Robot Arm - Observations and Excavations Options

[vikingmars]

With alittle processing you can see more easily under the lander the "ice" extending towards the RAC with a soil pile in-between built-up by the engine exhausts. Enjoy !

[centsworth_II]

If this does to turn out to frozen water, will this end the Naysayers of there no water on Mars!?

I'm worried that if the ice is too solid and too near the surface all around, there may be no real digging possible.

[scalbers]

These under the lander images are really neat and something that we didn't have with Viking. Do all the cleared off spots correlate well with the locations of the descent engine nozzles? Will also be interesting to see different exposures to get more dynamic range in the bright areas. The high albedo really seems to support an ice hypothesis here. Is there any "shininess" here due to specular reflection? Hard to say. Even the shadowed areas look bright and one can interpret that as high albedo without specular reflection.

Steve

[Decepticon]

Do all the cleared off spots correlate well with the locations of the descent engine nozzles?

Now that's the question! Do the nozzles line up with the exposed area?

How do we test this theory?

[nilstycho]

Phoenix twitters "The picture shows a little piece of hardware on the ground, probably a pin. The team is checking it out. No worries. :-)" Later, she jokes "A loose screw on Mars can't stop me now."

As for ice, there's a JPL press release that calls the duricrust-looking stuff "possible ice". About the ice-looking struff, Phoenix twitters "Is this the mother lode of the polar region? Ice!?" Seems confident for a scientist...

[teck]

Is this a Philips screw?

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[James Sorenson]

I'm worried that if the ice is too solid and too near the surface all around, there may be no real digging possible.

This exposed ice has been exposed to the atmosphere and sun for almost a week now, and to me shows no significant sublimation. Why would that be?. I am also worryed that this could mean that digging mght be dificult, it sure looks VERY hard and possibly thick. Well its what we came here to find, and we found it without even trying, mars came to us it looks like, where is a broom when you need one .

[scalbers]

At the cold ambient temperatures sublimation would be really slow, unless it is sped up by the action of sunlight. Even then how fast would it be?

[ugordan]

Well its what we came here to find, and we found it without even trying, mars came to us it looks like, where is a broom when you need one .

Yeah, who knew all we really needed was:

1 rocket engine
1 camera
1 UHF antenna

[um3k]

It got hacked by a Russian last night

Did someone neglect to inform him that the cold war has been over for ~20 years?

[dot.dk]

Remember there is the rasp on the backside of the scoop

[centsworth_II]

Remember there is the rasp on the backside of the scoop

To get a sample, not to dig.

[eeergo]

They were expecting the hard ground, remember they were talking about being able to dig in a soil as hard as concrete. See this answer in Twitter: "Yup, I can dig into frozen ground as hard as concrete. The scoop has special blades and a powered "rasp" to scrape ice. Cool!" It may be a bit more difficult, but no worries...

[nilstycho]

I wonder what would be the pros and cons of a heated filament or blade on the cutting edge of the scoop. Delicate, expensive, complicated? Would it require more or less power to dig through ice? How about a pellet of plutonium embedded inside?

[centsworth_II]

They were expecting the hard ground, remember they were talking about being able to dig in a soil as hard as concrete.

In one of the press briefings it was stated that they could dig in frozen soil, but not in ice. So if the permafrost is soil with frozen water in the spaces between grains, no problem. But if it is solid frozen water, no digging.