[X] My Assistant

[Stu]

Well, what does everyone think of our long-awaited first view..?

[Floyd]

STU Sept 19, 2006

"There's a big chunka something over on the left there... "


Well it isn't a chunk of ejectra, but rather the rim of a bay as can be seen in the JPL hi-res Pancam

[SteveM]

In re the effect of craters on wind patterns -- recall that craters undergo regular cycles of differential heatng and cooling, too. As the sun rises, it heats the eastward-facing slopes of the crater more than the surrounding terrain, and much more than the shadowed west-facing crater slopes.

Air rises over the heated slopes and sinks over the shadowed slopes. The bowl shape of the crater encourages a vortex-like pattern of airflow, making it racetrack within the crater itself.

Now, as the day progresses, the prevailing winds of the area pass over this crater. The racetrack pattern pulls up and involves this wind in its little circulation pattern, causing a local intensification of wind around and inside the crater. In some cases, this causes a much higher column of rotating air than you get from the crater heating effects along, a pattern that can sustain itself for several minutes. As the air mass that contains this vortex moves along, the newly-born dust devil departs the crater and wanders out onto the adjacent terrain.

I would think it possible that morning heating would produce one rotation vector, and afternoon heating would produce another, perhaps opposite, vector....

-the other Doug

Doug,

There's one more complication in the heating and cooling patterns. Right now the Sun is rising somewhat North of East, setting somewhat North of West, and (since we're near the equator) passing a bit North of the zenith at noontime. Come the opposite solstice, the Sun will rise somewhat South of East, set somewhat South of West, and pass a bit South of the zenith at noontime.

To the extent that heating patterns drive the wind patterns, we should get different wind patterns at the northern solstice, southern solstice, and the equinoxes.

[fredk]

Well it isn't a chunk of ejectra, but rather the rim of a bay as can be seen in the JPL hi-res Pancam

Exactly, Floyd. Check out our discussion of this in the Duck Bay thread...

[alan]

First trial of the automatic cloud imaging?

949 p1585.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 navcam_sky_flat_custom_pointing


The select sols box on the MER Pancam Data Tracking Web Interface looks a bit too narrow. I wonder if it will have a S1K problem.

[djellison]

'flat' would suggest not - perhaps they're taking a new flatfield to store onboard to help identify differences such as clouds etc.

Doug

[Pando]

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Nix]

Nice job Pando! Explain us..

Nico

[Pando]

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[climber]

Have you noticed this crater on the plain ?


To my eyes it looks more Endurance-like than Victoria's because of the rised rim visible from where we are.
Since we can also see the interior it could be that either the crater is tilted our way or that Oppy's higher than this crater.

Corrected : better with the attachment

[jamescanvin]

I've noticed that feature. As with the other horizon features I think this will be much clearer when we have better images (L7, lower compression etc) images.

However, just to pass the time, here is the direction of that dark patch on the Themis:



I doubt we could see that old eroded crater that's many km's away, I've marked a much closer dark feature in that direction that could be what we see.

James

[algorimancer]

However, just to pass the time, here is the direction of that dark patch on the Themis:
...
I doubt we could see that old eroded crater that's many km's away, I've marked a much closer dark feature in that direction that could be what we see.

I would be more inclined to bet that our azimuth pointing is a hair off and what we're seeing is this feature (cyan circle). Notice that it is apparently large enough to have its own dune field. The image off in that direction is lower resolution than on the left, otherwise I think it would stand out nearly as distinctly as Victoria:

[Guest_Bobby_*]

Pando has way to much fun with his drawing and photo software
ustrax is trying to find another abyss

and Me keeps waiting for new images on exploratorium to show up

[babboxy]

anything to expect for this weekend or can I go do other things?!

[OWW]

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...All.html#sol941

The latest update says sol 946 was a remote sensing day. They must have cancelled the driving for that day and moved it to sol 948. That means no Victoria before Wednesday I suppose...

[ilbasso]

Pando has way to much fun with his drawing and photo software
ustrax is trying to find another abyss

and Me keeps waiting for new images on exploratorium to show up

I must admit, Pando had me thinking we had gotten to the rim! I was disappointed - I thought, gee, there's almost nothing visible below the rim cliffs...the whole crater is blanketed by sand! I only realized it was a fake when an hour had passed since the posting and no one else had posted any rim panoramas.

Great job, Pando!!