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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Spirit _ Methuselah

Posted by: djellison Apr 29 2005, 10:52 AM

Look at the MI campaign on this puppy ohmy.gif It's got to be a 4 x 4 frame MI mosaic ohmy.gif

http://qt.exploratorium.edu:16080/mars/spirit/forward_hazcam/2005-04-28/

Doug

Posted by: Sunspot Apr 29 2005, 11:03 AM

http://planetary.org/news/2005/mer-udpate_0428.html

Spirit then drove toward a piece of outcrop in the neighborhood that attracted the eye of science team, and spent last weekend and this week checking out the target the team has dubbed Methuselah. Several meters across, this section of bedrock presently forms a semi-circular boundary around the rover.

"Basically, the idea there was to cover the whole thing at a very high-resolution and then find the very best spot to move in and do some detail work with the IDD and that's what we're doing right now," Squyres told The Planetary Society.

The rover moved in on the spot the science team chose and nicknamed Keystone earlier this week and will be hunkered down there throughout this coming weekend. Currently, Spirit is in the process of taking 144 microscopic imager (MI) pictures for a "huge mosaic," as Squyres described it. "We planned [to take] two-thirds of those 144 images yesterday and so the rover should start executing that in just a few hours now," he elaborated. "And we're planning the remaining one-third of it today. And then we're going to do RAT brush, APXS, Mössbauer spectrometer, and a complete work over of this thing."

Posted by: OWW Apr 29 2005, 11:03 AM

Here is one of those MI images already. Looks like 'Tetl' and 'Pot of Gold':


Posted by: chris Apr 29 2005, 11:38 AM

I'm not a geologist, so I could be dead wrong, but some of the shapes in the MI images remind me of the vugs that Opportunity saw in Eagle crater.

Chris

Posted by: gpurcell Apr 29 2005, 04:47 PM

Looks like Pot of Gold to me as well.

Hopefully we found some of the outcrop!

Posted by: deglr6328 Apr 30 2005, 09:44 PM

I feel like some parts of those images are just teasing me to find structure where there is none... biggrin.gif Sometimes the mind's adroitness for deciphering patterns in the noise can be almost cruel. mellow.gif

Posted by: glennwsmith May 1 2005, 02:07 AM

I'd like to add my two cents worth to what Chris has said, namely, that this looks like Meridiani. There are no "blueberries" per se, but perhaps conditions were not quite right on this side of the planet for their formation -- but otherwise it SEEMS like the same strata! And I am certain that the JPL people are going at it with the same thought, hence the massive focus on this piece of real estate. The Mossbauer etc. will tell us more?

Doug, can we cross-reference the "blueberries" thread?

Glenn

Posted by: dilo May 2 2005, 10:55 PM

QUOTE (gpurcell @ Apr 29 2005, 04:47 PM)
Looks like Pot of Gold to me as well.

Hopefully we found some of the outcrop!
*


I tried to make a mosaic with last mi images (Sol471... not easy and not perfect due to parallax issues blink.gif ). In the left color Pancam image you can see that this is centered on brush area...
http://img185.echo.cx/my.php?image=2p168178763efffcl4561av.jpg

Posted by: glennwsmith May 3 2005, 02:31 AM

Neato!

Posted by: dot.dk May 3 2005, 07:54 AM

Moving on to a new target by the looks of it.

The rocker-bogie is really being tested here smile.gif


Posted by: Burmese May 3 2005, 12:41 PM

I wonder how this rock picked up that tidy circular impression?

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/472/2P168264866EFFA9I4P2564L7M1.JPG

Posted by: dvandorn May 3 2005, 06:30 PM

QUOTE (Burmese @ May 3 2005, 07:41 AM)
I wonder how this rock picked up that tidy circular impression?

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/472/2P168264866EFFA9I4P2564L7M1.JPG
*


There's always one good explanation for tidy circular impressions -- craters. In the absence of any other data, I'd guess it's a very small crater from a very small impactor.

I bet the rock is pretty soft or unconsolidated, though, to record a crater so nicely without being blown to bits by such an impact...

-the other Doug

Posted by: JRehling May 3 2005, 07:10 PM

QUOTE (dvandorn @ May 3 2005, 11:30 AM)
QUOTE (Burmese @ May 3 2005, 07:41 AM)
I wonder how this rock picked up that tidy circular impression?

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/472/2P168264866EFFA9I4P2564L7M1.JPG
*


There's always one good explanation for tidy circular impressions -- craters. In the absence of any other data, I'd guess it's a very small crater from a very small impactor.

I bet the rock is pretty soft or unconsolidated, though, to record a crater so nicely without being blown to bits by such an impact...

-the other Doug
*



Any impactor small enough to make a crater that small would certainly have burned up in the martian atmosphere. This is the sort of impact feature that may exist on the Moon, but never Mars.

Posted by: djellison May 3 2005, 07:51 PM


Posted by: Jeff7 May 3 2005, 08:00 PM

QUOTE (JRehling @ May 3 2005, 03:10 PM)
QUOTE (dvandorn @ May 3 2005, 11:30 AM)
QUOTE (Burmese @ May 3 2005, 07:41 AM)
I wonder how this rock picked up that tidy circular impression?

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/472/2P168264866EFFA9I4P2564L7M1.JPG
*


There's always one good explanation for tidy circular impressions -- craters. In the absence of any other data, I'd guess it's a very small crater from a very small impactor.

I bet the rock is pretty soft or unconsolidated, though, to record a crater so nicely without being blown to bits by such an impact...

-the other Doug
*



Any impactor small enough to make a crater that small would certainly have burned up in the martian atmosphere. This is the sort of impact feature that may exist on the Moon, but never Mars.
*




They've found what look like tiny craters at Opportunity's site. Sure, if it's tiny when it enters the atmosphere, the object will disintegrate quickly. But if it's large enough, a small portion of it could make it to the surface.

I place my bet that it's simply a random formation - just like how we see shapes in the clouds, we happened upon a formation that has a round imprint on it.

Posted by: helvick May 3 2005, 08:37 PM

QUOTE (JRehling @ May 3 2005, 08:10 PM)
  Any impactor small enough to make a crater that small would certainly have burned up in the martian atmosphere. This is the sort of impact feature that may exist on the Moon, but never Mars.
*


That's true if the original object was small but largish meteors will break up and some small pieces will (occassionally) reach the ground - terminal velocity on Mars will be up to 500m/s for a small (5cm diameter) compact, roughly spherical and dense (iron).

Then there are secondary impacts from massive meteorite impacts elsewhere - the terminal velocity of a rocky secondary is probably a bit lower (300m/sec for the same dimensions) but even that has enough kinetic energy to make a neat round dent in something relatively soft which this looks like it might be.

Posted by: Sunspot May 3 2005, 10:17 PM

There was some suggestion that meteorites impacting rocks at the Pathfinder landing site could produce small "craters" on them. Here's a story on the subject:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/mars-pathmets990927.html

Posted by: JRehling May 3 2005, 10:22 PM

QUOTE (Jeff7 @ May 3 2005, 01:00 PM)
QUOTE (JRehling @ May 3 2005, 03:10 PM)
QUOTE (dvandorn @ May 3 2005, 11:30 AM)
QUOTE (Burmese @ May 3 2005, 07:41 AM)
I wonder how this rock picked up that tidy circular impression?

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/472/2P168264866EFFA9I4P2564L7M1.JPG
*


There's always one good explanation for tidy circular impressions -- craters. In the absence of any other data, I'd guess it's a very small crater from a very small impactor.

I bet the rock is pretty soft or unconsolidated, though, to record a crater so nicely without being blown to bits by such an impact...

-the other Doug
*



Any impactor small enough to make a crater that small would certainly have burned up in the martian atmosphere. This is the sort of impact feature that may exist on the Moon, but never Mars.
*




They've found what look like tiny craters at Opportunity's site. Sure, if it's tiny when it enters the atmosphere, the object will disintegrate quickly. But if it's large enough, a small portion of it could make it to the surface.

I place my bet that it's simply a random formation - just like how we see shapes in the clouds, we happened upon a formation that has a round imprint on it.
*



If something large is worn down to something small, it won't be moving fast enough to create a "crater" when it hits. For example, the meteor spotted by Opportunity. If an object that size had hit the Moon, it would not be sitting there intact. By surviving entry, it is going too slow to vaporize the target area.

Posted by: dvandorn May 3 2005, 11:51 PM

QUOTE (JRehling @ May 3 2005, 05:22 PM)
  If something large is worn down to something small, it won't be moving fast enough to create a "crater" when it hits. For example, the meteor spotted by Opportunity. If an object that size had hit the Moon, it would not be sitting there intact. By surviving entry, it is going too slow to vaporize the target area.
*


Meteors sometimes explode into fragments as they pass through an atmosphere -- even iron meteors. Especially if they enter at a highly oblique angle and experience a relatively long duration heating event.

If a meteor explodes, say, 500 meters above the surface and propels pieces in all directions, some few pieces will have their forward/downward motion greatly reduced,and will simply fall out of the sky from there. Falling from 500 meters, such a piece will hit and sit on the surface, just like we've seen at Meridiani. Happens all the time on Earth.

At the same time, a smaller chunk could be propelled from 500 meters on to the ground and make a tiny little crater. There would probably be a footprint whose far end would have a range of craters made by the chunks that survived and continued to the ground, and whose back end was made up of chunks of meteor sitting on the ground, relatively unscathed.

Yes, it probably happens pretty rarely that a chunk of meteor is slowed down by explosion dynamics and ends up sitting on the ground like it was set there by some giant's hand. But even things that happen *extremely* rarely can be commonly seen if you wait a few billion years...

-the other Doug

Posted by: dilo May 4 2005, 06:11 AM

A couple of NavCam stitch mosaics from Sol473:
http://img39.echo.cx/my.php?image=sol473navcamright7nd.jpg
http://img130.echo.cx/my.php?image=sol473navcamleft0bn.jpg
Regards.

Posted by: dilo May 6 2005, 06:25 AM

Finally, Spirit found a chunk of blue Kryptonite levitating above a flat bedrock!... tongue.gif
http://www.imageshack.us

Posted by: Sunspot May 6 2005, 12:18 PM

Looks like they've driven round to the other side of Methuselah. Perhaps this was the site Steve Squyres was referring to in his update rather than Larrys Lookout visible in the distance.

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/rear_hazcam/2005-05-06/2R168629336EFFAAACP1312R0M1.JPG

Posted by: stevo May 6 2005, 06:43 PM

I'm curious about the "blue kryptonite". False color aside, its morphology is clearly different from the outcrop it's lying on (smoother for a start, implying newer? harder?) and it has odd swirly patterns on top. Can anyone suggest an origin? volcanic ejecta? meteorite fragment ?

And besides, if you look at earlier photos of the same rock, it appears to have a pretzel glued to one end ...

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2005-04-26/2P167556924EFFA9HEP2280L7M1.JPG

Posted by: dvandorn May 6 2005, 08:42 PM

QUOTE (stevo @ May 6 2005, 01:43 PM)
I'm curious about the "blue kryptonite".  False color aside, its morphology is clearly different from the outcrop it's lying on (smoother for a start, implying newer? harder?) and it has odd swirly patterns on top.  Can anyone suggest an origin? volcanic ejecta? meteorite fragment ?

And besides, if you look at earlier photos of the same rock, it appears to have a pretzel glued to one end ...

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2005-04-26/2P167556924EFFA9HEP2280L7M1.JPG
*


Without any APXS, Mossbauer or mini-TES data, just from looking at the rock, I'd guess it's a chunk of basalt that was dropped onto the hills from some nearby impact. It's more resistant to erosion than the softer rock that makes up the bedded unit of which Methuselah is an outcrop (thereby attaining the "perched" appearance after underlying rock has eroded out from under it).

Also, while I don't know what kind of false-color attributes this particular image has, similar false-color images out on the lava plains at Gusev have showed chunks of basalt highlighted in blue tones. So, if this image uses the same false-color assignations, I'd say the color suggests basalt.

-the other Doug

Posted by: dilo May 7 2005, 11:38 AM

QUOTE (dvandorn @ May 6 2005, 08:42 PM)
[Also, while I don't know what kind of false-color attributes this particular image has, similar false-color images out on the lava plains at Gusev have showed chunks of basalt highlighted in blue tones.  So, if this image uses the same false-color assignations, I'd say the color suggests basalt.
*


Doug, obviously image is not true colors, is an "extended" colors combination using L2+L4+L7 filters; no further manipulations, apart sharpening.

Posted by: dilo May 8 2005, 09:41 PM

Amazing outcrops views on Sol477... cool.gif Technically, a combination of 6 PanCam "pseudo-color" images (again L2+L4+L7 filters!) with little color manipulation in order to make it more "realistic".
http://img41.echo.cx/my.php?image=sol477pan3r7jz.jpg
The dark sand without any topography hint in the lower portion strongly recall me the first images from eagle crater...

[Hey, Tman, finally it seems I'm learning to correctltly use PTGui! smile.gif].

Posted by: Tman May 9 2005, 07:26 AM

QUOTE (dilo @ May 8 2005, 11:41 PM)
Amazing outcrops views on Sol477...  cool.gif Technically, a combination of 6 PanCam "pseudo-color" images (again L2+L4+L7 filters!) with little color manipulation in order to make it more "realistic".
http://img41.echo.cx/my.php?image=sol477pan3r7jz.jpg
The dark sand without any topography hint in the lower portion strongly recall me the first images from eagle crater...

[Hey, Tman, finally it seems I'm learning to correctltly use PTGui!  smile.gif].
*


Hey Marco, it seems - immediately I excuse me for every request to help you! biggrin.gif

Seriously, it's a very good and fine colored PTGui pan, compliment!
It makes hope to see more therefrom. smile.gif

Posted by: ustrax May 9 2005, 02:56 PM

Dilo...Have you seen the spidery looking rock on the top of the first hill counting from the left of the big chunk of rock on the right of the image?...
A Mars-barnacle? biggrin.gif

Posted by: dilo May 9 2005, 06:54 PM

QUOTE (Tman @ May 9 2005, 07:26 AM)
Hey Marco, it seems - immediately I excuse me for every request to help you! biggrin.gif

Seriously, it's a very good and fine colored PTGui pan, compliment!
It makes hope to see more therefrom. smile.gif
*


Thanks Tman, but if I reached this result is also thanks to your suggestions!!! wink.gif
(I obtained even more impressive results stitching my last holyday photos, PTgui is really powerful! - now I have only 5 more days trial period sad.gif so I should spend EURO 49 to use it... huh.gif )

Posted by: alan May 10 2005, 01:56 AM

Larry, Curly and Moe
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2005-05-09/2P168888511ESFAAACP2579L6M1.JPG

Posted by: lyford May 10 2005, 02:59 AM

QUOTE (alan @ May 9 2005, 05:56 PM)
Larry, Curly and Moe
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2005-05-09/2P168888511ESFAAACP2579L6M1.JPG
*

Not Geddy, Alex and Neil? tongue.gif

Too bad the Mars microphone is not there - I can just hear the "Hello- Hello- Hello- Hello!" when I see that pic....

Posted by: Edward Schmitz May 10 2005, 03:10 AM

QUOTE (stevo @ May 6 2005, 11:43 AM)
I'm curious about the "blue kryptonite".  False color aside, its morphology is clearly different from the outcrop it's lying on (smoother for a start, implying newer? harder?) and it has odd swirly patterns on top.  Can anyone suggest an origin? volcanic ejecta? meteorite fragment ?

And besides, if you look at earlier photos of the same rock, it appears to have a pretzel glued to one end ...

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2005-04-26/2P167556924EFFA9HEP2280L7M1.JPG
*

When I saw this rock, I thought it looked odd, too. It took me a while to put my finger on it. There is not sediment around it. With all the dust and sand blowing around and the protected area under the rock, it should quickly gather dust around the base. This hasn't been there very long.

Does anybody have context images?

I'll bet it broke loose from an outcrop that is just out of frame. Not very long ago.

Posted by: dilo May 10 2005, 06:06 AM

Sol479 true color PanCam images, top context based on Sol477 NavCam stitch by jvandriel (see http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=918&view=findpost&p=10176):
http://img86.echo.cx/my.php?image=navcampanorama477inset6fq.jpg

Posted by: Tman May 10 2005, 09:29 AM

QUOTE (Edward Schmitz @ May 10 2005, 05:10 AM)
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2005-04-26/2P167556924EFFA9HEP2280L7M1.JPG

When I saw this rock, I thought it looked odd, too.  It took me a while to put my finger on it.  There is not sediment around it.  With all the dust and sand blowing around and the protected area under the rock, it should quickly gather dust around the base.  This hasn't been there very long. 

Does anybody have context images?

I'll bet it broke loose from an outcrop that is just out of frame.  Not very long ago.
*

I guess too this rock became ejected by an impact event in the Gusev volcanic floor. It's a similar like those on the plain. Regarding the time and dust, I would say "not long ago" too, but it lies on a naked rock, maybe therefore without dust.

Methuselah east: (900KB) http://www.greuti.ch/spirit/spirit_navcam_sol477.jpg

Posted by: Bob Shaw May 10 2005, 12:07 PM

Presumably they'll eventually run out of names for rocks, a bit like IP Addresses and WWW domain names...

...I'm still waiting for Wilson, Betty and Kepple (they'll be mobile rocks like in Death Valley, but lubricated by fine sand rather than mud, and the one in the middle will be the best looking!).

(Now watch the minds boggle!)

Posted by: YesRushGen May 10 2005, 03:21 PM

QUOTE (lyford @ May 9 2005, 09:59 PM)
QUOTE (alan @ May 9 2005, 05:56 PM)
Larry, Curly and Moe
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2005-05-09/2P168888511ESFAAACP2579L6M1.JPG
*

Not Geddy, Alex and Neil? tongue.gif


Nice. smile.gif

From Vapor Trails:

"...endlessly rocking... endlessly rocking..."

Posted by: dvandorn May 10 2005, 05:02 PM

QUOTE (Tman @ May 10 2005, 04:29 AM)
QUOTE (Edward Schmitz @ May 10 2005, 05:10 AM)
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2005-04-26/2P167556924EFFA9HEP2280L7M1.JPG

When I saw this rock, I thought it looked odd, too.  It took me a while to put my finger on it.  There is not sediment around it.  With all the dust and sand blowing around and the protected area under the rock, it should quickly gather dust around the base.  This hasn't been there very long. 

Does anybody have context images?

I'll bet it broke loose from an outcrop that is just out of frame.  Not very long ago.
*

I guess too this rock became ejected by an impact event in the Gusev volcanic floor. It's a similar like those on the plain. Regarding the time and dust, I would say "not long ago" too, but it lies on a naked rock, maybe therefore without dust.

Methuselah east: (900KB) http://www.greuti.ch/spirit/spirit_navcam_sol477.jpg
*



Remember, it gets windy up in the hills. I can imagine a sequence of events where a piece of basalt gets lobbed on top of a much softer piece of sandstone and the winds strip the sandstone down to a flat, "floor-tile" appearance (sweeping the eroded dust away) and leaving the denser basalt far less eroded. Now, in such a case, you have to postulate changing wind directions to explain the lack of a "shadow" of non-deflated dust, but it's not hard to believe that winds would vary enough to accomplish the job. Especially over the thousands (maybe millions) of years that basalt has been sitting there, the sandstone underneath it slowly blowing away in the wind...

It can be hard to apply common-sense "gut feelings" about erosion processes to aeolian weathering, especially in such a thin atmosphere, since it takes so *very* long for that thin air to erode the softer rocks down flat. Over the very long time that it takes to erode the sandstone flat, prevailing wind directions can change a lot, especially in a hilly region where we *know* atmospheric vortices are common.

-the other Doug

Posted by: MahFL May 12 2005, 03:44 PM

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pancam/2005-05-12/2P169153145EFFAAB2P2417L5M1.JPG


Looks like some Martians left some Patio slabs laying around......
pancam.gif

Posted by: slinted Jun 14 2005, 11:45 PM

Either the odd rock or the underlying layers caught the science team's eye. On sol 514 they snapped it again, from closer up, in a full filter sequence.
Here it is, in false color:
http://www.lyle.org/~markoff/processed/2P171995501ESFAALCP2571L234567M1.JPG

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