[X] My Assistant

[Stu]

Okay gang... it looks like our brave gal will be heading into Victoria at some point - once she's proven that the dark streaks are caused by dark dust belching out of the crater! - but things are a little quiet for now so here's a question for all to ponder...

As Oppy heads into Victoria, what's the ONE thing you really, really want to see in there? Something purely scientific, like a specific geological feature..? Something aesthetic, like a sunset seen from within the crater, or the rover's shadow on the dunes?

What's the one pancam or navcam image you have in your mind that you want to find when you go online, that will make you lean towards the screen and go "Oh my...."?

[MarsIsImportant]

Yes, a fossil would be nice; but I'm thinking of two other different things that are much more likely than that, yet still unlikely in of themselves.

1) a sequence of photos of a rock fall within Victoria (it's possible because of the software set up to identify movement of the dust devils--just unlikely because of the rarity of such an event).

2) evidence that would confirm recent water activity somewhere within Victoria (it's possible because of the pipes along the NE side of the crater). Perhaps a close up image of one of those pipes.

[dvandorn]

...evidence that would confirm recent water activity somewhere within Victoria (it's possible because of the pipes along the NE side of the crater). Perhaps a close up image of one of those pipes.

That's an awfully premature conclusion. A *lot* of things can cause relatively straight-looking linear formations (like the roughly linear formation along the NE rim). Just because someone, somewhere has *hypothesized* that other linear features in entirely different landforms that look something like what we see in Victoria *could* have been caused by water traversing along a joint in the rock doesn't automatically make these features in Victoria "pipes."

That and the *only* thing that has ever been seen and hypothesized as a sign of recent surface water movement are gullies on crater wall slopes, and there isn't even the first hint of such things here at Victoria.

So, the hypothesized ancient "pipes" (if that's what they are) seen elsewhere on Mars are not thought to be associated with recent water activity, and it's only a somewhat wild speculation that the linear features in Victoria have a similar origin to other supposed "pipes." And, of course, the only sign that anyone accepts as even potentially showing signs of recent water activites, gullies, aren't evident at Victoria at all. Anywhere.

Other than that, yeah, you've got a good suggestion there...

-the other Doug