[X] My Assistant

[fredk]

Another 3D view of Granada:

[WindyT]

Granada:

You know for an area that's supposed to be pretty windy, that fine dust in the raised sections of that pic sure doesn't make it look like it's been excessively windy --lately, anyway. Not a lot of dust on the lee side of these rocks either. And relatively sharp edges there. The 3-D view shows that off nicely. Thanks.

[atomoid]

The little sand dunes, so 'cleanly' visible in the anaglyph ive inferred are created by the higher winds inside the eddies and vortices created when the wind interacts with the jumbled rocks, speeding up and slowing down airflow and precipitating dunes in these patterns. well, true, not excessively windy, but windy enough to build them up. unless they are left over from seasons past, in which case they would have been recently swept clean of any light dust falling on them in intervening seasons. but im under the impressing they are ongoing, changing shape subtly even as Oppy stolls on past.

Which brings me to another vexing connundrum: what is the shape of the winds anyway? are these winds like some sort of thin layer sliding along the ground and poking up only when perturbed by landforms? i've heard (somewhere) that the air heats up signifficantly only at the ground in a layer mere centimeters thick, although i cant correlate this concept with the dust devils at Gusev, which seem to be swept along by winds that persist in high columns similar to Earth's winds. maybe these are apples and oranges, but im still flummoxed about the vertical profile of the smooth prevailing winds or wind gust fronts (and these types may differ in this regaard as well) I keep thinking in terms of Earth processes, but its gotta be signifficantly different when there is less gravity and pressure to work with. I guess if i had payed attention to studying the martian dust storms i would probably have my answer.

[Gray]

On the subject of winds. Here's a quote from a recent 'Opportunity Update' at the JPL site:

"On sol 1159 Opportunity experienced yet another dust cleaning event. Solar array energy production is now over 800 watt-hours."

[djellison]

The problem with Oportunity is of course that stuck arm heater, which will pull, I think, 150Whrs in a night. Were it not for that, 800Whrs is the sort of figure where you could stay up every night to do at least two Odyssey passes every Sol. When much of the science campaign is pancam intensive, bandwidth is the constraint DAMN YOU STUCK HEATER!

Doug

[Tesheiner]

This is the latest navcam mosaic, taken on sol 1170 after driving to the west side of CGH.
Opportunity is now located next (a few meters) to the "lump" (aka Madrid).



Given the "drive direction" pancam images it looks like the plan is to move closer to it.

And here below is the approx. current site as viewed from sol 1096.

[fredk]

fredk: Returning to your original questions, one place along the route I would like to see again from new viewing angles would be the lump...

Definitely one of my picks too, and, as Tesheiner points out, it appears we got our wish! Here's a navcam anaglyph of the Lump from the current location:

[CosmicRocker]

I was on the edge of my chair as I saw the hazcams and navcams come down from sol 1170, fredk. The "lump" didn't appear quite the way I expected it to. What about the rest of you folks? I didn't check, but I assume pancams were planned. I'd sure like to see them, and then maybe a bump closer for more imagery.

I also got my second wish. We now have a veritable zoo of rimmed block images, with and without sediment on them. These things are fascinating me. They defy a simple explanation.

[fredk]

Lovely images coming down from our perch above the Lump. Perhaps it's just me, but there's something really cool about images like this: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...8BP1951R0M1.JPG

Lot's of pancam imaging of the nearby surface going on. I suspect there are fragments of the Lump material scattered around, perhaps they want to investigate them. For example, there are fragments in the foreground of this image that vary in colour, judging from their look in different filters. Recall the Lump had a distinctive hue in the old pancam views.

Stu, are you taking requests for colour images?

Finally, look at that beautifully clean rover deck!

[Stu]

Just waitin for those pancams to come down fred, the sooner the better...

[nprev]

Ah, yes...wind is a good thing!

Hopefully not too OT here, but what does the fact that 'cleaning events' are even possible tell us about the electrostatic properties of Mars dust at two widely separated locations? Doesn't seem as if static charging is a problem at all...extremely high iron content maybe, but then again the dust would have to be pretty heavy...?

[Stu]

Here you go fred...

[fredk]

Thanks, Stu!

Some very distinct colours there. There's an interesting story to work out here no doubt.

[Stu]

Left over from t'other day...

[WindyT]

Some very distinct colours there. There's an interesting story to work out here no doubt.

Thin layering, less friable/more erosion resistant...
Possible non-aeolian deposition?
Get me a trampoline, I'm jumping to conclusions!