The Storm, Dust storm of 2007 Options

[djellison]

Added more dots.

Doug

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[elakdawalla]

Since nobody seems to have picked up on these I thought I'd point out the visualizations of recent tau images (animations and multiple images) from both rovers that I posted today. Jim kindly provided me with RADs to work with so the calibration is correct. There have been more tau images since I got these from Jim, so these are a few days old, but still interesting...



Spirit


Opportunity


--Emily

[mars loon]

Since nobody seems to have picked up on these I thought I'd point out the visualizations of recent tau images (animations and multiple images) from both rovers that I posted today. Jim kindly provided me with RADs to work with so the calibration is correct. There have been more tau images since I got these from Jim, so these are a few days old, but still interesting...

Emily,
I did see your very nice updated work this afternoon and the earlier version. In fact I'd like to use them at several talks I'm presenting soon in Florida and the NY area. The animations and graphs will help tell a vivid adventure story. thank you. ken

[stevesliva]

Since nobody seems to have picked up on these...

Oh, you'd better believe we notice. I sort of just assume everyone else hits up your blog each day. In this instance, the visuals are very impressive.

[CosmicRocker]

We noticed your work, Emily. Anyone who is anyone has an rss link to your blog on their home page. The visitor location map is a nice addition, too.

[CosmicRocker]

In case some were wondering where the rovers were in the midst of this storm, here is a crude attempt to align the MARCI map to THEMIS.

[Tesheiner]

I sort of just assume everyone else hits up your blog each day.

Good assumption.

[abalone]

Emily
fantastic way to make the changes easy to interpret.

[elakdawalla]

OK, noted Sorry to be redundant!

--Emily

[Pando]

Here's an awesome graph showing tau seasonal comparisons for Viking and MER (from Dr. Lemmon's website).

I think what's striking is the correlation of this year's MER data to the previous year, and then comes the dust storm...

[Floyd]

The current storm and the major Viking storm also correlate in starting about Ls 270. If the current storm follows the graph, then tau should be below 1.5 in about 25 sols. Hopefully we will be good by the end of August.

[fredk]

I get around 50 sols, until Ls = 320 or so when the Viking storm ended. Did you use the number of days in an earth year instead of sols in a mars year?

Anyway, it sounds like these storms vary a lot, so we can hope it'll end sooner, and pray it doesn't end much later...

[fredk]

Some discouraging news for Oppy. Lots of details about low energy procedures in this update.

[belleraphon1]

Since nobody seems to have picked up on these

Emily, everyone on this forum checks your blog multiple times a day.
Great visualizations...... thanks for all the hard work you do!!! We all appreciate it.

Yeah, fredk,,, that last update is scary..... but these rovers have proven mighty hard to shut down.
Ain't over yet.

Craig

[CosmicRocker]

Well, that wasn't the greatest news, was it?

Don't worry.
Be Happy.

Even if these overachieving rovers meet their doom in this Martian weather, they've returned data about more amazing discoveries than anyone could have ever expected. We are at least an order of magnitude beyond what any reasonable person could have confidently expected from them, and we should see the next Mars explorer to launch in a few days. What more could you ask for?

We can see from that update that the MER team is on top of the situation. For the other optimists out there, that interesting correlation Pando posted from Dr. Lemmon's site suggests we can hope for a future improvement. I wouldn't write these robotic explorers off, just yet.