Getting to 'Big Crater', A little premature speculation |
Getting to 'Big Crater', A little premature speculation |
Sep 21 2006, 11:57 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 813 Joined: 8-February 04 From: Arabia Terra Member No.: 12 |
Opportunity is not quite at Victoria yet, but on the horizon is a tantalising goal for the future- the big eroded crater to the south-east, the rim of which is already visible. This is the first 'large scale' topography of the mission so far. Wouldn't it be great if Opportunity could get to these hills and uncover their secrets?
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/sfjcody2/route_to_big.jpg |
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Sep 23 2006, 06:28 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 656 Joined: 20-April 05 From: League City, Texas Member No.: 285 |
Just to put everthing in a wider context, I have assembled a false-color image made up of MOLA(red), THEMIS Day IR (green), and THEMIS Night IR (blue) images, grabbed as context images from the THEMIS site. The Red rectangle outlines a region which includes Victoria (the red cross) as well as everywhere else Oppy has been. The Big Crater is labeled.
This illustrates the variety of surface geology in the region. Clearly the Big Crater is the nearest target of any interest, with some unique properties which stand out nicely from the surrounding terrain. Far to the south are some more big craters and some large channel structures (remnant rivers?), but I'm afraid those will remain out of reach. [edit] I notice that there is a distinct change in terrain about a third of the distance between Vicky and the near edge of Big Crater, which could by itself justify heading in that direction. The THEMIS site is really quite nice. |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 8th June 2024 - 08:46 AM |
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