Sol 90+, Extended mission Options

[Astro0]

Here is a special poster to mark the occasion of the Phoenix Lander achieving 90 Sols.

A full resolution version is available here.
A half size version is available here.

Enjoy
Astro0

[djellison]

New mission phase, new UMSF logo ( Thanks Astro0 ! )

Doug

[SpaceListener]

How long was its recent mission extension? By that moment, the snow has started to appear above of coldest places.

[JTN]

How long was its recent mission extension?

Another month and a bit -- through Sept. 30.

[nprev]

The new banner rules! Well done indeed, Astro0!:)

(Good to be back...one week of hellish moving almost finally done...lots of catching up to do!)

[CosmicRocker]

Maybe it is just because I haven't tried to create such a logo, but I suspect I never would have designed one as artful as that. Nice work, Asto0. Not only is the logo clever, but the entire poster captures the theme. Outstanding!

[CosmicRocker]

It's not entirely obvious to me why the sol 65 thread was closed, but I'll assume it is time to move discussions to the extended mission thread. The following quote is from the previous thread. If I've misplaced this comment, hopefully the mods will move it.

Found another story on the perchlorates. Most of it old news but I at least had not seen this before ...

That was a pretty interesting story, and a nice summary of the work done so far. I can't help but wonder if perhaps this ClO₄^- story has really surprised the Phoenix team at this late date in the mission. Has the robotic arm delivered enough samples from enough locations to the various instruments to define the extent of the perchlorate ions, and if indeed there are any perchlorate concentration gradients?

It sounds like a tricky wicket to me, so lately in the game.

[Stu]

There is a trio of Sol 90 "low sun" images - taken at 00.50, 00.51 and 00.56 - that make a nice animation...



By the way, new poem - "First Frost" - now up on my poetry blog, if anyone wants a look...

[slinted]

Here's a view of the bright spots in Snow White and Burn Alive, from sol 89

Sol 89, 16:04 L1/L2

[Tman]

There is a trio of Sol 90 "low sun" images - taken at 00.50, 00.51 and 00.56 - that make a nice animation...

The lowest sun elevation is now about 0.7 degrees, but it already fully set behind the slight rise to the north for about half an hour. However today there's already a very nice picture of the half-sun:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/...90_sunrise.html

[ElkGroveDan]

Bye-bye

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[djellison]

Mars24 says that Sol 98 is the first day with an actual sun-set - so we get a funky week of partial sunsets

[dot.dk]

Any official information about how long Phoenix will stay power positive and be able to work?

[Reckless]

At work the new banner is up but here at home same old banner any ideas?
Roy

[ElkGroveDan]

At work the new banner is up but here at home same old banner any ideas?
Roy

Clear your cache.

[jmjawors]

Or just force refresh (shift+refresh button).

[Reckless]

Thank you Elkgrovedan and Matt, my cache is now clear and new banner is nicely in place also thank you Asto0 for the poster and via Doug for the banner
Roy

[01101001]

Look who got mentioned in a tweet from Phoenix.

Phoenix followers at Unmannedspaceflight.com do wonderful things with my images, here's their latest thread: http://tinyurl.com/6bgy48

about 3 hours ago from web

[climber]

Mars24 says that Sol 98 is the first day with an actual sun-set - so we get a funky week of partial sunsets

Will the sharpness of the SSI enough to show some details on the horizon (if any) ?

[peter59]

Mark Lemmon's Phoenix SSI raw images directory:
Sol 091: Hold sample (restricted sols). Remote sensing and continued Stone Soup documentation.
Sol 092: Drop sample. Load plate test; sunrise & remote sensing

Drop sample, but where ?

[01101001]

Drop sample, but where ?

That would be the Golden Goose sample from Stone Soup trench, going to the third of four MECA Wet Chemistry Labs.

[JRehling]

It sounds like Stone Soup is relatively ice free and that it wouldn't take long, therefore, for any ice in the sample to sublimate away.

I've got to say, the feeling of tense urgency I had about getting an actual ice sample into TEGA before the end of the mission is verging on resignation that it's not going to happen. I would trade a million sunset photos for completion of the half-dozen things that Phoenix actually went to Mars to do.

[centsworth_II]

It sounds like Stone Soup is relatively ice free and that it wouldn't take long, therefore, for any ice in the sample to sublimate away....

That sample is going into MECA, so they are not looking for an ice sample.

As far as getting an ice sample into TEGA goes, I am sure that no one wants to do that more than the mission scientists. I wonder how their plans to do that are coming along? There may only be one more oven that opens fully (unless, hopefully, all the ovens on the side of #0 open well). I was a little surprised to see them use oven 7 (perhaps the next-to-last fully opening oven) for an ice-free sample.

[stevesliva]

Long shadows may actually help them in the quest to get an icy sample. They were speculating that sunlight made the adhesion to the scoop worse.

[3488]

AFAIK, the sunlight DID make the regolith clumpiness worse. The idea is that the ice softend in the sun & caused it to stick together. Aslo the scoop is dark, absorbing solar energy, warming it up slightly, thus making the ice rich regolith contained within to clump, as the ice rehardened.

The idea f perhaps scooping some samples in the half light of the polar midnight twilight (as the sun will be setting 'properly' from this Saturday onwards) sounds much better.

Delivering ice rich samples to TEGA should be easier as it should be more of a fine granular mix, rather than the stodgy stuff that has proven so difficult to load.

The minus side of course, with proper night time arriving, well deep twilight (even on Sol 124 the final sol of the current extension, the Sun will only dip to just over four degrees below the horizon at midnight), power will become a big issue.

Will each active period every Sol have to be reduced in duration to allow more time for recharging batteries?

Andrew Brown.

[Tman]

Is there an official Phoenix (horizon) mosaic that has included degrees details of the orientation? Didn't find any so far. But they are orientated each with a particular main-direction.

I've tried to find the spot of the sunrise on sol 90. According to Mars24 the elevation was 1.3° and azimuth 11.8°. I used not the full res. mosaic, so I had to resize the sunrise image to find a match at the calculated position (based on the fact of where I fit North in the image).

Here my guess: (1.3MB) http://www.greuti.ch/phoenix/sunrisepano_sm_17106.jpg

[01101001]

Will each active period every Sol have to be reduced in duration to allow more time for recharging batteries?

Way back in the Planetary Society Weblog: Phoenix sol 76 update: Digging at Neverland [...]:

Mark Lemmon tells me that as of sol 84 the team is going to "rein in our appetites for 'night' observations," presumably due to the decreasing amount of power available at night due to the lowering Sun.

Not that imaging takes so very much power -- as compared to the likes of TEGA baking or arm digging -- but maybe imaging is part of a general curtailment of nighttime activites.

[hortonheardawho]

[Stu]

Couldn't resist animating this sequence...

[Tman]

Managed to download the 60MB fullres of PeterPan.

860KB http://www.greuti.ch/phoenix/sunrise90.gif

Btw. this one was used for the sunrise image.


Edited

[Tman]

The azimuth data of the sol 90 sunrise images are a bit odd:

lg_24930 50:52 elevation 5.03164 degrees and azimuth 13.2373 degrees
lg_24931 51:45 elevation 5.03367 degrees and azimuth 13.2360 degrees
lg_24932 56:50 elevation 5.03470 degrees and azimuth 13.2369 degrees

What's the exact meaning of "The camera pointing was..."? Does this correspond to the actual elevation (notional horizon) and azimuth degrees seen from the same point as the camera?

[Phil Stooke]

... or the azimuth and elevation in the lander's coordinate system?

Phil

[Tman]

If it is the azimuth and elevation in the lander coordinate system (pointing means the center of the image probably), is then the Mars24 solar elevation of 1.3° and azimuth 11.8° definitely correct?

[elakdawalla]

I'm making a new map of the work volume with James' sol 84 pan as a base. Here's the names I've come up with so far. Is there a name for the dump piles at the top of Snow White? Are there any other names that should be on this map?

--Emily

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[Aussie]

Hmmm. I appreciate that the journalistic hype over perchlorates probably upset the applecart. But really, at least the old television stations had the courtesy to put up program interruption signs. I guess NASA and Artizona St U have decided to emulate the ESA.

[MahFL]

My nickname at school was Ichabod, I was skinny and brainy, lol. I am now not skinny and for the brains, well you know how age affects those, and beer.....

[Tman]

Sometimes you really feel older

[ConyHigh]

Hmmm. I appreciate that the journalistic hype over perchlorates probably upset the applecart. But really, at least the old television stations had the courtesy to put up program interruption signs. I guess NASA and Artizona St U have decided to emulate the ESA.

Arizona State?? You just stepped into it, Oz.

[01101001]

JPL Phoenix Mission News: NASA Phoenix Mission Conducting Extended Activities on Mars (August 29)

The team is currently working to diagnose an intermittent interference that has become apparent in the path for gases generated by heating a soil sample in the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer to reach the instrument's mass spectrometer. Vapors from all samples baked to high temperatures have reached the mass spectrometer so far, however data has shown that the gas flow has been erratic, which is puzzling the scientists.

[climber]

however data has shown that the gas flow has been erratic

"Something" must be breezing inside

[CosmicRocker]

I'm making a new map of the work volume with James' sol 84 pan as a base. Here's the names I've come up with so far. Is there a name for the dump piles at the top of Snow White? Are there any other names that should be on this map?

Em: I really appreciate your awesome work volume maps. I have no help with names for those tailings piles.
What I would really like to see on such maps is an outline of the polygon boundaries in the area. Are there not any within reach of the robotic arm?

[CosmicRocker]

Sometimes you really feel older

I just had to say, "Sometimes you really are older."

[CosmicRocker]

What I would really like to see on such maps is an outline of the polygon boundaries in the area. Are there not any within reach of the robotic arm?

Duh! I forgot that some of our members had posted several polar pans. James' Phoenix Polar Peter Pan is one of them. Should we call it the P⁴ pan? If anyone can do it, I think a vertical projection of the imagery would be helpful.

As best as I can tell, all of the trenches so far have been within this polygon, and some of the local polygon's boundaries are barely within reach of the robotic arm. Can we dig into a polygon boundary, or not?

I'm commenting from my RV in Lufkin, Tx, as we evacuate the gulf coast ahead of hurricane Gustav. I am hoping to avoid the storm and swing back behind it, as it comes ashore. Wish us luck.

[01101001]

Can we dig into a polygon boundary, or not?

Planetary Society Weblog: Catching up with Phoenix, through sol 91

Stone Soup is in a region that is a boundary between two polygons, and the ice table doesn't seem to continue across that boundary, so they're getting much deeper -- 18 centimeters, according to the latest press release.

[Stu]

Take care, CR, and any other UMSF members or lurkers in the path of the storm.

[peter59]

Change of weather ?

Onset wind - sol 94

and strong cloudiness - sol 95

[peter59]

1B02-3: Ice SHorizon Movie (Sol 94)

sample


http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/094.html

[Aussie]

Is this clouds, or a continuation of the N Polar dust activity mentioned here?
http://www.msss.com/msss_images/2008/08/27/index.html

[Stu]

Here you go... LOVE this sequence...!!

[James Sorenson]

Sol-94 Telltale animation's .



This is one of my favorite sofar of the telltale, showing background clouds in the field of view.

[Stu]

Another offering for (cue Sky Sports presenter voice) Phoenix Animation Super Sunday!!!!

"Rolling Sun"

[jekbradbury]

If anyone can do it, I think a vertical projection of the imagery would be helpful.

I posted a vertical projection of James's Peter Pan a while back:

Vertical Peter Pan

[Tman]

Another offering for (cue Sky Sports presenter voice) Phoenix Animation Super Sunday!!!!

Wow! Hoped for such an image row.

Autumn-like weather on Phoenix site?!
Have worked on that very nice sol94 cloud movie:

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[Doc]

Cool movies......

From the looks of it these clouds are heading to the north (the SSI was pointed towards the south horizon).

And the winds seem to be picking up too (is this another sign of the weather changing?) ..... martian Gustav hurricane perhaps?

[Stu]

Great job, Tman. Much cleaner than my 'dirty' version

[Tman]

Thanks Stu

What's the exact meaning of "The camera pointing was..."? Does this correspond to the actual elevation (notional horizon) and azimuth degrees seen from the same point as the camera?

To cut a long story short: In consideration of raw images and probably also some small deformations in that huge mosaic, in PhotoShop, I took the given elev. and azimuth of that sunrise image lg_24930 (el. 5.03164 / az. 13.2373 / FOV 13.8x13.8) and get el. 1.27 and az. 11.87 degrees for the sun in the Peter Pan full res. mosaic. Additionally I made a test with two raw images at az. 280 and 154 degrees and get a dislocation in the azimuth of about 0.1 and 0.5 degrees.

[Guest_Oersted_*]

This is one of my favorite sofar of the telltale, showing background clouds in the field of view.

Oh, wonderful!

I wonder if the team ever considered that the tell-tale imagery could also capture clouds moving in the background, so a relationship between those macro-movements and the tell-tale micro-movements could be inferred?

[CosmicRocker]

Planetary Society Weblog: Catching up with Phoenix, through sol 91

I posted a vertical projection of James's Peter Pan a while back:

Vertical Peter Pan

Thanks, 1101001. Somehow, I had managed to miss that information.
jekbradbury: I saw your projection when you originally posted it, but apparently I forgot about that. Is there some way we
could get a higher resolution version of that vertical projection?

Yep, James Sorenson, Oersted, and peter59. The rushing clouds behind the swinging telltale really brings Mars home for me.

edited to add an attribution I had missed...

[James Sorenson]

Nice animation Tman .


http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...090&cID=264
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...091&cID=264

[jekbradbury]

Is there some way we
could get a higher resolution version of that vertical projection?

Here is a 4Kx4K version of the same image.

[01101001]

JPL Phoenix Mission News: Analysis Begins on Deepest Soil Sample (September 1)

About the Stone Soup sample to MECA WCL and the clouds.

[CosmicRocker]

Here is a 4Kx4K version of the same image.

Many thanks, jekbradbury. That's glorious.

[jmknapp]

Has the robotic arm delivered enough samples from enough locations to the various instruments to define the extent of the perchlorate ions, and if indeed there are any perchlorate concentration gradients?

Presumably the current MECA sample from Stone Soup will show if the perchlorate concentrates at deeper levels. Yum, soup from strong oxidizer concentrate.

Has any estimate of the concentration of perchlorate in the previous samples been offered?

[Ant103]

Stone soup at Sol 96 :


And TEGA view with oven#1 partially open (one of the door is not deploy).

[hortonheardawho]

Sol 98 cloud movie

LB ( Uv ) and RB ( green ) frames were registered and used to create a synthetic color image. No attempt has been made to white balance the images.

[Tman]

Nice animation Horton!

Hardly to say whether the 3D effect works in cross eyes. Too little topology:

http://www.greuti.ch/phoenix/sol98stereoclouds.gif

[01101001]

TECP: It's dry. Really really dry.

JPL Phoenix Mission News: Spiky Probe on NASA Mars Lander Raises Vapor Quandary (September 4)

A fork-like conductivity probe has sensed humidity rising and falling beside NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, but when stuck into the ground, its measurements so far indicate soil that is thoroughly and perplexingly dry.

"If you have water vapor in the air, every surface exposed to that air will have water molecules adhere to it that are somewhat mobile, even at temperatures well below freezing," said Aaron Zent of NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., lead scientist for Phoenix's thermal and electroconductivity probe.
[...]
Preliminary results from the latest insertion of the probe's four needles into the ground, on Wednesday and Thursday, match results from the three similar insertions in the three months since landing.

"All the measurements we've made so far are consistent with extremely dry soil," Zent said. "There are no indications of thin films of moisture, and this is puzzling."

More there.

[Stu]

Phoenix sure is busy up there...



(Sol 99 view of Dodo-Goldilocks trench... mess... post-sample...)

[gallen_53]

TECP: It's dry. Really really dry.

JPL Phoenix Mission News: Spiky Probe on NASA Mars Lander Raises Vapor Quandary (September 4)

We know that one of the most common minerals on the surface of Mars is olivine. Olivine rapidly decomposes in the presence of liquid water. Extreme dryness of the regolith is consistent with the presence of olivine.

[marsbug]

Gallen 53 could you expand on that for me? What I mean is; what is it about the decomposition of olivine that causes dryness? Or do you mean that the presence of olivine is a sign of extreme dryness?

I'm curious that no thin films form at all when the water vapour, presumably coming from the ice beneath, is rising through the soil. It suggests there is something in the soil repelling the water, either a compound or an electrostatic charge...?

[Gray]

I didn't know that olivine was common in the Martian soils. But then, I didn't know much of anything about their composition. Could you point me towards a reference that describes their mineralogy?
Thanks.

[gallen_53]

Gallen 53 could you expand on that for me? What I mean is; what is it about the decomposition of olivine that causes dryness? Or do you mean that the presence of olivine is a sign of extreme dryness?

Olivine is an indicator of extreme dryness. Olivine will rapidly decompose (in geological time) in the presence of liquid water. The Martian surface is very old but there is also lots of olivine. Therefore the Martian surface has been very dry for a long time.

I didn't know that olivine was common in the Martian soils. But then, I didn't know much of anything about their composition. Could you point me towards a reference that describes their mineralogy?

Google is your friend :-) .

http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Nov03/olivine.html

http://www.astrobio.net/news/index.php?nam...p;theme=Printer

www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2004/pdf/1043.pdf

http://www.marstoday.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=17025

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivine

[marsbug]

Thanks!

[slinted]

Not that there wasn't already confirmation, but Spirit actually put her wheels (and instruments) on olivine rich sands back at the El Dorado dune field (see: Recent Results from the Spirit Rover at Gusev Crater, LPSC 2006).

[Stu]

Animation of the Sun rolling just beneath (I think..?) the horizon on the morning of Sol 101...

(Too big to post here so I hope you don't mind taking a wander over to my Gallery )

Also, here's a colourisation of a Sol 100 microscope view...



... which is offered purely as an aesthetically-pleasing image; it's been played about with, tweaked and tortured in Photoshop until it begged for mercy, so I'm not suggesting it's colours are accurate, or even that it's remotely useful. I just think it's beautiful!

[TheChemist]

Regarding the olivine suggestion, I am not convinced at all.

I really don't see how a soil layer a few cm thick, which neighbours with water ice below, and spends six months per year covered with water ice, could contain olivine. Since it reacts so easily with water, only olivine hydrolysis products should be there.

Olivine may point to dryness, but this cannot be logically reversed (and olivine was not detected)
All other instruments show that the Phoenix site is not dry.
The puzzle is how can the soil be consistently dry with so much water around ?
How can the soil be dry when we see water condense on the legs of Phoenix ?

I really enjoy the Scherlock Holmes elements this place offers us
MECA sees perchlorates, but TEGA does not (so far).
The TC probe points that the soil is dry, while we see the ice even with our own eyes !

I just love a good old mystery

[Pertinax]

Animation of the Sun rolling just beneath (I think..?) the horizon on the morning of Sol 101...

Thank you. I love the clouds / haze movement just above the rolling sun!

A question for all: has anyone caught any mention of any glimpses of refractive phenomena (from ices) in any of the sky obs? I've not, but then I have not been able to follow the Phoenix as closely as I would prefer either .

-- Pertinax

[hortonheardawho]

sol 100 clouds at sunset movie:

[Aussie]

Regarding the olivine suggestion, I am not convinced at all.

I really don't see how a soil layer a few cm thick, which neighbours with water ice below, and spends six months per year covered with water ice, could contain olivine. Since it reacts so easily with water, only olivine hydrolysis products should be there.
I just love a good old mystery

Green Beach in Hawaii demonstrates that Olivine can co-exist with a lot of water for a long time (by our Mayfly yardstick). However, if any of the greenish particles we have seen from OM images are Olivine then given their size and the Martian timescales, it would seem proof positive that the probe is right and the regolith is totally dry. I don't know what the temperature of the permafrost is but I feel that it is cold enough for H2O to be just another rock. While they are not releasing even basic information all we can do is conjecture, but that couple of cm of soil seems to have some pretty impressive properties.

[nprev]

Speaking from ignorance here (my preferred position! ), could this observation be explained by a combination of the facts that 1) water never occurs in the liquid phase here, 2) ice does not chemically interact effectively with soil compounds due to the low temp, and 3) water vapor is in the same boat due to low ambient pressure and temp?

To explain 3) a bit more, even an RH of 100% at an ambient total pressure of 7 mb or so would still seem to be very little water vapor in terms of total mass, and the mean free paths of individual H2O molecules are doubtless much longer than they are at Earth's surface. Frost happens, of course, but that's about the water molecules binding to each other and to the rocks & soil, not electron exchange, so no chemical reactions take place, just phase changes.

That's all probably totally wonky, and in any case my thinking is not well-explained. However, since our direct experience with olivene decomposition is limited to its behavior on our comparatively sopping wet, humid, hot planet with a dense atmosphere, then it makes sense to consider physical factors that might greatly reduce the rate of (or even completely inhibit) chemical activity for such reactions.

[marsbug]

My ignorance is at least equal to yours here nprev, but I am under the impression that forming frost requires a mobile, or 'liquid' monolayer at the forming surface of the crystals, kept liquid by the pressure of the van der waals forces between the atoms. I think SickNick or Dburt would have some knowledge on whether this is always true. I don't know if any studies have been done to see if frost forms without the monolayer under mars-like conditions?

If it is always true this implies some difference between the surface and near surface material.

Surfaces without thin films of (usually but not always) water experience much higher friction coefficients, as high relief areas, known as asperities, on the two surfaces bond together. This might explain some of the clumping, but not why the clumping seems to lessen over time.

EDIT: Actually it might. If the regolith beneath the surface is ultra dry, and the atmosphere in the soil pores to, then soil freshly removed from the subsurface will have no water monolayers and particles will be held together by cold welds between asperities. After some days exposed to the atmosphere above the surface, which does have some water content, monolayers will start to form, lubricate the particles and hey presto the stickiness goes away.
If there's enough H2O in the Martian air to make that a possibility (no idea myself) then this could be tested by scooping up some subsurface, testing it for monolayers, leaving it in a heap on the deck for a few days then testing it again. If the soil becomes 'damp' after a few days on the deck then we have an explanation in the making and I shall buy myself a new bottle of absinthe! END EDIT.

It's been pointed out to me on the the yellow and black rover forum that relative humidity is temperature dependent and would be expected to vary significantly as the temperature changes, as relative humidity is the partial pressure of the water vapour divided by the saturation vapour pressure of water at a given temperature. Is it possible there has been a misinterpretation somewhere, and the change in relative humidity is entirely due to temperature, and little or no vapour is coming off the ice? Again my ignorance of humidity and atmospheric physics s pretty profound

[fredk]

Sorry if this has been discussed (I'm back from a break), but these sol96 images show the solar panels flapping (presumably due to wind):

http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/i/SS096EFF904...4_1B300R6M1.jpg
http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/i/SS096EFF904...5_1B360R6M1.jpg

This is clearly panel movement, since the foreground and background surface are sharp, but the panels are blurred vertically. Have we seen this before?

[slinted]

This is clearly panel movement, since the foreground and background surface are sharp, but the panels are blurred vertically. Have we seen this before?

Could it just be out of focus, since the panels are further away? R6 is one of the diopter filters. which the SSI vital statistics page lists as having best focus at 1.2 m, in focus from 1 to 1.4 m.

[Tman]

Can't remember that this was mentioned anywhere. There was already a strong wind at sol94 - see Emily's animation http://planetary.org/blog/article/00001628/ and lots of clouds around in those sols.

[Tman]

There's such comparable R6 images where it is sharper http://www.met.tamu.edu/mars/i/SS099EFF904...2_1B7C0R6M1.jpg

[slinted]

Fair enough! I'm convinced

[ugordan]

Wow. I didn't expect that kind of power with Mars' air density...

It clearly is flapping and not blur as the blur is directed up-down, a regular motion blur pattern with the two amplitude peaks best exposed. One could probably be able to calculate the amplitude fairly straightforwardly from vertical extent of the blur.

[Gray]

Google is your friend :-) .

http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Nov03/olivine.html

Thanks for the links.

[fredk]

Could it just be out of focus, since the panels are further away?

To add to ugordan's comment about motion blur, this can't be a focus issue because both the foreground (MECA etc) and the background (surface of Mars) are in good focus, but not the panels in between. No optical system can do that.

The images I linked to have exposures of 714 and 510 milliseconds (I believe those are the units - correct me if I'm wrong). So this is not a gentle flexing of the arrays as the wind varies - they had to flap at least once in a half second.

With this kind of movement in the arrays and wind I wonder if dust is being cleared off. But I suppose the reduction in sunlight will be more important than dust losses for Phoenix.

[Guest_Oersted_*]

Makes the whole situation up there at the Martian Pole so much more vivid and "real", to see the panels flapping. A bit like the litle tell-tale, but more impressive...

[Ipparchus]

Why did they aquire another WCL-3 sample(Golden Goose 3)?wasn`t the Golden Goose 2 enough? the upcoming TEGA sample where is going to be from?Stone Soup or Snow White?

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[centsworth_II]

Why did they aquire another WCL-3 sample(Golden Goose 3)?wasn`t the Golden Goose 2 enough?

I'm not aware of this. As far as I know, one sample was delivered to WCL-3 and that's that. Do you have a reference for "Golden Goose 3"?

[01101001]

I'm not aware of this. As far as I know, one sample was delivered to WCL-3 and that's that. Do you have a reference for "Golden Goose 3"?

Texas A&M Raw Images

Sol 102: Document GG3 sample and transfer to WCL3; remote sensing
[...]
Sol 096: Document GG2 delivery to WCL-3, TEGA door 1; remote sensing; night science

[Tman]

Makes the whole situation up there at the Martian Pole so much more vivid and "real", to see the panels flapping. A bit like the litle tell-tale, but more impressive...

"real" like this

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[centsworth_II]

Sol 102: Document GG3 sample and transfer to WCL3; remote sensing
[...]
Sol 096: Document GG2 delivery to WCL-3, TEGA door 1; remote sensing; night science

Curious. There must be some mistake.

[peter59]

Great days for MECA OM team. Many high quality OM images.
Sol 103
Sol 101
Sol 099

[Stu]

Great days for MECA OM team. Many high quality OM images.Sol 099

Wow... very nice... couldn't resist a couple of probably-bear-no-relation-to-actual-colour-at-all colourisations...

[climber]

Wow. I didn't expect that kind of power with Mars' air density...
It clearly is flapping ...

Trying to take off ?

[elakdawalla]

Did anybody else notice this? I didn't see it until just this morning. Looks like TEGA has suffered some kind of anomaly. It's not clear to me from the story if they're going to be able to get what they want to get out of an ice-rich sample or not now. It's New Scientist, so take it with a grain of salt.

Mars lander to squirrel away soil in advance of winter

--Emily

[mars loon]

I didn't see it until just this morning. Looks like TEGA has suffered some kind of anomaly. It's not clear to me from the story if they're going to be able to get what they want to get out of an ice-rich sample or not now. It's New Scientist, so take it with a grain of salt.[
--Emily

my guess is this anomoly is the gas flow problem reported in Aug 31 press release. hopefully not a new problem. ken
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/08_29_pr.php

"The team is currently working to diagnose an intermittent interference that has become apparent in the path for gases generated by heating a soil sample in the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer to reach the instrument's mass spectrometer. Vapors from all samples baked to high temperatures have reached the mass spectrometer so far, however data has shown that the gas flow has been erratic, which is puzzling the scientists."