The western route, 5th leg after stop at Absecon / Reeds Bay Options

[dot.dk]

Some good news in the latest update

http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/mission/status.html#opportunity

Opportunity began moving again with a 67-meter (220-foot) drive. The right-front wheel motor current showed some improvement from the actuator resting and extra mobility heating.

The rover performed another long drive on Sol 1946 (July 15, 2009), covering over 70 meters (230 feet). Again, the right front wheel currents showed continued improvement.

[ustrax]

Hey, are these marks left my Oppy's wheels? I don't remember seing this before:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...FFP2514R1M1.JPG

[Fran Ontanaya]

She has done that before. The bedrock isn't very rocky.

[Tesheiner]

Check the navcams taken during sol 1950: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...cam/2009-07-19/
There are a few mini-craters in sight. The one to the right (NW) was named "Alvin".

[Stu]

Not sure which crater this is... taken my eye off Oppy during all the LRO drooling, I'll be honest!... but interesting...



And some nice little rocks for Oppy to snuffle around in, too...

[Tesheiner]

That's Alvin. Here's a navcam mosaic made with those pictures to put it in context.


BTW, has anybody seen Cape St. Mary these last sols? Is it still visible?

[fredk]

I've been watching Cape St. Mary (Beacon) in the rear view mirror. Our last definite sighting was sol 1942 navcam, though it was getting a bit hard to make out. I've marked it in this crop:

There've been north-pointing navcams since, but I can't make CSM out unambiguously (determining the exact azimuth might help). The lighting is bad (low contrast between sky and ground), but it may be that we're losing it due to topography. We're certainly no farther from CSM than we were at the last sightings.

The last good view was sol 1938 pancam:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...PGP2286L1M1.JPG

edit: this pancam view is so good (at half resolution yet), that given favourable topography we should be able to see CSM for a very long time to come, even from Endeavour (at least from the higher peaks that were visible from Victoria).

[Tesheiner]

There was an "albedo pan" taken during sol 1949 but I don't know if it's already downlinked or not. We should try locating the cape in those pancams; the heading is... (checking in Google Mars) ... 16 degrees CW.

And speaking again about the mini-craters, the one to the left is "Dolphin".

[Stu]

Others will do better, I'm sure. I just fancied having a go

[Stu]

... and t'other one...

[dvandorn]

Hmmm... how much of what looks like good flat pavement-stone rock from MRO is actually this kind of pile-up of (relatively recently-emplaced, at least recently enough not to have eroded down to flat yet) jumbled sandstone?

Hopefully, not a lot...

-the other Doug

[glennwsmith]

Stu, very nice job on the small meteor craters. Can you imagine standing nearby when one of those babies hits?!? Any guess as to the size of the original meteorite? I'm thinking about 8 inches in diameter . . .

[Tesheiner]

I just checked the info from yestersol drive (1952) to find out that Opportunity moved 20m back on her own track.
Not only that but also the nav/pancam images taken after-drive to plan the next one were pointed back towards the position she were on sol 1947.

Perhaps this path was not a safe one?

In another topic: the 17km mark was crossed near the end of this drive.

[alan]

Going back for closer look at this perhaps?

From sol 1946, these images weren't downloaded until after she had driven on.

[Julius]

What should we call that!?looks quite big to me?