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Opportunity Plans
Nix
post Jan 9 2005, 01:53 PM
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Nasa announced earlier that Opportunity will head for Vostok Crater, due South.
I assembled this colored mosaic to get a better idea of what lies ahead. Reaching the crater Victoria in the south should not be a problem, I only hope the rocky terrain north of the crater will allow Opportunity to travel in more or less a straight line. There sure are plenty of interesting sites to explore in this area! mars.gif rolleyes.gif
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djellison
post Jan 9 2005, 05:20 PM
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Pando posted an image of the expected route - which goes slightly left of a straight line - via vostok, to the round feature at the start of the etched terrain, then SE to Victoria

Doug
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ilbasso
post Jan 9 2005, 09:51 PM
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Nix, am I mistaken, or is there a bit of a scale discrepancy between the upper and lower halves of your mosaic? It appears in your picture that Endurance crater is as large or larger than Victoria, but I thought that Victoria crater's dune field alone was as big as all of Endurance crater.


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Nix
post Jan 9 2005, 10:07 PM
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Ilbasso I think you are mistaking the big depression in the upper half for Endurance. Endurance is midway the mosaic and Eagle Crater to the left of it.
Victoria is about 700-750 meters wide I think compared to 130-140 meters for Endurance.


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MizarKey
post Jan 10 2005, 01:54 AM
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QUOTE (NIX @ Jan 9 2005, 02:07 PM)
Ilbasso I think you are mistaking the big depression in the upper half for Endurance. Endurance is midway the mosaic and Eagle Crater to the left of it.
Victoria is about 700-750 meters wide I think compared to 130-140 meters for Endurance.

The question becomes...why not go 'up' to the big depression area? It's as large as Victoria but not as deep (they pretty much have no chance to go into Victoria). Maybe it's just not as exciting or they don't think they'd see anything new there?

Eric P / MizarKey


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ilbasso
post Jan 10 2005, 02:17 AM
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Nix: Oops, sorry! I'm so used to seeing Endurance at the top of NASA's maps that I forgot there was anything north of it! Great mosaic, as was your Spirit pan on the other thread.


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dot.dk
post Jan 10 2005, 02:20 AM
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QUOTE (MizarKey @ Jan 10 2005, 01:54 AM)
The question becomes...why not go 'up' to the big depression area?  It's as large as Victoria but not as deep (they pretty much have no chance to go into Victoria).  Maybe it's just not as exciting or they don't think they'd see anything new there?

Eric P / MizarKey

That's because they really wanne check out the Etched terrain to the south and it also looks alot mere compelling than the big sand dune to the north.

The good thing is that they can have a look at Victoria when they have (hopefully) worked their way throug the etched terrain cool.gif


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centsworth_II
post Jan 10 2005, 02:23 AM
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QUOTE
"...why not go 'up' to the big depression area? It's as large as Victoria but not as deep..."


The reason it's not as deep is because it's filled in with sand/dust. Anything interesting in it is covered up! The reason to head south is the etched terrain, an area of great scientific interest. Victoria is 'just' an added attraction if the rover is still alive after exploring the etched terrain. The time it takes to explore the etched terrain will depend on how interesting it proves to be once Opportunity gets there.
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Nix
post Jan 10 2005, 10:11 AM
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I think they will visit similar depressions in Victoria's vicinity once they get there, although Victoria will have all the attention. I have been looking through some raw images and the outcropping surrounding Victoria is visible in some images. I had some doubts because the white horizon in some images dissappears when colorizing the images, but looking at some other images the L2's shows the rocks lighter toned than for example an L5.
What do you think?
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Nix
post Jan 10 2005, 03:56 PM
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The rock near the Heatshield is interesting too!
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Pando
post Jan 10 2005, 11:53 PM
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Hard to tell from the images whether Victoria is visible or not. Perhaps we could calculate the curvature of the marsscape vs. how high the rim of the crater is; it may be completely behind the horizon at this point.
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Nix
post Jan 11 2005, 12:12 AM
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I don't mean Victoria itself to be visible but the northern boundary of the large area of outcrop surrounding Victoria.


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Bill Harris
post Jan 11 2005, 01:58 AM
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That light area on the south horizon looks like about the correct azimuth for Victoria. I'd bet on an upturned crater rim-- remember how Endurance and Burns Cliff was visible once Oppy got out of Eagle.

--Bill


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CosmicRocker
post Jan 11 2005, 05:59 AM
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As fascinating as Victoria may be, I can't help but think that there will be so many amazing science opportunities in the etched terrain, that they will be tempted to spend the rest of the rover's life exploring a small portion of those badlands.

I can't say that's a bad thing. I look forward to many Sols, slowly rolling through that stratigraphy.


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Bill Harris
post Jan 11 2005, 09:33 AM
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Agreed. Victoria is a long-term goal, but who knows what sights we'll see along the way.

Look at the interesting things we've seen around the heatshield, and we've just "scratched the surface" there.

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