The Storm, Dust storm of 2007 Options

[djellison]

Strong winds with the storm mean that Opportunity's going to be VERY clean as long as we don't catch a big chunk of dust when...er...the dust settles, as it were

Doug

[vikingmars]

As a reminder, here are the fully calibrated comparison pics showing the minimum of light level encountered by Viking Lander 1 on sol 324 (1977).
Tau was between 5 and 6 depending your reading sources...
Enjoy ! (if I may say...)

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[Stu]

Hey, welcome back vikingmars! Missed your gorgeous pics!

Just for my own interest, not claiming 1000% accuracy or anything, but there's a LOT less detail visible on them that hills...

( left: June 13th, right: yestersol. )

[deglr6328]

how do we know how high the winds are at the surface?

[djellison]

Well - from the rovers we don't really. For dust to be leaving the rover it has to be 'higher' than normal. Orbital imagery can track dust, clouds etc and gauge wind speeds that way.

Just a bit of fun from the values on Mark's page. Looks like we might be seing the turn in the trend- but as you can see, Meridiani already fooled us once in that regard.

Doug

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[belleraphon1]

Sol 1226...look how clean the rover looks!

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...R9P1962R0M1.JPG

Yes.... but what goes up must come down. All that dust in the upper atmosphere has to settle out at some point..... and those beautiful solar panels make a nice target....... just hope there is a balance between dust deposition and wind cleaning events....

Worried....... stay warm little rovers.... hold on.............. if I could I would gently blow your petals clean...

Craig

[belleraphon1]

OK - doing a total inline quote is one thing - doing it with your own post is madness!
Pointless quote removed! - Doug


And shine a light on your petals!!!!!!!

Craig

[CosmicRocker]

Yes, whatever goes up must come down, but thanks to the winds it also travels sideways. I guess it's kind of a crap shoot. As the forces blowing dust around this planet run out of energy, let us hope that most of the entrained dust falls somewhere else. Everyone, cross your fingers.

[djellison]

another sols info on Marks page.

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[clt510]

another sols info on Marks page.

Thanks for posting this, but could you provide the URL link for these?

THX.

Carrick

[centsworth_II]

... could you provide the URL link for these?

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~lemmon/mer_dd.html
(The values are in the text at the top of the page.)

[Tesheiner]

Let´s hope for this descending trend in the tau values.
Meanwhile, Opportunity´s imaging operations are limited to tau measurements only since sol 1226. Same is expected/planned for tosol (1229) and tomorrow.

[CosmicRocker]

The early trend is in the hoped-for direction, but Dr. Lemmon's page still has no new tau values as I go to sleep tonight.

New, sol 1249: The recent dust storm activity has been intense for both rovers. Opportunity experience optical depths of (starting sol 1215) 1.3, 1.5, 1.7, 2.2, 2.6, 3.0, 3.3, 2.7, 3.1, 4.0, 4.1, 3.7, 3.0 (to sol 1227-sol 1228 data aren't due until 1229 PM due to energy conservation measures from weekend plan), rising from a background of 1.0. Spirit's opacity remained near 0.9 until starting on 1239 it went to 1.0, 1.0, 1.2, 1.3, 1.6, 2.4, 2.3, 2.1, 2.1, 2.4, 2.3 (to sol 1249). New, sol 1244: On sols 1239 and 1244, movies caught some dust devil activity. Sol 1240's movie did not see any activity. Recent sols have seen minor dust cleaning and deposition, but I'm not aware of major changes. The sol 1244 movie shows a much more indistinct horizon. The winds at Meridiani, especially, have probably been quite intense at times.

We don't have any imagery from sol 1229.

CODE

5. What EDRs are missing?

Missing EDRs by sequence number and image type:  (This compares the SSF requests
to actual EDR PDS image files.  The missing ones may not have made it off the rover
yet, may not have been processed by MIPL yet, or may not have been taken as requested.)

Sol   Seq.Ver  ETH ESF EDN EFF ERP Tot  Description
----- -------- --- --- --- --- --- ---- -----------
01229 p2685.15 2   2   0   0   2   6    pancam_tau
01229 p2687.15 4   4   0   0   4   12   pancam_wide_range_tau
01229 Total    6   6   0   0   6   18

It does not appear that sol 1230 will be very active.

CODE

4. What EDRs did we request?

Expected EDRs by sequence number and image type:

Sol   Seq.Ver  ETH ESF EDN EFF ERP Tot  Description
----- -------- --- --- --- --- --- ---- -----------
01230 p0099.01 2   0   0   2   0   4    navcam_stereo_1_bpp_no_actuation
01230 p1550.01 2   0   1   0   0   3    navcam_tau
01230 p1550.01 0   0   0   0   0   0    navcam_sun_pri_57
01230 p2685.15 2   2   0   0   2   6    pancam_tau
01230 p2687.15 4   4   0   0   4   12   pancam_wide_range_tau
01230 Total    10  6   1   2   6   25

Sol 1231 is not a high energy consumption day, either.

CODE

4. What EDRs did we request?

Expected EDRs by sequence number and image type:

Sol   Seq.Ver  ETH ESF EDN EFF ERP Tot  Description
----- -------- --- --- --- --- --- ---- -----------
01231 p1550.01 2   0   1   0   0   3    navcam_tau
01231 p1963.06 2   0   0   2   0   4    navcam_tracks_loco_pri57
01231 Total    4   0   1   2   0   7

I am still optimistic that it is getting better for our rovers.

[Pando]

The early trend is in the hoped-for direction, but Dr. Lemmon's page still has no new tau values as I go to sleep tonight.

I am still optimistic that it is getting better for our rovers.

2.9. So am I

[djellison]

Ignore the last Opportunity point - that's my guess, not an actual value.

I THINK...(well, guess) that we're closer to the 400 whr level rather than the 255 whr level now.

Doug

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