Some pretty complex driving by the look of it:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2005-05-18/2F169692509EFFAAE0P1214R0M1.JPG
Now this is odd:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/navcam/2005-05-18/2N169692755EFFAAE0P0617R0M1.JPG
It looks like some of the rocks have slid down the dune
Fascinating image. I'm not one of the "water, water everywhere..." crowd, but that odd pattern in the dust immediately below the bluff outcrop looks positively _splat-like_.
What do you make of it?
--Bill
I thought it looked like a thin/harder crust on top of the dune had slid down slightly.
That is my take of it too: A hard, plate-like crust slipped down the incline during the recent past. Of course, it begs the question, why is there crust at that spot?
Ignore this one- not sure what happened...
I have the impression Spirit's previous visit to Larry is rather far on the other side of the outcrop. Look at http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=574 to get an idea.
The "caking" is funny and cool
From Steve Squyres' latest update http://athena.cornell.edu/news/mubss/
"At Gusev, Spirit has arrived at a safe standoff position for observing the eastern side of Larry's Lookout. We're going to sit here and do some serious Pancamming for a sol or two, and then we're going to have to decide what comes next. There are a bunch of possibilities, and we're going to have a very interesting time choosing among them."
A closeup of the "overhang" as I call it, or the "dragon head" as I think someone else called it:
http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2005-05-19/2P169773451EFFAAE0P2421L7M1.JPG
A panoramic view of Larry's Lookout and surrounding seen from Jibsheet.
Pictures taken with the Nav cam on Sol 487.
jvandriel
And a view of the other side of Larry's lookout also taken with the Nav cam on sol 488.
jvandriel
Regarding that weird little slope failure thingy on the south side of Larry's lookout/Watchtower: During the Viking 1 mission there were two events like that, not seen as clearly, but in hindsight very similar indeed to this. Both of them happened during the mission so there were before and after shots. Both on similar steep drift slopes and the best seen one clearly showing a slipped surface layer like this. I don't have my stuff with me as I write this, but it would be easy to track down, it was widely reported.
Phil
Tonight at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures/may05.cfm (of which I only caught the tail end on NASA TV...curse you inaccurate satellite listings!), Joy Crisp mentioned the slip feature and seemed to imply that the team thinks that ratting earlier caused the disturbance. She even used the word "Duh!" to describe the reaction after they first noticed it.
Yeah. I missed her lecture, too. Had to work late. It will be repeated on Friday, but it is not clear whether that will be broadcasted or webcasted again.
The sediment in this location is piled up quite steeply and is probablly very close to, if not greater than the expected angle of repose, which is about 35 degrees for normal sediments on earth. I'm not certain if that angle would be different on Mars, but this slope is clearly very steep. http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/ask/soil/Difference_in_angle_of_repose_for_Earth_and_Mars_soils_.txt
If it is an over-steepened slope, somewhat stabilized by weak cementation of the grains by precipitated salts or a slight amount of moisture, the slump was probably just waiting to happen.
We may have simply been lucky to have noticed it. But, as Edward has pointed out, we really haven't seen anything that looks like old slumps/slides. As simple as it is, this really is an interesting feature.
The fact that it is visible in images taken quite a few sols ago from a distance makes it difficult to imagine it could have been caused by Sprit's activity/ratting. (Tman spotted it as far back as the sol 438 navcams.) I can imagine it could have been caused by a gust of wind, a loud sound, or a slight seismic vibration.
On Sol 489 a series of pancams were taken of this area. Here is a portion of it that shows the upper part of the slope failure.
A panoramic view of the top of Larry's Lookout through the eye of the Pancam and L7 filter of Spirit.
Photo's taken on Sol 488.
jvandriel
I don't really think the RAT caused the slump feature. The ratting is a fairly gentle process (and was it only brushing anyway?... can't recall now, but they are limiting the RAT use as it wears out) - and it was quite a distance away from this spot, not right on top of it. And the Viking examples which I mentioned above suggest to me that it's not really so unusual. (see page 38, "The Martian Landscape" , NASA SP-425, for the first and best-seen Viking example).
Phil
Well, this new hazcam shot really turns my "slump was probably just waiting to happen" hypothesis upside down. If the dust on that slope was so sensitive to vibrations, I suspect Spirit wouldn't have gotten this close without disturbing it further.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2005-05-20/2F169865924EFFAAEEP1214L0M1.JPG
Some color (sorry, I don't have time to stitch them together):
http://img275.echo.cx/my.php?image=2p169773915effaae0p2421l2575zw.jpghttp://img275.echo.cx/my.php?image=2p169773707effaae0p2421l2571mp.jpghttp://img275.echo.cx/my.php?image=2p169773628effaae0p2421l2570ze.jpghttp://img275.echo.cx/my.php?image=2p169773549effaae0p2421l2573fg.jpghttp://img17.echo.cx/my.php?image=2p169773470effaae0p2421l2579si.jpg
Here's a pancam mosaic of four of the images posted by Mhoward. I'm waiting for the other frames with missing data to update, hopefully.
Very intriguing this feature.
Cheers
Nico
http://www.awalkonmars.com
I agree regarding the slumped material. The platy layers look like a caliche style of cemented deposit, and perhaps the hygroscopic salt hypothesis is the right one. This sort of deposit has been seen right back to Viking 1, though the salt-rich soil is a new bit of the jigsaw!
How about season, alternatively sun dont reached this slope over wintertime?! And now in the actual season the slope get warmness and this has activated "anything" or caused layers in the sandy soil at least?!
Yes, I also agree that it's a hardened layer of duricrust that was disturbed in some way by the rover. Duritcrust was previously observed at Opportunity, Pathfinder and Viking landing sites.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/p/110/1P137948807EFF2403P2584L7M1.JPG
This paper describes the process involved and you can also read a summary on my site under the "Duricrust" heading.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2004/pdf/2188.pdf
Cheers,
Aldo.
The paper on the duricrust posits some very credible processes, and when one considers the Viking 2 images of hoar frost at the landing site then a ready source of water is apparant.
I'm reminded of the 'mineralisation' process which occurs in sandstone used for buildings (a big chunk of Glasgow, where I live, is built of Old Red Sandstone from the north-west of Scotland) and which often preserves 400 MYO bedding planes etc in the facades of houses. I wonder whether the aeon-long formation of duricrust would eventually give us rocks comparable to terrestrial sandstone, or whether it would always remain rather more friable and delicate? The exhumation of buried features we see from orbital imagery suggests that there are episodes of harder/softer rock deposition, which may be linked to relative abundance of water (eg a nice big impact could create a briefly wet Mars with well mineralised rocks, with a gradual return to the fairy-cake stuff as time wears on).
Ah, the ghost of Tommy Gold beckons!
Sorry this is long, but I found myself on a roll...
It definitely seems to be a "crusty unit," but going so far as to call it a "duricrust" seems unwarranted. I really haven't yet seen anything I'd call a true duricrust on Mars. I really prefer the "weakly cemented by salts" hypothesis. Water ice is a second choice for me.
There were a few images from around sol 110 taken near Endurance that keep popping up as examples of duricrust, but taken in the context of the surroundings, they appear to me to be soil/dust covered slabs of fractured bedrock that were disturbed by Oppy's wheels.
Purported examples of duricrust:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/p/110/1P137948807EFF2403P2584L7M1.JPG
http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/pds/234567/1P138036835RAD2513P2587L234567C1.JPG
Context images showing the dust/soil covered plates of broken-up bedrock surrounding Endurance crater:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/p/110/1P137953455EFF2513P2366L7M1.HTML
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/p/110/1P137953642EFF2513P2366L7M1.HTML
http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/pds/257/1P137516265RAD2208P2361L257C1.JPG
These are some that have been partially exhumed:
http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/pds/257/1P138298567RAD2600P2295L257C1.JPG
http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/pds/257/1P138297879RAD2600P2295L257C1.JPG
The 'Tommy Gold' reference was more in regard to his ability to think out of the box - a bit like Fred Hoyle. A lot of their ideas didn't pan out, but they were always interesting!
And as for the cosmic origins for hydrocarbons hypothesis, well it seems unlikely at first glance but...
But a flag-draped LM would have been *entertaining* at the very least!
Tommy Gold and Fred Hoyle were similar "theory testing impaired"
They were wrong a lot of the time. They had tremendous abilities to sort through and select and interpret evidence in support of their theories and ignore evidence that blew their theories out of the water entirely. Much of the science they did in their later years bordered on or went over the border into crackpottery.
But when they were right, they were spectacularly right. Their theories were always worth listening to, and thinking about, even when you were 99.9% sure they were totally off--the--wall wrong
When I saw this front hazcam today I initially thought we would see MIs of the crust, but it's clear they are looking at the rock above.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2005-05-22/2F170039696EDNAAEEP1131L0M1.JPG
Here is a mosaic of the MIs from today.
http://img61.echo.cx/my.php?image=spritsol491mimosaic2ky.jpg
The clasts in this rock seem to me to be more angular than some of the other outcrops we've been seeing as we came up the hill. Looking at the pancams from Larry's outcrop I am wondering if I am seeing some evidence of graded bedding. Does anyone else see that?
Finally, back to the crust. It appears to me that this image captured evidence of some other, partially eroded, crusty dust in the upper right.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2005-05-22/2P170032062EFFAAEEP2535L7M1.JPG
Seeing some of the microscopic images from Spirit last night reminded me a little bit of the images Oppy took at El Capitan and other outcrops in Eagle Crater. Is this going to turn into press conference material??
I had exactly the same thought when I saw these latest MI pics. One in particular stood out:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/micro_imager/2005-05-22/2M169951368EFFAAEEP2957M2M1.JPG
Look towards the right of the image, say about 80% of the way towards the right edge, and just over half way down. It looks like a "blueberry" encased in rock.
I'm with you, gentlemen, this stuff DOES look like Meridiani, both up close and from a distance. I started a thread on this topic some weeks ago ("Spirit Hits Blueberries" -- you can find it via the "Search Forum" feature), and there was an initial flurry of interest -- but NASA/JPL/Cornell has not been very definitive about what they are finding. But maybe the stage is being set anew.
On the other hand, I have to keep reminding myself that the exposed surfaces we are seeing are the result of perhaps hundreds of millions of years of weathering via wind driven sand, dust devils, etc., so perhaps this TENDS to create a characteristic-looking surface regardless of the actual composition of the rock. I mean, imagine taking your beloved rock collection, sandblasting it for a couple of hours, and then trying to figure out what's what.
But darn, this Larry's Lookout stuff does have the same "ropey" appearance as the stuff Oppy has been seeing thougout!
Glenn
OK. I can appreciate that there are certain similarities among MI images taken of rocks by both rovers. But both rovers are commanded by people looking for layered rocks, and all of those rocks are presented to us microscopically as grayscale images.
The devil is in the details of the rock texture; the grain size/shape/orientation distributions. I think the rock compositions from spectral data is quite different also, but I don't have links to that at my fingertips. The MIs of the rocks from Eagle crater look very different to me from the latest MIs of Larry's outcrop.
There are so many images from Opportunity that one might compare these rocks to, but I chose a few from some press conferences and put them into a crude montage with the recent mosaic from Spirit.
http://img279.echo.cx/my.php?image=larryeaglecomparison3jb.jpg
The full six frame mosaic sol 489:
http://paranoid.dechengst.nl/mars/Larry%20Lookout.jpg
Color needs correction though and Photoshop drives me crazy with all the options Anyone willing to write a nice tutorial ?
My first impression here was that I was looking at mud. The surface appears smoother, more reflective, perhaps finer grains collecting in a sheltered location?
We received some MIs of the broken crust today. I made a small mosaic from them.
http://img77.echo.cx/my.php?image=spiritsol494mibrokencrust2hg.jpg
I have been wondering about these light patches seen in the pancams of the area. The fine grained, light areas in the MIs are certainly consistent with a major concentration of salts.
Good mosaic.
I've see something like this locally. If a mine has pyritic material in the overburden, this material weathers into iron, sulfate (salts) and acid. This mineralized water saturates loose sand or porous sandstone, evaporates and leaves behind what is called a "sulfate bloom" on the surface.
Of added interest is the bright, overexposed "CCD bleed" in the top row of MI images used in the mosaic. This suggests to me a fresh, reflective crystal face (well, "object"; crystal has a new-age loaded meaning) on the surface.
--Bill
Bill:
I have seen similar things as well in sulfide rich sediments that were exposed to oxidation. I see the similarity.
I also noticed that CCD bleed, but didn't stop to think about it. You could very well be correct. I found another MI of the same area without the flare, but it was somewhat out of focus. There was still an indistinct bright area at that same location. Scanning other images of this stuff, I can see some grains that suggest a cubic or rhombic outline, and one or two of them that have what might be a crystal face that is saturated in luminosity.
It appears as if they have backed away from this site without using any of the other instruments on the arm. I would have liked to have seen more of an investigation, but perhaps they already know what they were looking at.
Here a super resolution outcrop image (sum of 8 PanCam frames from Sol494):
http://img281.echo.cx/my.php?image=2p170208sum0ev.jpg
The specular reflection was so unusual on dusty, wind-eroded Mars that it was _very_ noticable. Hopefully, someone in the back room noticed it too and got more MIs.
--Bill
Steve Squyres has a new update today, with a lot of discussion of these rocks.
http://athena1.cornell.edu/news/mubss/
I was actually thinking of posting a message here today arguing for an impact origin of these rocks, but Steve says they favor a volcaniclastic origin. He also has some interesting discussion of the distribution of alteration they have observed. Apparently they have seen some pretty significant alteration, even at the top of the section.
I noticed an interesting pancam sequence captured on sols 497-498, and managed to convince Autostitch to combine all 28 images into this panorama.
http://img35.echo.cx/my.php?image=2pl2497pano107151zn.jpg
It's interesting to see the crisscrossing pattern of tracks here, and further down the hill. It gives one a sense of how carefully they are investigating the rocks in this area. Like a good field geologist, Spirit's been all over these outcrops. I had to shrink the original 33 MB image down to 1 MB to post this, but I don't think it lost too much detail.
This is a color stitch from Sol497 (only the left portion of CosmicRocker mosaic...):
http://img116.echo.cx/my.php?image=sol497pancamsmall4gd.jpg
Notes: L257 pseudo colors, 50% of original scale, made with autostich.
Thanks, your pans show the first time Spirit's whole path uphill. Sadly we should have a Rover 3D model available on the web in order to fit it into such great pans. That would be concrete.
A 3D model like this would already satisfy: http://www.br-online.de//wissen-bildung/thema/mars/schnipsel/popup_flash-rover.html It must be copyable in each position.
This is a simple sketch map of the recent travels of Spirit, superimposed on the best MOC image of the area.
I took the opportunity (no pun) and put the 3d model in the pan
http://img178.echo.cx/my.php?image=sol497pancamsmall4gdcopy15ds.jpg
http://img178.echo.cx/my.php?image=sol497pancamsmall4gdcopy3yu.jpg
Great idea
That's exactly what I was hoping for, but never thought that it could...
Hey, it seems you have the right tool for the journey
If you eventually may to put each view on your image host, little by little, I would not say no
But we should consider that this flash has a copyright! How could we manage this?
Wonderful!
Good idea from Tman and great application from dot.dk! (I love this Forum ).
Hey guys, this could be the last view from Larry's lookout! (Autostitch of 2 NavCam from Sol503):
http://img8.echo.cx/my.php?image=sol503navcam1ed.jpg
A larger version:
http://img90.echo.cx/my.php?image=sol503pano2tl.jpg
Tman/Nirgal, do you think could be a nice starting material for you...?
Could be dilo, could be But it seems to me there is to much traffic for a neat photography of nature
Wow, three different old tracks from Spirit in the sand and we were already there: http://www.greuti.ch/spirit/nav-sol438b.jpg (new version of March 29) It seems Spirit loves this position.
Spirit again on its way to the summit of Husband Hill.
Looking back to Jibsheet and Larry's Lookout and seeing all the tracks he made.
Here is the panorama of that view made on Sol 503 through the R Navcam.
jvandriel
from Sol500 (images available only now...):
http://img83.echo.cx/my.php?image=sol500pano3gb.jpg
If I'm not wrong, this stitch is an interesting Larry's side view!
Wonderful image composites dilo.
Looking at the last image and especially the end of the tracks made me think that the fine dust there might have similar properties (very fine grinded) as the dust Opportunity digged itself down in in Meridiani. So Spirit was lucky there wasnt more of it in that location. (might be a good idea to avoid places where such dust would accumulate like in downwind location etc)
Dilo, I like that one a lot ... it's my new desktop background. Thanks
Yeah, great work!
Phil
Wonderful-- it's my new Wallpaper, too.
What are the current thoughts on what is happening here? There is a cemented crust on the surface and a mobile subsurface. The slide area was interesting enough but the disturbed areas around the wheels are more so. And, unless I'm mistaken, I see a purple-colored subsoil like we saw on the climb up.
--Bill
On Earth, sediment transport processes tend to separate sand sized (1 to 0.1 mm, roughly) sized particles from smaller silt and clay sized particles. (Geologist's operational test to tell siltstone from claystone: nibble a bit between your front teeth. If it's gritty, it's got silt sized particles, if it's smooth, it's all clay sized!) Thus Earth gets lots of relatively well sorted sandstones, and very different silt dominated sediments on land and in rivers. Clay sized dust tends to stay in suspension in the air or rivers and ends up in the oceans as a component of marine oozes.
On Mars, the globally transported dust storm dusts are mostly clay sized... a few microns sized particles, and the dark dunes in craters and the north polar sand seas do appear both visually and from thermal properties to be reasonably well sorted sand grains, but a lot of the stuff the rovers are encountering seem to be a varied assortment of clay/silt/sand and granule (2 mm or so) sized materials, with all sorts of small scale sorting going on, but not making sediments with really well defined average particle sizes.
A big reason is the lack of water and it's roles in separating the different materials mechanically, and the lack of oceans to trap the eolian transported dust. A big question polar lander was to help answer and Phoenix will tackle is the nature of high latitude "dust and ice" deposits. The Polar Lander's targets are true polar deposits, it's unclear what the dirty ice (inferred from Odyssey's data) are that Phoenix is targeted for.
I integrated part of previous Larry's mosaic with more recent color images from PanCam and identified their location inside a "colorized" Sol507 NavCam stitch:
http://img12.echo.cx/my.php?image=galleria1rd.jpg
As a bonus, in the top/left insert there is also a portion of relatively rare full NavCam picture of a DD from the same day (as you know, most DD appear in subframes images... ).
Beautiful mosaic Dilo.
Great work!
I made a pano of Sol 507 too (using autostitch), but your composition beats it by an order of magnitude.
Tesheiner
great work, dilo !
makes me all the more looking forward to the images/mosaics to come with the
new terrain we are about to discover in the next weeks
Awesome work Dilo! And a great idea pointing out the locations of the different rock targets.
Here is a panoramic view of Jibsheet, Gusev Crater and Larry's Lookout taken with the L7 pancam.
The horizon is not perfect but this is the best result from Autostitch.
The original view is 21 MB. made from 48 pictures.
jvandriel
Here is a panoramic view of Gusev Crater with a good and straight horizon.
Panorama taken with the L5 Pancam.
jvandriel
Nice works, jvandriel.
I made similar mosaic from Sol510 pseudo-color images and, even if result is far from perfection, it still impressive:
http://img223.echo.cx/my.php?image=superpano9wa.jpg
OT quesstion: Do someone knows how to obtain flat horizon, force stitch of all image and eliminate luminosity differences inside autostitch, without image pre-processing? (if yes, pls, answer in the "Imagery & Tech Issues", where I just posted same question).
Dilo,
here is my version of the panoramic view of Tennesee Valley and Larry's Lookout.
Taken on sol 510 with the L5 Pancam.
It is in black and white. Your colour panorama is more spectacular.
jvandriel
Here is a better panoramic view of Larry's Lookout and tennesee Valley after changing the Gain parameter in Autostitch.
jvandriel
Dilo:
Excellent work!
(and youse other guys, too!)
Bob Shaw
Thanks, this is a beautiful example of successful world-wide collaboration between individuals which do not know each other, but share the same passion!
Yes, Dilo, we are getting a lot of that here, and it is good to see it.
Phil
Nice one dilo!
Nico
havn't had the time to closely follow the forum recently ...
just saw those wunderful panorama stitches.
Especially jvandriel's flat horizon monochrom image in reply #82
and dilo's color stitch in reply #87 (really like those colors... the shades of red just feel "right" for the martian scenery)
are spectacular
keep up the great work !
...and this is the last (sniff) Larry's view from Sol514:
http://img121.echo.cx/my.php?image=pano4vg.jpg
Pan from 497,498,500 50! color images
http://s05.imagehost.org/view.php?image=/1221/pan25.jpg
Full size is 25 MBytes
Great Alan!
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