxious that they might be exposed (and y'know "there goes the neighborhood") by Phoenix, are breathing much easier now.

[Steve G]

Just completed watching the latest news conferance, they mentioned the lander "sleeping" yet with continuous sunlight, why would it sleep? (Or is it for the benefit of the team to sleep!)

[Stu]

Starting to name rocks and features around the lander. The theme: fairy tales and folklore, so we have (another? Doesn't Gusev have one already?) "Sleepy Hollow", "Headless" (as in "horseman" I'm guessing" and "Ichabod", plus "Humpty Dumpty", "Wall" and "Alice"...

Labelled pic here

Peter Smith said they expect to be naming 100 to 200 features, so there's a lot of potential to have your kid's (or your own!) favourite fairy tale character ID's on Mars soon...

[volcanopele]

A few thoughts from the press conference:

1) Emily got in more than 2 questions *tsk tsk* Seriously, at least you got some of the others to say something.
2) NASA TV does look better on a High def TV.
3) The rock circulation idea is pretty interesting. Some of the views of the nearby trough walls gives the appearance that the soil is a conglomerate, with a coarse-grained sand matrix with hand-to-football sized rocks. Basically, the texture below the surface resembles the appearance on the surface, a mix of sand and smallish rocks. I wonder how this will affect digging. The rocks here are pretty diverse with two basic rock "types": angular rocks with relatively smooth, flat top surfaces and lumpy, vesicular rocks. I would presume the second type represent basaltic rocks, but the brighter albedo is a bit odd.
4) Can't wait to see that pan in color.

[Steve G]

Too bad they didn't take the weight of the MARDI (Not really needed with MRO) and replace it with a third camera on the mast with a terrific telephoto lens to see up close more distance objects of interest.

[djellison]

yet with continuous sunlight, why would it sleep?

All hours of sunshine are not the same. At local midnight, the sun is only 3 degrees above the horizon - the solar array output wont be zero, but it wont be very much at all. At local noon, it's 45 degrees above the horizon - lots of power.

Doug

[Juramike]

Starting to name rocks and features around the lander.

I'm hoping that the trough near vector 300 gets the name "Blue Canyon".

This seems to be one of those ubiquitous names you find on just about every hiking map. It would be nice to have one on Mars as well to increase confusion.

[Other ubiquitous names include: Deer Lake, Mount Snow, Bald Mountain, Deep Creek, Green River, Green Valley (oops! already got that one!), Rocky Ridge, Blue Lake.]

[volcanopele]

From today's press release mosaic, a crop showing the hardware in the distance. Used HiRISE image to confirm identification of heat shield and bounce mark, assuming bright spot is backshell.

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[punkboi]

Go Phoenix! Waiting on the full-color panorama to be released...

[Steve G]

Good shot (inverted up) to show scoop and deck.

[jamescanvin]

Well you've all already seen a version of this at yesterdays press conference. But this is my first Phoenix mosaic so I thought I'd show it off anyway.



Click image

James

[ahecht]

Just completed watching the latest news conferance, they mentioned the lander "sleeping" yet with continuous sunlight, why would it sleep? (Or is it for the benefit of the team to sleep!)

Don't forget that shadows on Mars are very dark, as is low-angle light. Without a think hazy atmosphere to scatter light, the amount of light that gets to the solar panels when the sun is near the horizon is practially zero.

[djellison]

Phoenix - in TallovisioN - WAY more horizon relief than I was expecting.

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[JRehling]

Keeping with the practice of sol-by-sol discussions, here it is.

This isn't really the easiest way to turn the board's posts into a reference of useful commentary on the mission. Next week when someone's wondering what was said or done re: a particular image, who's going to remember which sol it was?

[djellison]

Open to suggestions on how to manage it especially better. There are 100,000,000 ways you could organise it. Splitting the enormous traffic spike of the first few sols into sep. threads was one. Note that this thread is 'Sol 3 and onwards'.

Discussions are essentially chaotic - attempts to cultivate them in an organised fashion at anything other than a very very low level will always be a waste of time imho.

[climber]

Phoenix - in TallovisioN - WAY more horizon relief than I was expecting.

Well, I'm a kind of horizon man too. Whoaaouuu

[Juramike]

Phoenix - in TallovisioN - WAY more horizon relief than I was expecting.

That is very, very cool.

[elakdawalla]

For those of you who only use inches as units for measuring the diagonal diameter of television screens, Mark provided me with a version of the rock-dimensions graphic with units in centimeters:
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001479/

--Emily

[ugordan]

Ahhhh... The metric system. I heard about that one!

[climber]

Mark provided me with a version of the rock-dimensions graphic with units in centimeters:
--Emily

Thanks Emily but, you know the worse is to figure out °F in °C! No chance the weather reports will be in °C I guess...

Regarding the backshield and parachute, is there any chance that the parachute move a bit and come to view in the future?

[Graham]

Thanks Emily but, you know the worse is to figure out °F in °C! No chance the weather reports will be in °C I guess...

C/5 = (F-32)/9

and I've carried that in my head for over 40 years !

[ElkGroveDan]

For those of you who only use inches as units for measuring the diagonal diameter of television screens,

And for those of you who don't use metric that often, I hastily threw this together. (Please don't flame me if I'm off by 10% or so).

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[PFK]

That's instructive, but left me with a horrible concept - mission funding via product placement in images!

[ElkGroveDan]

I was just going for familiarity.

[Juramike]

Is there a site that has past Phoenix mission briefings?

[ddeerrff]

Thanks Emily but, you know the worse is to figure out °F in °C! No chance the weather reports will be in °C I guess...

Regarding the backshield and parachute, is there any chance that the parachute move a bit and come to view in the future?

Since the temperature cycles a bit above and below -40, °F or °C doesn't matter

[ugordan]

Is there a site that has past Phoenix mission briefings?

http://www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org/inde...21&Itemid=1

[PFK]

I was just going for familiarity.

oh I know, and that makes eminent sense; just a strange thought, though, that it brought on - obtaining funding through the sponsoring of features

[Nix]

Phoenix - in TallovisioN - WAY more horizon relief than I was expecting.

I like that one a lot -second you on expecting way less.

Nico

[CAP-Team]

Here's a Dutch commercial for an insurance company

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXNMAiJeD0c

[algorimancer]

...my first Phoenix mosaic so I thought I'd show it off anyway.

Very nice. Made me feel like I was "there" for the first time :

CODE

Post edited.  The quote did not work as you left the [  off the [/quote] - Doug

[bgarlick]

Is there a way to know when each day's pictures will be made available?
Is there a site with scheduling information for when the expected 'afternoon' downlink will take place? (This way
we can set an alarm to check instead of doing bandwidth wasting polling of the phoenix image gallery website).
Will the downlinks occur approx 39 minutes later each day because the sol is longer than a day?

[Fred]

Maybe I hadn't been following the mission closely enough, but I thought there was going to be an instrument on Phoenix that would take pictures of the ground below during the descent. Did this instrument not make it onto Phoenix? I guess we don't really need it due to the MRO images. Is such an instrument still planed for MSL?

[nilstycho]

Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) was on Phoenix, but it was unfortunately decided not to turn it on during landing. There was a slight risk of interference with the landing operation itself. You can read more here. Another MARDI will fly on MSL (although for a brief time it was announced that it would be cut for lack of funds).

[Reed]

Will the downlinks occur approx 39 minutes later each day because the sol is longer than a day?

You'd expect this to be roughly true since they'd try to return the data at the end of each sol, but keep in mind that also depends on when the orbiter doing the relay (currently Odyssey, but also including MRO once they figure out the radio issue) has a good pass. Odysseys orbital period is about two hours, and not every pass is favorable. Then the orbiter has to return the data via DSN which has it's on scheduling issues.

So my outsiders guess is it will be ~40 minutes later every day on average, but +/- a couple of hours on any given day. A publicly accessible schedule would be awesome

[bgarlick]

New images arriving.

Is this solid ice exposed by the retro rockets under the lander?

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=836&cID=25

[um3k]

http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=0&cID=8

New images! Including optical microscope.