When Phoenex moves a rock... Options

[SickNick]

Right now, the team is deliberately avoiding the loose(?) rocks that scatter the surface. We know that *some* of them are loose, because they were dislodged by the landing jets and some rolled across the surface a little way.

What will be interesting is to see the relationship between the ice table and the rocks - in theory, the rocks should be better conductors of heat than loose dusty regolith, and so the ice table should be depressed underneath each rock. In reality, things get more complex, but it will be interesting to see the topography of a part of the ice table, in an area where we knew the rock distribution before scraping it clean. The area under the lander is interesting, but we don't know what the rocks were like before landing (maybe MARDI would have helped there?)

I know this is getting ahead of the game, right now, but it's interesting to speculate.

Oh, and while we're speculating, wouldn't it be interesting if, instead of venting that helium pressure randomly, the RAC had a small nozzle for "squirting" pressurised gas at the soil. That could have been useful in the late stages of clearing the ice table...