Journey to Mt Sharp - Part 3: Cooperstown to Kimberley - Waypoint 3, Sol 453 [Nov14,'13] to 595 [Apr9,'14] Options

[fredk]

Absolutely fascinating, mars_armer. So I guess that explains the need for 5 degrees of freedom for the arm - that's the minimum that gives you complete position and pointing control for the turret (up to various limitations, of course).

It looks like the series is continuing:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/pr...FHAZ00216M_.JPG
This would make a very cool animation...

[Zelenyikot]

Cool MAHLI animations from Russia (not my).

3,7 Mb and 3,8 Mb

[Paolo]

Once you choose a position for the turret and a direction for the camera to point, there are exactly four sets of joint angles that can put the turret in that position/orientation. The four solutions come from a choice of elbow up/down and wrist up/down.

dear old Denavit-Hartenberg matrix inversion...

[Guest_Actionman_*]

Interesting rock, wonder if they'll use the bush on it?

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Phil Stooke]

I think something got broken off that bit of the rock and rolled to Solander Point to become Pinnacle Island.

Phil

[Greenish]

There's a pretty big stereo Mastcam panorama building up from sols 508-509. Not sure if I'll be able to get back to it, so here's my take on the ML portion available so far.

[Phil Stooke]

Another drive on sol 515 - here's a half-pan in circular form to show the area.

Phil

[Zelenyikot]

Very interesting rock. ChemCam on sol 513

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[dvandorn]

That looks like a conglomerate rock, but instead of being a matrix with rounded streambed-like inclusions (as we saw at Hottah) it looks like a lot of sharper fragments, arranged willy-nilly like a "dog's breakfast" and with far more inclusions than matrix. I'd even be thinking breccia, but the clasts are a lot sharper and flatter than I would normally expect to see in a breccia.

The individual shards of rock appear to be layered as well -- very fine layers, when you look at the scale of the image.

Oh, little rock, what stories do you have to tell?

-the other Doug

[elakdawalla]

That is a cool rock, well spotted. I'd call those bright things "laths" and if it were on Earth I'd suspect an igneous or metamorphic rock and not a sedimentary rock right away. But this is Gale so....I don't know.

[serpens]

I gather this is a float rock? Feldspar?

[tdemko]

... I'd call those bright things "laths" and if it were on Earth I'd suspect an igneous or metamorphic rock and not a sedimentary rock right away...

Laths like these! These are typically plagioclase feldspar phenocrysts in a rock that formed from a slowly cooled magma.

Hmmm, felsic/intermediate and deeper crustal, not your usual Mars float!

[atomoid]

interesting messy wedgey lump of dough from:

[Guest_Actionman_*]

Another photo is posted ChemCam Sol 514 Zelenyikot.

[elakdawalla]

Laths like these! These are typically plagioclase feldspar phenocrysts in a rock that formed from a slowly cooled magma.

Hmmm, felsic/intermediate and deeper crustal, not your usual Mars float!

I always, always try to avoid making mineral diagnoses with only photographic evidence. One thing can look a lot like another thing. ChemCam had one of the laths in its crosshairs; if it's feldspar, we'll find out sooner or later. But I'm not gonna call it feldspar until somebody shows me a honking huge amount of aluminum and calcium or sodium.