[X] My Assistant

[tuvas]

If you could photograph anywhere in Mars with any instrument on MRO, where would it be, and why? Just curious to hear some responses.

[djellison]

Gusev, Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris - heavily off Nadir, with MARCI

All of it with CTX, but Olympica Fossae's one of my favorite regions.
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/4_6_99...c2_108_msss.gif

And with HiRISE...APART from all the recent cave sightings - you've got them all, except two, MPL and B2 If you find the first, I can let the second go


Doug

[nprev]

The very lowest points of the Hellas Basin & the Valles Marineris complex with HiRISE repeatedly in order to look for signs of transient puddles...

[ElkGroveDan]

Have we seen all those wild South Polar visual oddities with HIRISE yet? Arthur Clarke's so-called "banyan trees'" and the alleged CO2 "geysers" etc?

[djellison]

South Pole is only just coming out into sunlight now after the winter, so I'd have thought those would all be on the "too do" list in the next few months.

Doug

[ElkGroveDan]

South Pole is only just coming out into sunlight now

See, that's how busy I've been. I don't even know what season it is on Mars.

[Stu]

Would love to see MRO( imaging "my crater" on the edge of Ganges Chasma...



... just cos it was the first martian picture (yes, even before wide angle shots of Marineris and Mons) that made me fall in love with Mars...

Also, some more gully shots, looking right into the centre of ones showing that recent brightening...

Unlike Doug I can't let B2 go, I really want - no, I need - to see the probe or its remains, because ever since that awful, awful Christmas Day I've been frustrated at not knowing what happened.

Would love close-ups of the newly-found caves too, I get all tingly when I think of what could be lurking in them...

And some good shots of the interior of Marineris to give us some breathtaking 3D images, allowing me to convince myself I was there, above it, looking down. Same goes for the caldera on Olympus Mons. I want to be able to picture myself in it, looking up at the cliffs, spinning around and around in place seeing the walls whirl around me. I know MRO can't do that, but it could give me a snapshot...

Thank you.

[centsworth_II]

And some good shots of the interior of Marineris...

I wonder if they could take an angle shot and get a
look at any layering in the walls of Valles Marineris.

[tty]

Lots of images of Eberswalde delta!

[tuvas]

Have we seen all those wild South Polar visual oddities with HIRISE yet? Arthur Clarke's so-called "banyan trees'" and the alleged CO2 "geysers" etc?

There aren't any that have been released, but I do know that at least some pictures have been taken of the south pole area. I would venture that sometime reasonably soon, some will be released.

[angel1801]

I know this will be a bit wierd to some, but as Mars Express has gone a very long way to killing off the people who believe that those features in Cydonia are not perfectly natural, a MRO run would seal these peoples fate for good. We could shut up people like RH for ever. So I would nominate Cydonia!

[Stu]

I'd like to see those too, but only because I think it's a fascinating geological site, not because it would end the "Face" theories; the Cydonian Myths will survive the death of the Sun, because no matter how clear the images are, no matter how incredible their resolution is, the Cydonian believers will always smile knowingly, shrug and fire back a one word reply that is impossible to argue with:

"Faked".

It's impossible to argue with because nothing we non-believers can do, or say, or show them, will convince them of the truth. Nothing. Not even when people stand on the plains of Cydonia and send back live video of the "Face" showing it is, indeed, just a hill, because the believers will just say "Well, of course, that's a faked feed... they're not showing what's really there". It's like the Moon Hoax theory - that is never, ever going to go away, because there'll always be someone, somewhere, willing to believe that it was all a sham. And in these days when CGI seamlessly blends the impossible with the physical, even when we do go back to the Moon and show astronauts standing in front of Eagle's descent stage the Hoaxers will say that it's just special effects. Absolutely no-win situation.

But, you know, I think many people who currently study Mars have a soft spot for the Face. Maybe it inspired them to get to know about the real Mars when they saw that grainy Viking image, or maybe they like the way it gives them a way of introducing people to the real wonders of Mars. I do that a lot in my talks, show The Face and describe what some people think it is, then show the people in the audience the true wonders of Mars. Always works well.

[djellison]

It wouldn't shut him up (RH) - because his entire career depends on it. He would simply find more artifacts at the limit of HiRise resolution, as he always does, with every image.

[monitorlizard]

MGS MOC dedicated a small percentage of its high-res imaging to getting pictures of randomly selected areas on the premise that Viking images couldn't find all of the interesting spots on Mars with its resolution. The idea worked in that some smallish craters were found to have layering not obvious in Viking images. Some others interesting features were found as well. I would hope that HiRISE would get at least few semi-random images in craters that MOC never got to. Maybe images with a relatively small number of pixels, to not impact the high priority imaging. We all know there are lots of surprises waiting to be discovered on Mars.

[tuvas]

I know this will be a bit wierd to some, but as Mars Express has gone a very long way to killing off the people who believe that those features in Cydonia are not perfectly natural, a MRO run would seal these peoples fate for good. We could shut up people like RH for ever. So I would nominate Cydonia!

I knew this one would come up eventually. When I first started working with HiRISE, and heard about the fact that they would allow requests from the general public, I mentioned it to 3 people, and each of them said the same thing "You guys should photograph that face on Mars". I can guarantee that there will be at least one picture of the area sometime relatively soon. It's not a hi-priority, but, well, I think the ops folks are already tired of getting email requests to photograph the area...