Farewell Conception?
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/forward_hazcam/2010-03-09/1F321456654EFFABWUP1211R0M1.JPG
Sure looks that way. I reckon she covered about 55m to the WSW. Time for a new thread?
I may be misinterpreting, but it looks like we've left. I make a heading of Southeast.
Bye bye Concepcion...
--Bill
As the great man used to say...
Allons-y!!!!
Is everyone onboard? Next stop: Santa Maria! (with a brief halt at Twin Craters in order to satisfy your physiological needs Meridiani journeyers)
There're roughly 600m from our current position to the twin craters and the odometry is now near 19500m, so that means the 20km mark will be reached during this leg.
20km! Unbelievable!
Hmmm. I like Concepcion... and I also like the Twin Craters... but which is best?
There's only one way to find out...
Is it possible to tell whether they formed at the same time, from one impact event, or are just next to each other by coincidence?
If one happened significantly later than the other, it would have mostly filled it (the earlier) in with ejecta.
I would guess the same time. If one was formed later, I would think ejectra from the second would be obvious in the first. Good question.
[edit] Shaka posted about 30 seconds faster.
Even so, it's likely that one was formed just a fraction sooner than the other as sparated bolides are unlikely to travel at exactly the same speed. I reckon the one on the left is later by half a second (or less).
I think that the key is the shape of the "border" wall between those two craters. It looks like both of their shapes have been altered by simultaneous formation.
Many if not most of the pancam and navcam images down at exploratorium today are corrupted. Problem with Oppy?
Not necessarily. **** happens. She still sent back some nice parting shots of Concepcion...
http://twitpic.com/17yy6c
Worst ... artifacts .... everrrr!
Phil
Having a really hard time making anaglyphs out of them...
A ratty UHF comms pass ( perhaps with the UHF antenna to orbiter line of sight being interrupted by the LGA or PCMA ) and it on'y takes a few dropped packets to corrupt lots of pictures.
Note that the corruption is in lots of images of a wide range of time. They are not all taken today, for example, inferring a problem with transmission or receipt rather than the actual data or the rover itself.
Maybe a family of gorillas wandering past got too close and accidentally knocked the antennae out of alignment...
Nah! Too far from their niche. Oh, perhaps we're talking about the "Gorilla Meridiannii"; that's a different species.
Now, back to business: a 70+ meter drive SW was performed some hours ago. Waiting for the pictures...
Then you've read wrong. Whatever the problem was, it was clearly temporary as the most recent down link was fine. The UHF passes are pretty damn reliable, but they're not perfect.
http://an.rsl.wustl.edu/mer/merbrowser/browserFr.aspx?tab=res&m=MERA
Four CSV's at the bottom of this page are of UHF passes and have a data quality field, you can see many data dropouts within them.
It's impossible to warrant zero errors on any kind of electromagnetic transmission, so "error-free" can only mean that errors are detected and not propagated.
Besides, I'm pretty sure that this "error-free" (if true) applies to the telemetry packets exchanged between the rovers and the orbiters; we are not talking about image files but only about the chuncks that will later on be assembled in a file. You may have error-free packets but still only, say, 10% of the packets making an image file correctly transmitted.
Now, with all of this into account, try to imagine how a heavily compressed JPEG picture will look like when 90% of data are missing and the 10% which are there has no errors. Perhaps like this: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2010-03-11/1N321004676EFFABLNP1665L0M1.JPG
Thanks to all posters for this--the good news is I would not have known about it unless I happened to check here. I have forwarded the concern and included it in my downlink report. In a spot check, I see the affected images as being associated with (I cannot speak to causality) the images being reprocessed into the right sol. So, good images exist, and I hope the problem (late) in the pipeline will be resolved soon.
Edit: PS, got a good laugh about UHF passes always being error free... I agree with most of the commentary following that. In theory, all bit errors are trapped and do not propagate, except some small fraction. In practice, there was a time when errors got through all the time. And the images then looked just like what is at Exploratorium now. Since the on-board compression is (usually) a wavelet based one, simple dropouts look different (missing or blurry rectangles) from this and from some JPEG errors.
I'm trying to think of the various times we've had few, borked, or no images - apart from ODY safe modes, most of the time it's been problems on the ground with scripts, processing etc rather than a problem inboard the spacecraft.
Low temp stopping the PANCAM filter wheel from rotating fully so the frame of the filter wheel was visible is all i can remember. I think you even interviewed Jim Bell about it:
http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/mars_exploration_rovers/audio.html
Rover Audio Update, April 27, 2006
Pancam Update with Jim Bell
MP3 format (running time 28:27)
Doug Ellison, the host of the online forum unmannedspaceflight.com, interviews Pancam Payload Element Lead Jim Bell about:
* Low Ridge Haven: Pre-planning for Spirit's long winter stay
* Victoria Crater just on the horizon
* Tilt or Latitude for extra power
* Coping with streaks and noise in images
* Taking pictures in the cold: stuck filter wheel
* Albedo and photometry: ground truthing orbital observations
Keep it quiet Stu...maybe they won't notice it...
Now, now, Rui! The purpose of a journey is not to reach a destination, it is to experience the trip itself...
I'm a little apprehensive about posting this given the skill level here, but here is my first attempt at an anaglyph using the March 12 navcam images. I suppose this location is a lot like many others, but "standing here" gives me a sense of relaxation.
"Now, now, Rui! The purpose of a journey is not to reach a destination, it is to experience the trip itself... "
Hey, it's a Luno-KHOD, not a Luno-STOP! Oh, sorry, wrong world. But right sentiment!
Phil
Phil I think Rui's point in moving on is just that, moving on. As soon as we get to Endeavor he'll be dreaming about Bopolu Crater.
you're even shortsighted, Dan
Huh. I'm actually a bit surprised.
On the other hand, the team may have determined that when you've seen one outcrop of Meridiani bedrock (in Oppy's current region anyhow), you've seen them all. They know there's mineralogically different terrain ahead. The chance to directly examine phyllosilicates might just start trumping stops for anything that's not obviously & radically unusual...
True, and looking at this area again, the outcrop may be on the rim of a buried eroded crater. "Nothing to see folks, move along..."
As far as I can see the next important stop will be Twin Crater, a major "road cut" on the route. Then things may get interesting-- we get off of the aeolian peneplain we've been on forever and start going downslope. The distant vista will improve and we might start to get lower in the geologic section.
--Bill
Scott Maxwell Tweeted earlier:
"It's gonna be a lean Martian winter: tomorrow's my first shift in a couple of weeks, but Oppy has too little energy to drive. Recharge sol. "
I read that too. Note that he's talking about planning so the recharging sol will be tomorrow; today was driving sol and the images might hit the ground in a few hours.
I have the impression, based on these images and the HiRISE too, that the ripples to the SW are becoming smaller.
Flat ground ahead?
It looks so lonely there, poor rover.
Just curious about something. After twin crater how much of an elevation change will there be going downhill?
Will the drop in elevation be more then how deep Victoria Crater is? Will the exposed rock still be the
same ones the rover sees now or will they be older as we drop in elevation?
We're going about 50m downhill from here to Santa Maria and perhaps another 50m from there to Endeavour.
Tim Parker (tim53) posted a topographic map somewhere here... edit: got it! http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=6438&view=findpost&p=155924
I think we can see the twins on this today's pancams.
Or at least one of the twins - they should be about twice as wide as your marker now.
It seems with the last drive we gained a bit height. The two should be about here:
The dunes are getting a bit, uh 'choppy-looking'.
Interesting; wonder if we're beginning to see some topographic wind effects on their formation patterns.
I've been thinking the same thing about the dune morphology.
As we approached/ arrived at Concepcion, I noticed that between the usual longitudinal (N-S trending) ripples transverse dunes (ripples) had started to appear. Given a set supply of sand and/or a set wind velocity, the sand will settle into a quasi-stable longitudinal dune configuration. I attributed the appearance of the transverse dunes as a local increase in sand supply as a result of the rubble created by the impact and the weathering at Concepcion.
However, after we left Concepcion I noted that the transverse dunes were still present, clearly "upwind" of any sand created by that impact. As we saw on on the approach and look-back at Concepcion, the crater is on a slight rise. What I am thinking is that the local topographic high has created a small wind shadow with slightly lower wind velocity to the north of Concepcion. Once we passed by Concepcion, the wind velocity increased slightly.
No direct meterological data here, just an observation of how the sand is behaving.
--Bill
Is there a "prevailing" wind as such at Meridiani?
Hopefully you're right, Bill - we could use some stronger winds to clean the arrays a bit.
As far as prevailing winds, they do vary seasonally as the streaks emerging from Victoria crater showed.
Hopefully she will get some array-cleaning winds. A Watt-Hour Zephyr?
One side-observation I've made is noting an accumulation of dust at the top of the Low Gain Antenna starting sometime around Sol 1710, the stopover at Santorini. No idea why a ring of dust would accumulate at this spot, but it ought to serve as an indicator of wind (or lack thereof?). But I digress, I'll open a separate thread on this particular puzzle. Here is a recent Sol 2125 Navcam of the phenom...
http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/1/n/2125/1N316834706EFFAA00P1987L0M1.HTML
--Bill
Are we seeing Twin Craters top left there?
No, that view's to the north. The giveaway is the bit of tracks you can see in the original image.
Stu? Lost?! Physically in Kendal, Cumbria, UK, and mentally on Mars as always surely!
He doesn't use MMB
Ah, ok, thanks Fred. Think I'll just sit here in the back seat, quietly reading my magazine and listening to my MP3 player; someone give me a shout when we get there...
That reminded me...I finally just now installed MMB on my new computer (old one couldn't handle it)...WOW!!!
It's truly remarkable, Mike; thanks!!!
MMB? Qu'est-ce que sais?
C'est http://code.google.com/p/midnightmarsbrowser/.
(...and he's embarrassed by it!!! Would that I could accomplish something even a hundredth as embarrassing by that token... )
Just want to clarify that my lack of MMB is nothing to do with the prog itself! It's just a combination of having a Jurassic era PC that groans in protest if I dare to open Photoshop and Google Earth at the same time, and finding a somewhat perverse enjoyment in manually logging on to Exploratorium every morning when I get up, or when I get back from work later in the day, and having a "yes!!!" moment when I see there are new raws for me to play with. I'm sure I'll download and love MMB when I afford to get a new PC, later this year.
BTW, latest MER-inspired poem here, if anyone wants a look... best to click on "full size" if you want to read it without damaging your eyes...
http://twitpic.com/19zn62
(Text only: http://astropoetry.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/museum-peace )
I'm the same way. MMB is a great program, but there is a certain aesthetic to logging on and manually collecting Rover gems.
--Bill
That's what I do too.
Back to the main topic and our next waypoint, we're 70m closer to them. I think the crater is the dark feature visible on the top left corner of this pancam image: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2010-03-21/1P322432004EFFADFPP2397L6M1.JPG. There's another shot to the left of this one but unfortunately it doesn't cover the whole horizon so we're missing the whole picture.
This R1 frame shows more of the twins (plus it's a bit sharper than the L6), upper left:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2010-03-21/1P322432004EFFADFPP2397R1M1.JPG
I wonder when they'll first look recognizably like craters?
They're also faintly visible as a light streak along the midlle-left horizon in this navcam view:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2010-03-21/1N322431506EFFADFPP0705R0M1.JPG
Again lots of duplicate images in the latest exploratorium batch. This time they don't even have the different suffix M7. For example, here's an image that's appeared twice:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2010-03-21/1N322251282EFFAD00P0713R0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2010-03-19/1N322251282EFFAD00P0713R0M1.JPG
Pretty low activity (actually zero) on this thread on the last 24h, isn't it?
Let's see if it changes after the next images' downlink which should happen in 18h or so. I'm looking forward new pictures from a point 70m (?) closer to those craters. Hopefully, we'll be there before the weekend.
Thanks for that, Stu. The north rim of Endeavour should be on the left side of that mosaic, but it's not visible - that shows how we've gone over a ridge at Concepcion and have dropped down a ways.
Something's there:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2010-03-23/1P322605880EFFADNWP2399R1M1.JPG
If it weren't for the orbital imagery I'd never guess it was a pair of craters...
Yep, definitely something there...
I'm pretty much convinced there will be almost nothing but only a few eroded remnants to see.
Get there, take a few pancam shots here and there and
Edit: I was typing the post while you did yours, Stu.
"Couple of days away from Quite A View": Are you talking about the craters or the view that should open to the horizon?
The ground truth will be revealed soon, but before that, let this HiRise anaglyph speak (in 2 x original size). The central ridge between the Twins seems to offer a nice opportunity for some rope-dancing for Opportunity.
P.S. I have included an unusual-looking craterlet or whatever it is at the lower right of this frame.
That's cool -- I definitely had not appreciated how high the inter-crater ridge was before I saw that 3D view. Thanks!
I notice there's also a high ridge on the west side of the western crater of the pair. I therefore would guess that both ridges are aeolian, each resulting from the crater to its east (and therefore probably not great footing for Oppy). We'll know pretty soon.
John
I see that another consecutive driving sol has been planned. Since we're around 200m from the craters that makes for three driving days, including thisol 2191, to get there and in normal conditions that would mean this weekend. But given the limited energy of Opportunity during this season I'm not sure if a "recharging sol" or two will be needed or not. Let's see.
BTW, the odometer is right now at 19970m so the 20km mark will almost certainly be crossed thisol.
Assuming that the impacts were simultaneous, I'd suspect that the central ridge is the result of two reinforcing shock fronts and consists of highly fractured and "bulked" bedrock. Seems though, that it would weather/erode more readily than the usual broken ejecta rubble, but we'll see the story in a few sols.
I just did some reminiscing on the approach to the North Rim of Erebus (Sol620-ish). Now, those were DUNES, and it was a skillful task of navigation that got her through that.
Attached is an annotated 5x-vertical exaggerration of one of today's Pancams of the Twin Craters...
--Bill
the girls (well Oppy at least) get even smarter
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-094
very cool stuff
Homer Simpson? George Jetson? I could swear it looked like Elvis was there!
Getting there...
New navigational PanCams this morning. Here is a pan of two R1, exagerrated 3x and contrast-tweaked. Some detail starting to be seen in the West Twin-- fore and aft rim, the East Twin is still behind the Center Ridge and low in the ripples. We need to get some L257 and R721 on the approach, maybe they'll be downlinked this evening (or later this week).
--Bill
...I thought that she was getting a bit frisky driving over the ripples. You can almost imagine her being a little WALL_E-like and jumping the crests...
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2010-03-24/1N321006295EFFABMIP1994L0M1.JPG
--Bill
--Inline image changed by link. Mod.
Oh my, I'm sorry-- I did the "URL" tag first but the image didn't show, so I edited it to the "IMG" tag. Age-related "CRS"...
Probably a dumb question, but does the 20km include all the wheel spinning when Oppy got trapped in Purgatory?
No it doesn't.
Check the odometry included in the status reports covering that timeframe.
Edit: what is does include is the wheel turns when the rover is doing a turn-in-place manouver; the rover spins around with no net advance but only a heading change.
I have a question about the Batteries on Opportunity? I thought I read a while back
that they were designed for 2,000 recharges. If they were then where are we at now
for both rovers???
Look for the JPL tech reports. No one designs batteries that last 2000 cycles then suddenly stop working. THey have had a very slow gradual degradation in performance but still have a significant proportion of their orig. capacity remaining.
Patiently awaiting tosols post driving images...
And here they are!
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2010-03-26/1P322877016EFFAE00P2402L6M1.JPG
The twin craters look a bit more dramatic than I had expected.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/forward_hazcam/2010-03-26/1F322879471EFFAE00P1211R0M1.JPG
And here's a quick & dirty navcam mosaic.
.../... meanwhile, Eduardo's working on the route map .../...
Deeper then we expected, that's for sure.
Is 1 or 2 more drives till arrival a good estimate?
Never try and "estimate", just look forward to. The moment you put an estimate on anything like this, Mars thinks "Ha! That's what YOU think!" and then gives you a Benny Hill slap on the head then runs away, giggling. Just enjoy the ride!
More driving scheduled for sol 2194. I'm amazed she has enough energy!
No energy needed here, we're just going down...
Here are todays approach Pancams (1P322876942EFFAE00P2402R1M1, et al, Sol 2193) panorama'd, exaggerrated 3-fold and referenced to a HiRise orbital image.
Driving tomorrow? Good!
--Bill
And by this time tomorrow, if not earlier, we'll probably have official names to them.
I think we're still not seeing much of the far crater of the twins. Here's a crude estimate of where the two craters are (the far ellipse should be lower):
Not much in the way of ejecta aprons, it seems. Odd. Then again, Victoria didn't have much of one either.
> Not much in the way of ejecta aprons, it seems.
This is the great puzzle here. One would assume that the Twins are older and that the ejecta rubble has simply weathered and eroded. But looking at the ejecta at Concepcion, expecially the NE ray, the weathered, still in-place material has a significant volume to be blown away without leaving a trace. By "without a trace", I mean no effect on the pre-existing ripples (except withing a few meters of the crater rims). I'd suspect that we may see a difference in the distribution of the blueberies since they would tend to be left behind after the evaporite matrix is weathered and eroded away.
There is more to this erosional process than what firrst meets the eye.
> Then again, Victoria didn't have much of one either
But it does. Eroded, very smooth, unrippled, it is clearly a blanket over the pre-impact terrain.
--Bill
hi all,
I tried to search for the answer to these questions, couldn't find 'em.
How many kilometers have the test rovers driven?
Have they tried to drive a test rover on a long trek like this?
Did they attempt anything like such a drive during the mission development stage?
Thanks, and as always, GO TEAM!!
Similar question has been asked before - but I think the answer was a 'don't know'
As for development? They were designed for 600 - 1000 m so testing them for 20km+ was never going to be a requirement.
I think maybe a more illuminating set of questions would involve the heritage of the drive system components & whatever testing they were subjected to if they've been used for any terrestrial applications.
Certainly Sojourner must have provided considerable pathfinder (ta dah, dah!) data for the MERs, but obviously all the moving parts are bigger, stronger & faster. Likewise, MSL's drive system is an evolute of MER; the questions are in what specific ways?
(OT for this thread, but very interesting. The engineering results from MER will probably be at least as valuable in their own way as the science over the long term.)
Hi,
Back from a break (I think you can understood that sometimes we need to rest) of processing pictures, I started to make again (and again) colors of Oppy.
Much more interested by the pretty amazing view of Endurance rims on the horizon, like on Sol 2169 :
http://www.db-prods.net/marsroversimages/Opportunity/2010/Sol2169-pancam.jpg
or Sol 2191
http://www.db-prods.net/marsroversimages/Opportunity/2010/Sol2191-pancam.jpg
And here is the view of the approaching of "Twin Craters" (no names so I presume ?)
http://www.db-prods.net/marsroversimages/Opportunity/2010/Sol2193-pancam.jpg
Good work, Ant, good work...
According to the mobility info, we are there! Actually, 10m N of the west crater.
Can't wait for the images!
WOW that was quick, doesn't seem long ago they were 300m away.
Hello twins!
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2010-03-27/1N322970469EFFAEDXP0717R0M1.JPG
The isthmus runs through the centre of this frame:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2010-03-27/1N322970416EFFAEDXP0717R0M1.JPG
My first panorama on UMSF:
Twin Craters
Thought so... some interesting structure down there...
Wonderful. She got there tosol just before sunset.
On today's Navcams, I see new ripples overlying eroded ejecta and possibly overlapping old ripples. This is from the very first look at a few images, but it's an eyebrow-raiser for me WRT ripple formation time constraints and morphology. Just a thought, I'm going to anxiously await more pictures before getting too excited.
Another puzzler is why "Hadrian's wall" in the West Twin is sitting so crisp and sand-free.
Just a thought...
--Bill
I'll be following your commentary on the sequence and timescale of the different processes with great interest Bill. In the meantime there's one thing that already bothers me about this site. The eastern crater appears to be lower than the western one. I could understand that if the eastern crater formed first and the western impact went into the eastern crater's raised ejecta blanket. But it's hard to imagine that the two didn't form almost simultaneously, from the same meteoroid. Could there then be enough of a time interval for the difference in levels to be accounted for in this way? I seriously doubt it. The odds against two separate, unrelated events must be huge. So what's going on? I'm flummoxed.
The general tilt of the terrain is still extremely subtle. I think what we may be seeing with the Twins is that the rim between the two craters (ie the isthmus) is higher than the rest of the rims. That makes it look like East Twin is lower than West from our current viewpoint.
Auto-Nav software allows more precise finishing points versus crater edges?
The navcam pan of Sol 2194. Yes ! We see clearly the Eastern Crater now
http://www.db-prods.net/marsroversimages/Opportunity/2010/Sol2194-pano.jpg
And anaglyph because sometimes it's just an obligation to have it :
http://www.db-prods.net/marsroversimages/Opportunity/2010/Sol2194-pano-ana.jpg
I like to imagine it like flipping a coin. You flip it 10 times, and get heads each time. What is the chance the 11th flip will come up tails? Still 50/50.
We cannot rule out that they might be separate. Oppy's just arrived, who knows what will be found.
This is an illustration from the Impact Structures site of the ejecta surrounding a terrestrial twin impact, Azuara and Rubielos, in Spain.
http://www.impact-structures.com/spain/controversy/pelarda.html
http://www.impact-structures.com/images/imag034.jpg
--Bill
It probably is a more accurate term, but "isthmus" is our informal name for this whatchamacallit.
Fooey. No new images this morning and she's having problems connecting with the relay satellite. Maybe by the "noon run"...
--Bill (on the edge of his seat)
"Twin Craters" = San Antonio. There are images of San Antonio West scheduled for 2196.
Aręte, as you write it, is a french name which means "ridge" and is more likely to be applied in mountains, not in this case.
Now, if you use it in English (like it's written here), I cannot tell.
Hadrian's Wall looking good over there, Dan...
Unfortunately no new views of the Twins in the latest downlink. But we're seeing many versions of some images - I don't recall ever seeing the "product version number" become a letter, like the "A" at the end of the filename of this image:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2010-03-29/1P322866189EFFADVRP2597R1MA.JPG
(Very cool image, I think, with the tracks veering to the left in the choppy see of dunes...)
Right, fredk, Oppy's been having some trouble with the uplink to the relay satellite and I guess that the "product version numbers" have gotten around to exceeding "9", so they've gone alpha. Anyone "with connectionc" care to venture a guess why?
The ripples have gotten to look like choppy seas, I don't thik this is a effect of the cratering at San Antionio since we've been seeing this since we arrived at Concepcion. We "crested the hilltop" there and are headed downhill-ish so I think that this is an orographic effect.
--Bill
Why has all the dust from inside San Antonio West (and East?) been blown out in one particular direction to form a single big dune? Other craters on the same HiRise image don't look like this has happened to them. It doesn't seem to me like the result of a gradual process but rather the effect of a strong wind that blew for a short time, temporarily revealing Hadrian's Wall. Then there's all those choppy dunes - another localised phenomenon. The relief around here is really slight so I can hardly believe that orographic effects alone would produce such striking changes. I have no explanation to offer but I think it's at least worth considering whether something unusual could have happened here fairly recently in Martian terms (post San Antonio but pre Concepcion).
EDIT: Think Tunguska - flattened trees but no crater. A big tornado might also do the trick; we don't really know what happens on smaller scales inside Martian dust storms.
How safe does it look like for the Rover to go inside this crater to investigate any exposed bedrock???
Dust death trap--no way!
My sediments exactly. (insert snare-drum rim shot here!)
Aręte is a geomorphology term with glacial implications. It is a ridge formed between two cirques or two U-shaped glacial valleys. As such, it is probably inappropriate to use it to describe the ridge between these two craters.
There isn't a name for a terrestrial equivalent to this feature. What we have here is a feature created by the combination of two ejecta curtains being simultaneously emplaced. We probably need to draw from whatever terminology has been created to describe crater ejecta features-- I shudder to think at the Latin/Greek/archaicEnglish that would get cobbled together for that term.
"Isthmus" is as good as anything. But in keeping with naval terminology, p'haps it can be called a gangplank?
--Bill
I do believe "Septum" is the correct term , as I said in Post 152. Septum is used in lunar morphology, and also terrestrial volcanic craters. If you Googgle "septum crater" you will find several examples of this usage.
Don't worry, people - soon the wretched feature will be far behind us.
Phil
Sounds like a good plan. The ejecta is eroded, the rock in the southwall is not in-situ bedrock but exhumed ejecta. Nothing to see, move along folks. We'll get the images downlinked. Eventually.
However, just for curiosity, it would be nice to have a Pancam set of the mysterious prancha de grupo between the craters...
--Bill
I have to say this is one of the prettiest craters we've visited - here's east twin:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2010-03-30/1N323231410EFFAEI4P1977R0M1.JPG
Drive direction pancams are looking SE, but could this be a reason to linger: is that a piece of impactor just inside the near rim?
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/navcam/2010-03-30/1N323231461EFFAEI4P1977R0M1.JPG
Also notice the big, tall pile of ejecta at the far end of the isthmus/septum/gangplank.
A really fine set of images from a much more satisfying vantage point than the previous stop: should make a spectacular panorama (as Stu prophesied). Definitely one for the full treatment and a place on the wall. The septum will be immortalised - septum in saeculo saeculorum!
Better to come from others, I'm sure...
http://twitpic.com/1c1fle
Yes, not a so bad view actually
http://www.db-prods.net/marsroversimages/Opportunity/2010/Sol2197-pano.jpg
Here is a 3-image panorama of the Navcams today (Sol 2197) of San Antonio, exaggerated 3x. Interesting structure in the craters.
--Bill
The isthmus would have been an easy drive after all.
Also a drive into the crater(s). They do look like Eagle crater in terms of aging, don't they?
Thanks Damien!
I'm glad Oppy didn't land within driving distance of Valles Merineris...
"You know, if they're really careful, I'm sure they could drive Oppy down there to the floor..."
Just joking. Oppy is an explorer, her mission is to see new things. But sometimes it does feel like one of those episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, where they spot a swirly, angry, clearly dangerous, potentially starship-devouring "spatial anomoly" and Janeway beams "Let's go take a closer look...!"
Reminds me of the opening segment of the old 1960's TV series, Mission Impossible: "Jim, your mission, should you decide to accept it..."
But seriously, there is the need to anthropomorphise our Intrepid Explorers. We assign gender, have a mental image of a WALL-E bopping around Mars on a tour. Nothing wrong with that, the Rovers are an extension of all of us. Though, I imagine, a psychologist would have a field day...
Just as when we were younger, Oppy may have also been inclined to try hazardous things in the name of exploration. It is amazing that we all survived adolesence. Now that we and Oppy are "6-score and whatever" we tend to be a bit more careful.
[/philosophical_mode]
I would like to get at the edge of rim for a closer view of That Rock...
--Bill
Waiting for Opportunity!
There's two tiny stones on the dune to the far left of Ant's wonderful panorama. They're bound to be called Vladimir and Estragon. They they are, sat on the surface of Mars for perhaps thousands and thousands of years, not sure what's going to happen, every day the same old same old, when - all of a sudden - a rover trundles past...
Andy
Oh yes, Beckett said it right:
"In an instant all will vanish and we'll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness!"
Almost unsettling how close he got it!
Here, kitty kitty!
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2010-03-31/1P323311954EFFAEI4P2404L7M1.JPG
Now the question is...who left the damn cat in there? (first post but long time reader)
Twin craters = twin blueberries: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/micro_imager/2010-03-31/1M299696631EFFA3PGP2936M2M1.JPG
1M299696631EFFA3PGP2936M2M1= Sol 1932, way way back at Erebus....
EDIT: oops, got timestamp and Sol# confused...thanks, fredk
http://www.greuti.ch/oppy/html/filenames_ltst.htm is a useful filename decoder...
--Bill
PS-- Look at the blocky nature of That Rock. We gotta look closely at this one (I'm sure to get Shunned...). Need to go out this evening, but we've got an L257 Pancam of the rock and isthmus-- have fun.
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportunity/pancam/2010-03-31/1P323311893EFFAEI4P2404L2M1.JPG
It is still fairly chunky with JPEG artifacts but here is a cropped enlargement, with some increase in saturation, of the L257 Pancam trio of That Rock on Sol 2198. Not any detail to be seen on the shadowed side, it's dark and somewhat bluish which doesn't do much in the faint reddish Martian skylight. It appears to be another erratic rock on the plains, probably much like the Marquette Island rock.
--Bill
--- Full quote removed. Mod. ---
I hope that Oppy will not venture into any more craters other than Endeavour. The cat looks very inviting, but remember how difficult Oppy found the drive out of Eagle crater.
The recent pictures of the hills around Endeavour look very inviting.
My hope is that after Oppy has spent a year investigating the hills around Endeavour crater then it will start another impossibly long drive right down into Endeavour crater to look at the clays.
No dip into the east crater.
The plan for thisol (2199), as I can see it, is to take a final pancam mosaic of the west crater and leave the area heading southeast.
I love that word "East"! We are finally pointing towards the ultimate goal.
John
I used to have a concrete Black Cat.
No Doug for Rui there is no "ultimate goal." It's all about the journey.
Yes, after a complete circumnavigation of the planet!
Phil
Yup. And now, 40m closer to Endeavour. The images should be available on the next Exploratorium update; unfortunately too late for me (zzzzz).
I have this point in mind as the next "waypoint". It's about 500m from our current position.
I don't think we have yet seen the pancam images from Sol 2197. The exploratorium site seems to be downloading old images from Sol 1931 and the jpl site only shows pancams up to 2196. Can we "get Scotty to kick the engines" on the downloads?
While we all wait for the latest images, why not read AJS Rayl's latest superb MER update over on the Planetary Society's blog:
http://www.planetary.org/news/2010/0331_Mars_Exploration_Rovers_Update_Spirit.html
Nice Stu!
(nudge, nudge.. Hey I know that Stuart Atkinson guy. No seriously, we are old pals, had a couple of beers one night after nearly getting mugged in downtown L.A., we go way back.)
Oh, yeah, I remember that night. You guys were annoyingly fast on your feet!
We didn't have enough beers, Dan, just cos S & I were both shattered with delayed jet lag. Will have to have a proper night next time we're over there.
oops - caught out by not paying attention to image dates - post removed.
That's one of the very old images that's reappeared on exploratorium. It's from sol 1931, way back at Absecon/Reeds Bay.
You can easily check the dates yourself using the excellent filename website:
http://www.greuti.ch/oppy/html/filenames_ltst.htm
Quick n dirty and coloured-in panorama of last San Antonio images...
Sol 2198 L2 pan of San Antonio
http://www.db-prods.net/marsroversimages/opportunity-2010.html#last
Link to some driving directions.
Stu, beautiful productions as usual .
A bit of catchup.
Here are all the R21 colour drive direction mosaics from the drive between Concepción and San Antonio.
http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php/b2199
James
From the latest batch on Exploratorium, a bit of a belated offering from Sol2196.
Sol 2198 updated version (colors) of the pan of San Antonio :
http://www.db-prods.net/marsroversimages/Opportunity/2010/Sol2198-SanAntonio-pancam.jpg
Just the horizon part because the bellow part is filled with a lot of black area.
It's finally done, and I'm not very satisfacted about the result, but it's the better I can do with THIS pictures.
So, San Antonio pan in color, on Sol 2196 :
http://www.db-prods.net/marsroversimages/opportunity-2010.html#Sol2196
...yeah, Ant, what VM said! Your work is always a welcome sight, and I look forward to your posts.
je plussoie sur Vikingmars
merci fourmi
My version of the 'east' pan.
http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php/san_antonio_east
James
Merci beaucoup
James, your version is way better than mine (not totally stitched at this time). Really appreciate to see your version .
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