MSL landing sites Options

[tuvas]

As there are some pictures being released from HiRISE of proposed MSL landing sites, I thought I'd give you what little I know about the process. As of the HiRISE team meeting a month ago or so, there were about 40 proposed sites to land MSL. These sites were prioritized, and are being photographed roughly in priority order. Each site requires a picture from each of the 3 main cameras (CTX, CRISM, and HiRISE) in their highest resolution in order to proceed. If it's determined that there can be a safe landing site, as well as interesting science targets, then they will advance to the next level, where I presume they will "wallpaper" the areas with HiRISE and CRISM (CTX, well, they get the whole landing ellipse in one shot, I think...). They likely will also photograph science areas near the proposed sites to look for interesting targets. After that, well, your guess is as good as mine. Note that none of this is official, but it's what I would expect. Also note that the landing site selection is still opened to new suggestions, the ones they have so far are not a complete list. The priority also doesn't mean anything right now other than they are the targets which will be photographed first, these priorities are still subject to change. But, well, I thought I'd send this out there for you all sink your teeth on, it really is quite interesting!

[djellison]

There's plenty of PDF's on the meeting website that talk about Gale and explain a possible history of it - most of which I don't understand ( my favoritism is purely down to aesthetics ) - but from what I do understand it's not a central peak in the way one thinks of a normal central peak ( being formed at impact ) - but has been built up since.

[ngunn]

There's plenty of PDF's on the meeting website that talk about Gale

Thanks Doug. This 57 MB monster - http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/...Sumner_Gale.pdf
has a nice squence of diagrams. So there was no impact related central peak, the feature is all sediments, a remnant of layers that once buried Gale crater entirely. But what I still don't get is why or how a crater would empty of sediments except for one huge mound remaining right bang in the middle. Did something make the sediments there peculiarly resistant to erosion? Was there some residual volcanic or geothermal activity located near the centre of Gale that persisted for long aeons after the impact, subtly altering the sediments? My mind is wandering to the Columbia Hills . .

[djellison]

Did something make the sediments there peculiarly resistant to erosion? Was there some residual volcanic or geothermal activity located near the centre of Gale that persisted for long aeons after the impact, subtly altering the sediments?

Exactly. Let's send MSL and find out