HiRISE and Mars Polar Lander Options

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Looking at the images of the Spirit/Opportunity landing site, it seems many of the features such as tracks and rocket blast markings have faded considerably often to the point of being invisible in the nearly three years since landing.

This had me thinking about the MGS images taken in the hope of finding MPL. Initially it was reported that MGS had spotted the lander, one image had a white spot/streak interpreted as the parachute and a dark patch with a spot in the centre not too far off, taken to be the blast zone of the rockets with the lander in the centre.

However another image taken 5 years later seemed to discount this theory - the features had faded or changed significantly. BUT, seeing how much the rover sites have changed in an even shorter time, wouldn't the same happen to the MPL site in 5 years - perhaps to an even greater degree with the more extreme seasonal changes at that location. Also, the latest HiRISE images show just how difficult it has been to spot the landers on the surface with MGS, the Viking sites in particular.

I hope HiRISE takes another look at this spot.

Mars Polar Lander NOT Found, MSSS article:
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/10/17/

[On_2_Vesta]

There is a roughly circular bright object at pixel 36359,42905 of image ESP_013289_1035_RED.jp2. Within this object, on the right side, is a smaller white circle that might be the backshell and which measures 8 or 9 pixels (~ 2-2.25 m) in diameter. It is most brightly lit roughly in its center. Bunched up against this putative backshell, mostly on its left side, would then be the lumpy collapsed parachute. Stretching to the upper right for about 10 meters is a faint stringy-looking feature that would then be the parachute cords laid out and then doubled back. Judging from the HiRise image which includes Phoenix’s parachute cords, so the length here is about right.

This information was presented to the HiRise principal investigator who dismissed it, but he made several errors in his short reply. He apparently looked at the whole object, measured it at 4.5 meters and then stated that nothing on MPL was that large. In fact, the inflated parachute could measure as much as 8.4 meters across, so 4.5 m would seem plausible for a collapsed parachute plus backshell. His second argument was that the candidate was not sufficiently different from the terrain. This is a subjective call, but at the 1:1 scale, or a few steps up or down, there is nothing in the terrain resembling it in the field of view. It does catch the eye. Mine, at least.

Finally, as near as I can make out its lat/lon, it is at 76.55 S, 165.45 E. This is very near the center of the 2 sigma ellipse for the reconstructed trajectory.

I don’t know that it is a part of the MPL hardware, but that after scouring through several HiRise images of the area, this was the only plausible candidate I saw.

P. Fieseler

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[vikingmars]

I don’t know that it is a part of the MPL hardware, but that after scouring through several HiRise images of the area, this was the only plausible candidate I saw.
P. Fieseler

Very interesting and great search.
But looking at it closely, it seems that this "white circle" casts NO shadows, unlike other features nearby (and unlike other backshells saw on MOC images).
Also, the "parachute" is not really different from lighter ground nearby...
Bon courage for your search !

[ElkGroveDan]

But looking at it closely, it seems that this "white circle" casts NO shadows, unlike other features nearby

Of course if you dropped something from 100 meters it would tend to acquire a flattened shape and therefore cast no shadows

I will say that this is the most interesting of any of the candidate objects I've seen. My sense is that it's too big?