Post Conjunction: Santa Maria to Cape York, The Journey to 'Spirit Point' Options

[ElkGroveDan]

Starting a new topic to include Eduardo's Google overlay for the rest of the journey to Cape York:

http://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/gmars_ma...41_1775_RED.kml

Follow the link above and it should load right in to your Google Mars features.

I took a low crow's flight along the final 6km this morning. Below in green is what I think the final route will look like. Also an interesting feature along the way that appears to be a cluster of rocks, possibly Santa Maria ejecta, or large meteorite fragments. Note how the dune has evolved around the three (or more) objects. Object is at -2.199395°, -5.396676° -- roughly 3km down range from Santa Maria.

EDIT: bad link replaced, wider context image added for three rocks.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Phil Stooke]

"Phil...if I remember correctly"

Yes, you're right, he did say that.

"How could Oppy climb up somewhere that she couldn't get back down"

Dunno - except I think he might have meant the end part of the route. The interesting material seemed to be on the inner (eastern) slope of Cape York. The drive might be easy up to the top, as we've been saying in this discussion, but then tricky at the end as the targets on the steeper eastern slope were approached from above. For that reason they preferred the southern route, crossing the broad terrace at the base of the hill to taste the yummy stuff above it.

Phil