After Victoria..., .. what next? |
After Victoria..., .. what next? |
May 28 2007, 02:07 PM
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#1
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The Poet Dude Group: Moderator Posts: 5551 Joined: 15-March 04 From: Kendal, Cumbria, UK Member No.: 60 |
I know we've had rather light-hearted discussions about this before, with most people agreeing that Oppy is likely to end her days inside or on the edge of Victoria Crater, simply because there's nothing else to investigate within reach, but has Steve S got it in his mind that Oppy will head off somewhere else after Victoria? This report could be read in a way that suggests that...
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May 30 2007, 03:51 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
Exactly -- as Doug says, we need more HiRISE images of the entire area. I'm sure that a complete survey of the entire area is in the plans, since applying the ground truth we have from Oppy to the entire area is important in understanding the formation processes of the region, and HiRISE images are so good that they let us make some pretty high-order connections between where Oppy has been and the rest of the area. But it will probably be a good, long time (months, at least) before MRO captures all the data we want. (And remember, we'll probably want CRISM coverage of the area too, to help determine where we might find interesting minerology.)
The more I look at the area to the east-northeast, the more I like the idea of heading that way. If the terrain is as good as it looks, with 200+ meter drives you could reach the area of the A-B-C craters in as little as 100 sols of driving, as opposed to the probable 600 to 800 sols of driving needed to travel the same distance through etched terrain. And to top it off, once you finish with A-B-C (and possibly another sinkhole-like feature I'm thinking of as D, located to the west-southwest of A-B-C), there is what appears to be a straight shot on good terrain directly south to the area of Ithaca, so if Oppy is still working and you really wanted to, you could still get to Ithaca -- while getting more science in and possibly taking less time than if you took the more direct southeast route. Now if I could only mention my ideas to the MER team... I'm pretty sure, though, that if I, an interested amateur, sees these things, *someone* on the MER team has to have seen the same things and come to the same conclusions. Fingers and toes crossed... -the other Doug p.s. -- if anyone has any good ideas for designations of A, B and C, even though we know they'll be preliminary and not adopted by the official MER team, I'd be more than happy. It gets a little bland to continue to refer to these very interesting targets by simple one-letter designations. And the best I've come up with is Moe, Larry and Curly, with the unlabeled D standing in as Shemp... -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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