First drill stop: John Klein in Yellowknife Bay, Site 6, Sol 166-271, January 23-May 12, 2013 Options

[mcaplinger]

Please don't hesitate to share it

Very nice!

Would you be interested in posting the mosaic as a flat image? I find the 360cities interface almost unusable, and I am interested in finding the seams and parallax errors in your product (which are practically inevitable given the geometry of the images unless you applied some kind of correction beyond my ability to do, in which case I'm even more impressed.)

[Phil Stooke]

Yes, a nice product, but I agree that the 360cities version is really hard to use in any serious way. It's more of a "gee-whiz lookit what this new-fangled compooter-thingy can do" interface. Like the now-ubiquitous movie scenes of millions of monsters pouring over the landscape before the hero vanquishes them single-handed - just because it can be done! But it's getting tiresome. (but I digress - yes, it's a great image, can we get it flat and static?)

PS new telecon this afternoon, 3:00 Eastern Time - finally!

Phil

[fredk]

You can see what he's done in splicing together the mahli and mastcam mosaics at high zoom levels. No magic reprojections, just a lot of hard splicing work, by the looks of it. It's definitely a very striking image, but I have mixed thoughts about it because of the way pieces of the ground which are not actually adjacent have been spliced together. More of a "could be" Mars than the real Mars. Still, definitely worth the effort.

[Sohl]

All: Has there been any hint from the MSL team that the "shiny prong" will be a ChemCam target? Some closer MAHLI shots of it would be nice too.

It appears to be out of range for the laser, at around 9 metres vs laser range 7 metres. I guess chemcam imaging could be done.

To get any benefit from mahli, we'd have to drive a lot closer, and it doesn't look like that's going to happen soon.

The bigger question is: does the team think it's worth the effort?

Understood about the ChemCam range. I was hoping that Curiosity would be driven over that way at least a few meters to get a better look, hopefully before the conjunction blackout. Maybe Emily or some other telecon attendee today will ask whether the MSL thinks it is "worth the effort"? It seems to be a different material than the matrix rock, so it should be interesting for its geology, yes?

[Phil Stooke]

"Earlier today, Curiosity engineers confirmed the rover had collected the first-ever sample from inside a rock on Mars."


Phil

[elakdawalla]

I am going to indulge in speculation and say that we'll be seeing pictures of rock powder inside the scoop, because that's how I think they would "confirm collection." We'll find out in half an hour...

Sohl: I'll let the MSM ask about shiny things and Sasquatches. My role is to ask more technical questions!

[fredk]

Yup.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/mult...a/pia16729.html

[Explorer1]

The rest of the visuals are here:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/telecon/index.html

EDIT: and starting now....

[Sohl]

Sasquatches

?

I just wonder if this rock prong is something else that has not been seen (or not much) before on Mars... quartz/quartzite? Actual metallic? (what kind would not oxidize though?)...

MSL, zap it with ChemCam and do a science! If it is _only_ a really hard calcium sulfate vein, that might still be scientifically interesting.

Emily, I really enjoy your blogs and twitter updates. Keep it up!

OK, I'll go back to lurking now until there's something new to talk about.

[Bill Harris]

Yup.

Should that ochre residue on the lip and rear of the cup present problems with contamination?

--Bill

[ngunn]

Sasquatches

?

A reference to the matter of this thread of yore. (The link goes to one particularly brilliant post.) http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=108306

[belleraphon1]

Was busy at work so just now getting to listen to this. So glad to see sample in the sccop!

Craig

[PaulH51]

So glad to see sample in the sccop!
Craig

Yes, very nice to see the image of the drill sample in the scoop.

However this image of the collected tailings in the scoop makes me question if I am using the correct JPL raw image repository. I tried the official MSL / JPL page using various sol pages as well as the MASTCAM listings and cant find the image or it's thumbnails. I also used Joe's and a couple of others, all without success. Can anyone help point me towards the repository I should be using ? TIA...

[elakdawalla]

It's not there yet. The photo was taken during the day on sol 193, so that was no more than 20 hours ago. Mastcam pictures don't get posted until 24 hours after acquisition. Thus the sudden hurry to do a press briefing today -- they wanted to tell their story before the raw images hit the Web.

[Airbag]

New Mastcam-100 images down for sol 192; so far they form a thin strip pano (centered on this direction):


There is another "floating rock" in this pano (makes me think of "Separate the saucer section, number one!"):


Airbag