InSight Surface Operations, 26 Nov 2018- 21 Dec 2022 Options

[fredk]

I'm not sure what issue you're actually reacting to.

My original comment was about the recent press release cloud and sunrise/set animations, especially for the ICC. This is a frame from that animation, for which the caption reads "This color-corrected version more accurately shows the image as the human eye would see it":

It's hard to believe such saturated purples and cyans are accurate, given all the previous imaging of the sky, so my original comment was that perhaps they meant to say "false colour".

As Deimos suggested, maybe instead large errors were introduced in the matrix conversion to sRGB, since that matrix will have to amplify small differences between G and B channels due to their similar spectral responses.

[mcaplinger]

It's hard to believe such saturated purples and cyans are accurate...

Well, it is after sunset and the martian sky is bluish at sunset, and then someone may have put a strong log stretch on it to simulate the eye response? Who knows, these true color things are slippery.

[akuo]

Interesting Mole Update 'DLR HP3 Blog' link

Depending on the outcome of the diagnostic hammering, our next operation could be using the arm to load the support structure close to the fore-right-foot (the one you see in the image above) or the ground right next to the support structure near the tether box.

I don't quite understand the operation plans above. Are they talking about moving the frame of the mole?

[PaulH51]

I don't quite understand the operation plans above. Are they talking about moving the frame of the mole?

They way I'm reading this - Is that they intend to apply load to the housing structure with the robotic arm (just above the foot pad you see in the image), I guess this is to prevent the housing moving during the test and thus compressing the regolith enough to either let the mole break through the duricrust and or increase the friction on the mole's hull so the whole mole enters the regolith.

[vikingmars]

It's hard to believe such saturated purples and cyans are accurate, given all the previous imaging of the sky, so my original comment was that perhaps they meant to say "false colour".
As Deimos suggested, maybe instead large errors were introduced in the matrix conversion to sRGB, since that matrix will have to amplify small differences between G and B channels due to their similar spectral responses.

Dear Fred, I must agree with your assumptions.
Here are some color-processed VL1 'sky-dynamics' pictures taken at sunrise (with fog) and at sunset.
The Martian sky has indeed a bluish halo, but near the Sun, and the rest is amber-colored (i.e. a desaturated salmon pink).
Enjoy

[stevesliva]

They way I'm reading this - Is that they intend to apply load to the housing structure with the robotic arm (just above the foot pad you see in the image), I guess this is to prevent the housing moving during the test and thus compressing the regolith enough to either let the mole break through the duricrust and or increase the friction on the mole's hull so the whole mole enters the regolith.

Not without parsing things carefully, I read it the same way. They mention "applying load" at either of two places. The support structure, or the ground adjacent to the support structure. Holding the structure might give the mole more leverage. Pressing on the ground might make things more cohesive beneath the surface.

We're talking about the DLR blog

[mcaplinger]

It's hard to believe such saturated purples and cyans are accurate, given all the previous imaging of the sky, so my original comment was that perhaps they meant to say "false colour".

I sat down this morning with Justin Maki and looked at a bunch of color-corrected Insight images. Justin has, IMHO, done a spectacular job with this and most of the images are really nice. This particular one was obviously very dark and then it was simply linearly stretched on the clouds, which make them a lot more contrasty than they would really be. But the underlying blue tint is real.

I encourage everyone to look at the color-corrected versions when they get released to the PDS.

[fredk]

Thanks a lot for asking about this. For sure if a linear stretch includes a constant term (ie if the black point is shifted, so the darks are clipped) then you can get a boost in saturation. Conversely you can tone down the saturation in this image with another linear stretch (with black point shift). The upper right corner of the image does appear to be clipped.

The palette available in these 8-bit gifs can also do wonky things to colours.

[Hungry4info]

I think we're making progress...?
Compare
https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/su...0000_0693M_.PNG
https://mars.nasa.gov/insight-raw-images/su...0000_0704M_.PNG

The whole HP3 assembly is moving again. (animated .gif attached)

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[PaulH51]

I think we're making progress...?
....The whole HP3 assembly is moving again. (animated .gif attached)

I think they were hoping to see some movement of the science tether in the housing window highlighted in this image, I've sampled the frames from sol 158 and can't see any movement of the tether with my ageing eyes

[Hungry4info]

Here's a far better animation showing the movement of the HP3 shaft by landru79.

https://twitter.com/landru79/status/1126141561354498048

[serpens]

The footing seems to have remained stable compared to the significant movement observed in the last (Sol 92 - 3rd March) operation of the mole.

[Phil Stooke]

Off to the northwest from the landing site there is a hill. It was very faintly visible in early panoramas posted here, and I was just looking at it again in recent images. Here's a view of it accompanied by a version of the same image stretched vertically (Me-o-vision style) to make it easier to see the shape. It looks as if it has a lower extension to the right which I had not seen before. This may help identify it in HiRISE images (I had 2 candidates). This is a composite of two recent images.

Let me know if you spot any other small distant hills like this. There is a distant long ridge to the east which is easy to spot on orbital images.

Phil

[PaulH51]

The InSight raw image server was not updated with new images for about a week, but it's now back on line and all the new images are once again coming in, and hopefully the first PDS release (1a) will be made available soon (May 24, 2019). Thanks to Phil for the earlier heads up on the planned date.

[rhr]

Translation of https://www.seis-insight.eu/fr/actualites/4...is-data-release

First public availability of SEIS seismometer data

The first seismometer recordings from the seismometer SEIS on InSight will now
be available for all! From friday 24 May a set of recordings covering a period
of 3 months, from 26 November 2018, the day of landing, to the end of February
2019, will be freely available under the heading "Science" on the official SEIS
website.
https://www.seis-insight.eu/en/science/science-summary

Since being deployed on the surface of mars, on the equatorial plane of
Elysium, the seismometer SEIS has been recording the faintest movements of the
red planet. The signals the instrument records are transmitted daily by UHF to
a fleet of satellites orbiting mars which are tasked with relaying the data
packets to earth, thanks mainly to the network of powerful antennas provided by
NASA's DSN.

Having been recovered in the control rooms of JPL in California, the data is
sent to SISMOC, the seismometer operations center run by the french space
agency CNES in Toulouse. Once verified and analysed, the data is transformed
into an international standard format called SEED, well known to seismologists
everywhere.

From Toulouse, the data is sent to the Mars SEIS Data Service (MSDS), a service
of the data center of the Institut de Physique du Globe (IPG) in Paris, where
it is verified once again before being archived and transmitted to the InSight
science team through the SEIS Data Portal (SDP). The MSDS is also in charge of
making the data available to the public through three international venues:
NASA's Planetary Data System in the USA, the Incorporated Research Institutions
for Seismology (IRIS) also in the USA, and finally the data center at IPGP in
France.

Starting this Friday 24 May at 9pm in Paris access will be provided to data
recorded 3 months ago on the red planet, from 26 November 2018 to 28 February
2019. This first data set contains only uncalibrated data. On 26 June, a
calibrated data set covering the period from 26 November 2018 to 31 March 2019
will be made publically available. As for derived products, the first ones
will be available starting in October 2019.

Some schools participating in the program called "Sismo à l’école", coordinated
by the GéoAzur lab in Nice, will also receive data from mars and will be able
to integrate it into their teaching. Under the leadership of the educational
program set up for InSight, many classes at colleges and high schools had
already been prepared to use data from SEIS by participating in blind tests run
by the Ecole polytechnique fédérale in Zurich, a member of the InSight mission.

As part of these full-dress rehersals, students learned to use data
visualization tools to look for potentially interesting events. Now it will be
real data from mars circulating through the network to hundreds of
institutions, and the students will likely experience the same anticipation and
excitement that the mission seismologists are familiar with. The transmission
of data to classes in this program will offer them the unique opportunity to
follow in almost-real time the seismic activity of another planet.

To find out more

Access SEIS instrument data through the official site
https://www.seis-insight.eu/en/science/science-summary

Web site of the IPGP data center
http://centrededonnees.ipgp.fr/

SEIS data on NASA's PDS
https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/insight/seis.htm

IRIS
https://www.iris.edu/hq/

"Sismo à l’école" for InSight
https://insight.oca.eu/fr/accueil-insight

Open access reference article in english giving an exhaustive description of SEIS
Lognonné, P., Banerdt, W.B., Giardini, D. et al. Space Sci Rev (2019) 215:12.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-018-0574-6