Cape York - Northern Havens, Sol 2780 - 2947 Options

[Bill Harris]

Thankee, Tom! Stereo for the masses. I don't bother with anaglyphs because I'm one of that type that can do x-eyed stero with my bare eyes. It's good to see other presentation types open up.

Not much more data for Sol-2790, but for tosol (hitting in about an hour) we'll have a set of L257 rear track "boot scuffs" (p2434), some L257Rall of "North Haven" (p2435), Finally: a pancam_foreground_quarter_L234567Rall (p2587) and a Navcam sequence to the NE (Az330). Nothing spectacular, but some nice puzzlepieces.

--Bill

[marsophile]

Anyone know the location of this with respect to the pancam images?

According to the Nov 30 TPS update, it was somewhere on Transvaal.

[fredk]

Speaking of that update:

Squyres and Arvidson... are scheduled to announce the details of the Homestake discovery at the AGU fall meeting in San Francisco next Wednesday, December 7. An update will be posted once the embargo is lifted.

[Stu]

Continuing our series of "Not suggesting for a moment that it's accurate, but it is pretty" Fanciful Images that Oppy Never Took, I give you, "Endeavour Sunrise..."

[fredk]

There are lots of juicy tidbits in the latest Planetary update. Here are the highlights:

"The other cool thing we did... was what I call a triple crunch over Homestake," said Arvidson. "...We crunched it, removed the dust cover to the extent it existed, and exposed some bright sparkly bits."

OOhhh, sparkly bits. I wonder if that's a clue. Either way, the sparkles don't seem to have survived the jpegging/stretching of the released images.

When the data... on Transvaal arrived on Earth, the scientists basically shrugged. "It looks like Chester Lake, nothing special," as Arvidson summed it up.

Planning for winter:

"There's a southern candidate for a winter haven and a northern candidate... within about 20 meters of one another, and they both have slopes of 10 to 20 degrees north," said Arvidson... "...we will have to assess the science at both [sites] before deciding where the vehicle will spend the winter," added Squyres.

Callas: "...we need to be above a 5-degree slope by January. That means we don't have to hunker down now, and that we could spend December doing science, just as long as we're always never more than a short step away from getting into that winter haven."

Arvidson: "Then, sometime in January, we'll put the vehicle in either the northern site or the southern site and begin the winter science campaign there"

And some very interesting discussion about the possibility of cleaning events:

"It turns out in all the wind modeling and the observations that people see of streaks, if the vehicle is exposed to winds coming from the southeast, [from which] the winds blow during the Martian winters, there's a possibility for a dust clearing," said Arvidson.

At the place currently known as Turkey Haven, "we can actually see to the southeast into the crater Endeavour, so that would be a good place in terms of maximizing the chance that we'll get some dust removal," Arvidson pointed out. "We need to evaluate possible locations like that at the northern site."

"If we got 10-degree slope, we would have power levels comparable to the last Martian winter for Opportunity," Callas informed. "It would really be desirous to have as much tilt as possible this winter, but also as much mobility as possible. In all previous Martian years, we've always had a cleaning event sometime before the winter solstice and we haven't had one yet, and we can't plan on it. This could be the year we don't get a cleaning event, in which case we'd want to get as much tilt as possible," he rationalized.

[marsophile]

If the wind is coming from the southeast, and the rover deck is tilted towards the north (actually more like northwest), wouldn't any wind just clean the underside of the deck, not the solar panels? (Unless we got a down-draft.)

While there is still sufficient power, it might be worth briefly going over the ridge and facing the southeast.

[Ant103]

Sol 2790 navcam pan

[Matt Lenda]

If the wind is coming from the southeast, and the rover deck is tilted towards the north (actually more like northwest), wouldn't any wind just clean the underside of the deck, not the solar panels? (Unless we got a down-draft.)

While there is still sufficient power, it might be worth briefly going over the ridge and facing the southeast.

We'd have to be tilted away at a pretty big angle to not get anything on the topside. Basic aerodynamics -- air's still flowing up there!

I think we discussed turning towards the crater at one meeting a while back. Given that we have no idea (...at all) when a cleaning gust could come, the errors bars are simply too big to risk it. Doing that even for a short time would likely be a significant waste. We'd be gambling the rover for something we think might happen once a year... That's a hard sell point!

Better go where we know we can survive: North-facing places!

-m

[Bill Harris]

My take, FWIW, is that this region is in the calm-wind part of the year and the lack of cleaning Zephyrs is seasonal. After the Solstice and Aphelion hemispheric heating will pick up and so will seasonal winds. Make the best of it for now.

Oh yes, and make more Foreground Quarters. It's all happening at our feet...

--Bill

[ngunn]

Isn't this ridge top a place where dust accumulates rather than getting blown away? I'm thinking of the 'brightsoil', both east and west. Is it the same material that produces the icing sugar effect on top of the dunes in Victoria and Santa Maria? If so, it seems to be much more abundant here. On the other hand there is none of the stuff on the 'inboard' slopes so I have to agree with the idea of parking a little bit more 'inboard' than an analysis based purely on insolation would dictate, especially if the number of northerly degrees available provides some leeway.

[fredk]

Some fantastic globby shapes at the new site:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...2M1.JPG?sol2792
And a good clear view of the NE part of CY:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2791

[Bill Harris]

One could assume that the ole girl is getting a bit frisky, no?
FHazcam, x-eyed stereo, lens-corrected. Sol-2792.

"Saddleback", OTOH, has me speechless...

--Bill

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[walfy]

Amazing that there's still adequate charge with all the dust! A non-nuclear future mission could have little fans along the edge of the panels, for the occasional dust-off.



For now, let's hope hope for one of these:

[lyford]

One could assume that the ole girl is getting a bit frisky, no?

Delurking just to thank all the contributors since we have arrived... it really feels like a new mission all over again. Party like it's 2004!
And here it seems Oppy is practicing her crop circle technique.

[Ant103]

Sol 2790 and 2791 actually, updated :


Sol 2792. There is some weird artifact on this pic, caused by a quite strong antivignetting and exposure adjustement in Hugin.