Post Block Island Meteor Studies (The Western Route), The 6th Leg in our Zig Zag Journey to Endeavour Crater Options

[PDP8E]

I had a nice little American Thanksgiving and the time off with the family was great!
I was going over some of the images I have not seen lately and I found this little mystery.
On Sol 2072 the Pancam picked up this 'glint' (or flare) in the neighborhood.

Here is 2072 right, filter 6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2072 left, filter 4


Every time we have seen this in the past it was the sun glinting off a highly reflective surface.

This little flash might be a very interesting little side trip when we finish up here.
(speculation mode: shiny iron, or an old coca-cola can..)

Cheers

[Shaka]

What color does the filter make it? Gold??

[Hungry4info]

I'm guessing it's just a cosmic ray strike or something. I can't see anything obvious that would cause the glint./

[SteveM]

I'm guessing it's just a cosmic ray strike or something. I can't see anything obvious that would cause the glint./

None of the cosmic ray strikes I've seen thus far deposited enough energy to overload so many adjacent pixels, while that's been common for specular reflections of light. I go with a polished surface of some kind.

Steve M

[nprev]

If it's real, Stu will be ecstatic...almost certainly another metallic meteorite!

[fredk]

Unfortunately that glint isn't visible in any of the other L (or R) frames taken of that scene. So that pretty much proves it's a cosmic ray hit. Anything out there that was that bright would show up in neighbouring filters.

[Stu]

Never mind, I'm sure there are plenty more meteorites between us and Endeavour!

Colour view of recent RATting...



I had a dream last night... it was the day we rolled up to the foothills of Endeavour, and there was a single, huge, weathered boulder sitting on the ground ahead of us, looking like a martian version of the Sphinx. Very impressive.

[CosmicRocker]

Here is a right filter, false color, composite image showing the recently brushed area on Marquette, sol 2075. The brushed rock surface displays very different colors compared to the unbrushed surface. We can apparently see some individual mineral grains as different colors. This RGB composite uses R=R1/R2, G=R1, and B=R5/R7.

[Shaka]

What do you make of the 'yellow' rind, Tom? An ablation crust?

[PDP8E]

There were 14 images shot that sol, of that region.
They are taken at approximately 20.5 secs apart.

1) 11:15.36 no glint
2) 11:15:57 no glint
3) 11:16:17 GLINT ----------------
4) 11:16:38 no glint

-etc for 10 more images

It is quite possible that an edge of something shiny could glint for a few seconds between the 40 seconds between the 2nd and 4th image. The smaller the object (or rounder and/or tilted), then it will take less time for it to exactly line up between the camera and the sun. The number of adjacent pixels involved in the 'flare' does not have the signature of a cosmic ray event; which usually shows up has a couple of hot pixels or three or ten... in a very straight line. I am not ruling out a cosmic ray event (in fact that was my first thought), but the width and length of the flare indicates (to me) that this is a very real reflection.

Dear Mr. Squyres, lets rover over and take a peek and then move onward onto Endeavor.

So...I do not think this glint 'proves' it is a cosmic ray hit.
Your mileage may definitely vary (!)

Cheers

[CosmicRocker]

What do you make of the 'yellow' rind, Tom? ...

I'm not sure, but it could simply be what the dusty surface of the rock looks like under certain lighting conditions. See, for example, another similar image I made from an earlier sol.

[Shaka]

FWIW, PD, I agree.
We have only seen similar, specular reflections at this distance from metallic structures of the spacecraft (lander, heat shield). Glints from rocks (like the one in front of us, and also Comanche) have mainly been obvious in MIs. But a bright glint like this doesn't require a boulder. A crystalline surface a centimeter or so square could account for it, as part of a rock not much bigger. There are lots of small rocks around here. I hope this area will get further examination.

[fredk]

What do you make of the 'yellow' rind, Tom? An ablation crust?

One idea would be that different faces of MI likely have different thicknesses of dust, due to the direction of prevailing winds and the slope of the surface. Considering how different the real brushed surface of MI looks compared with the dusty surface, I could see how thinner dust could look quite different from thicker dust. Combine that with Tom's point about lighting, and that could account for the differences. It would be nice if they could brush that "rind" area, though.

[HughFromAlice]

Sol 2078 (Sat 28 Nov) Pancams. These more than normally pronounced 'channels' almost look like they could have been made by Oppy - They look fascinating. If any of you geologists find them interesting enough, what do you think?

- do not attach an image to a thread that is freely viewable on a server elsewhere - simply link to it, and attach a thumbnail.

Point taken!

See these crops - both around 15K

.....

Links to source
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...R5P2271L2M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...R5P2271L2M1.JPG

Sorry, was in a bit of a hurry early morning today - Is there an issue with bandwidth costs? In fact, I sent a donation to Doug about a week ago to help with server costs and I'm happy to chuck in every year - so perhaps I should have been more mindful!!!

[ElkGroveDan]

Well dang. You got me. I'm not a geologist, but I did take a lot of courses and later made a hobby of it.

I'm going to suggest that it is related to a subsurface fracture of some kind. How far are we from the fresh crater? I would imagine that a jigsaw puzzle like this Meridiani substrate gets nudged around a bit when there are impacts.