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!

[algorimancer]

Considering the moderately persuasive argument supporting the notion of a past ocean in the northern hemisphere, as reported in the current issue of Nature (http://www.nature.com.libux.utmb.edu/nature/journal/v447/n7146/full/nature05873.html - if you have access), I would be inclined to shift my preference to a landing site which would be near exposed sediments from the floor of that ocean, perhaps in delta deposits. To me, the odds are that if any macroscopic life ever evolved on Mars, it would have been in this ocean, and sedimentary deposits from the bottom of the ocean would be the best places to look for fossils, as well as a sedimentary sequence which tells an interesting story. I'm not sure whether there would be any benefit to traversing the remnant shoreline itself.

I'm having trouble matching landing site candidates with the map in the paper, but Nilo Syrtis and Marwth Vallis might be good.

[ynyralmaen]

... but Nilo Syrtis and Marwth Vallis might be good.

Mawrth, not Marwth. It's Welsh for, er, Mars.

I hope I'm not appearing to be super-pedantic here; it's just that this is a very common spelling mistake (looks like it derives from a MEX OMEGA Science paper, and some related press releases where they got it wrong.).

If you're wondering about the pronunciation, it's similar to "Martha" without the second "a"!

[algorimancer]

Mawrth, not Marwth. It's Welsh for, er, Mars.
...
If you're wondering about the pronunciation, it's similar to "Martha" without the second "a"!

Funny, I actually went to some effort to get the spelling right, and still missed it. Pronunciation sounds like "Mars" with a lisp . Perhaps all lispers are Welsh?

[ynyralmaen]

Perhaps all lispers are Welsh?

No, but having a lisp often helps!

Now that I've had longer to think about it, forget Martha... the pronunciation's exactly like "mouth", but with an "r" slipped in before the "th".

(Don't get me started on Pwyll crater on Europa!)