[X] My Assistant

[Steve G]

Tricky to line up the two RAC images but here is my attempt.

[MicroKid]

Any idea what the long spiral looking object (lower left) next to the landing pad is?

[Steve G]

I was wondering that when I stitched the images together, and the first thing that came to mind was Khan's pet ear wig . . .



It is out of sight from the SOL 1 footpad image and nearly beneath the lander, but by the surrounding soil, it looks like it fell from the lander. The resoltion of the RAC is only 256 X 512 so we need to creep lower for a better look.

[djellison]

EGD had a go at this in the Sol 3+ thread, I'm kicking of an RAC lander-imaging thread with my own attemt.

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[djellison]

If I had to guess what it was - I'd say something to do with...

-Biobarrier deployment
-SSI deployment
-Helium vent valve
-RA deployment
-Met deployment

If I had to pick one - Helium vent valve.

[um3k]

Sure looks like ice to me: http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...1018&cID=26

[bcory]

Sure looks like ice to me: http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...1018&cID=26

Looks more like a ice hockey pond !

[dvandorn]

Could be ancient duricrust, buried under a more recent dust/soil layer.

Could be pavement-flattened rocks of the type we see in Meridiani, again underlying a more recent dust/soil layer.

No. What am I thinking?

It's ice. It just looks *obviously* like ice. Maybe not a perfect layer of water ice, but at the very least a good, solid permafrost layer.

Looks like we'll need to burr some of that out, doesn't it? Looks really, really hard to me.

BTW -- is there a danger of significant sublimation of exposed water ice at these pressures and temperatures? I'd hate to see the cleared permafrost layer under the lander sublimate out into a nice little Phoenix-gobbling sinkhole...

-the other Doug

[ElkGroveDan]

Sure looks like ice to me: http://fawkes3.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...1018&cID=26

Holy cow, where's that swear jar?

This is the mission that keeps on giving.

[ElkGroveDan]

BTW -- is there a danger of significant sublimation of exposed water ice at these pressures and temperatures? I'd hate to see the cleared permafrost layer under the lander sublimate out into a nice little Phoenix-gobbling sinkhole...

Dang I was thinking that same thing just as I read your post.

Probably not, since the blanket of dust and sand that has been keeping it all in place for eons would soon be replaced. If the patches under the lander started to slump they would gather nearby sand and dust. It would be covered before any significant slumping reached as far as the foot pads - I suspect. But it's a darn interesting thought to ponder.

[centsworth_II]

But it's a darn interesting thought to ponder.

If that is exposed ice, what a time lapse movie that could make, watching its evolution over several months.

[James Sorenson]

OMFG Im gonna need that swear jar now .

It looks like the phoenix website was hacked.


EDIT: Now its back to normal, it said that it was hacked by vital.

[djellison]

The arm can't get to THAT Ice, the 'upper arm' is probably longer than the height from where the arm meets the deck to ground. But - you can see that where the dust blew away - it's everywhere. 5cm of soil, then ice. As they predicted (maybe )

Doug

[Marcel]

BTW -- is there a danger of significant sublimation of exposed water ice at these pressures and temperatures? I'd hate to see the cleared permafrost layer under the lander sublimate out into a nice little Phoenix-gobbling sinkhole...

-the other Doug

Could be a danger.

Another one. If it's ice: could the heat that the lander collects from sun radiation during daytime melt the ice under it's footpads ? ....slowly sinking in ? For rocks it doesn't seem to happen, the exposed surface of the whole lander (and the energy it collects) concentrates on quite small footpads though

[djellison]

Couple of RAC obs.

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[Doc]

I dont think thats ice. Wouldnt we see signs of sublimation (smoke)
They ought to get a series of pictures to see the changes if its ice.

[eeergo]

I don't think smoke would be seen if it was ice: it's cold up there and sublimation wouldn't be too fast or spectacular... snow on Earth also sublimes and we don't see smoke coming out of it. Just my view, not necessarily correct, but I think so.

[nprev]

Wouldn't the ability of any 'smoke' to be seen from sublimation be a function of atmospheric relative humidity in a addition to pressure & temp?

Don't think that the met package measures humidity, but I'd be very surprised if the RH of the air was anything but extremely low, which IIRC means that the H2O molecules would disperse too rapidly to form visible vapor.

[tasp]

Visible 'plumage' from exposed ice would depend on local relative humidity, optical depth of the column you're looking through, mineral content of the ice itself (dissolved materials would effect freezing point of the material and the resulting rate of sublimation), wind speed, thermal input to the ice, sensitivity/noise ratio/dynamic range and compression of the camera, temperature of the atmosphere, shading from the vehicle, possibility of contaminants in the ice to form 'crustage' and probably several other factors it is too early in the morning for me to think of.

For those so inclined, you might want to consider an outcropping of dirty ice under Phoenix to be a cometary phenomena. A little more bang for the buck for the mission!

[tasp]

LOL.

See what happens when it takes me 10 minutes to compose a post first thing in the morning without coffee. I get pre-empted by nprev.

[ustrax]

If that is ice...that is GOLD!!!

The Heimdal image is great but this man...this is what we were looking for...

DIG!

[DDAVIS]

'Visible 'plumage' from exposed ice would depend on...'

One important factor would be Sun angle. Presenting a chunk of previously buried Mars ice to the Sunlight with a camera fairly near the shadow of the sample could possibly reveal comet like plumage against the dark sky due to forward scattering, if it isn't windy.

Don

[nprev]

Just out of curiousity, with respect to the viewpoint of the "ice" image, which way did Phoenix come in from horizontally? Seem to remember that there was some horizonal motion just before touchdown.

Reason I ask is that the exposed area doesn't look like it's directly underneath a thruster set; could have my perspective all wrong, though. Also wondering if this stuff might be shallower then we think; haven't seen any significant 'dunes' of blown dust around Phoenix from the motors.

[bcory]

All I can say that it seems to me that whatever it is, the sun glare/reflection is highly indicative to me of ice.

And as a Canadian I know ice!

[ilbasso]

What's the size of those patches relative to the other polygons that we see on the surface? What's under the polygons on Earth's permafrost? Would we expect similar plates of ice?

[scalbers]

It was interesting at Friday's news conference how Ray Arvidson showed a similar image from Viking 1 (link below) very near the lander that was duricrust. He said he's still rooting for ice with Phoenix though the scientific method should be followed to find out. The crust does look more uniform in the Phoenix image that would support ice.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/phoenix/col...-v2_800-600.jpg

Steve

[Marz]

Assuming those plates are ice [w00t!!!], then are there any estimates for how old it is? Does this ice ever melt and reform annually, or has it been this frozen block since the last time the north pole was warm enough to melt ice (is that around 10 million years?).

I second the command to DIG!

[MahFL]

The Phoenix site seems down

[bcory]

The Phoenix site seems down

It got hacked by a Russian last night

[Decepticon]

If this does to turn out to frozen water, will this end the Naysayers of there no water on Mars!?

[vikingmars]

With alittle processing you can see more easily under the lander the "ice" extending towards the RAC with a soil pile in-between built-up by the engine exhausts. Enjoy !

[centsworth_II]

If this does to turn out to frozen water, will this end the Naysayers of there no water on Mars!?

I'm worried that if the ice is too solid and too near the surface all around, there may be no real digging possible.

[scalbers]

These under the lander images are really neat and something that we didn't have with Viking. Do all the cleared off spots correlate well with the locations of the descent engine nozzles? Will also be interesting to see different exposures to get more dynamic range in the bright areas. The high albedo really seems to support an ice hypothesis here. Is there any "shininess" here due to specular reflection? Hard to say. Even the shadowed areas look bright and one can interpret that as high albedo without specular reflection.

Steve

[Decepticon]

Do all the cleared off spots correlate well with the locations of the descent engine nozzles?

Now that's the question! Do the nozzles line up with the exposed area?

How do we test this theory?

[nilstycho]

Phoenix twitters "The picture shows a little piece of hardware on the ground, probably a pin. The team is checking it out. No worries. :-)" Later, she jokes "A loose screw on Mars can't stop me now."

As for ice, there's a JPL press release that calls the duricrust-looking stuff "possible ice". About the ice-looking struff, Phoenix twitters "Is this the mother lode of the polar region? Ice!?" Seems confident for a scientist...

[teck]

Is this a Philips screw?

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[James Sorenson]

I'm worried that if the ice is too solid and too near the surface all around, there may be no real digging possible.

This exposed ice has been exposed to the atmosphere and sun for almost a week now, and to me shows no significant sublimation. Why would that be?. I am also worryed that this could mean that digging mght be dificult, it sure looks VERY hard and possibly thick. Well its what we came here to find, and we found it without even trying, mars came to us it looks like, where is a broom when you need one .

[scalbers]

At the cold ambient temperatures sublimation would be really slow, unless it is sped up by the action of sunlight. Even then how fast would it be?

[ugordan]

Well its what we came here to find, and we found it without even trying, mars came to us it looks like, where is a broom when you need one .

Yeah, who knew all we really needed was:

1 rocket engine
1 camera
1 UHF antenna

[um3k]

It got hacked by a Russian last night

Did someone neglect to inform him that the cold war has been over for ~20 years?

[dot.dk]

Remember there is the rasp on the backside of the scoop

[centsworth_II]

Remember there is the rasp on the backside of the scoop

To get a sample, not to dig.

[eeergo]

They were expecting the hard ground, remember they were talking about being able to dig in a soil as hard as concrete. See this answer in Twitter: "Yup, I can dig into frozen ground as hard as concrete. The scoop has special blades and a powered "rasp" to scrape ice. Cool!" It may be a bit more difficult, but no worries...

[nilstycho]

I wonder what would be the pros and cons of a heated filament or blade on the cutting edge of the scoop. Delicate, expensive, complicated? Would it require more or less power to dig through ice? How about a pellet of plutonium embedded inside?

[centsworth_II]

They were expecting the hard ground, remember they were talking about being able to dig in a soil as hard as concrete.

In one of the press briefings it was stated that they could dig in frozen soil, but not in ice. So if the permafrost is soil with frozen water in the spaces between grains, no problem. But if it is solid frozen water, no digging.

[bcory]

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/234067main_under-full.jpg

Seems they concur about the ice in the "ponds" image.

"The Robotic Arm Camera on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander captured this image underneath the lander on the fifth Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Descent thrusters on the bottom of the lander are visible at the top of the image.

This view from the north side of the lander toward the southern leg shows smooth surfaces cleared from overlying soil by the rocket exhaust during landing. One exposed edge of the underlying material was seen in Sol 4 images, but the newer image reveals a greater extent of it. The abundance of excavated smooth and level surfaces adds evidence to a hypothesis that the underlying material is an ice table covered by a thin blanket of soil.

The bright-looking surface material in the center, where the image is partly overexposed may not be inherently brighter than the foreground material in shadow."

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/...s/20080531.html

[OWW]

Scary thought: It could be frozen pools of leaked/vented rocket fuel....

[Cargo Cult]

In one of the press briefings it was stated that they could dig in frozen soil, but not in ice. So if the permafrost is soil with frozen water in the spaces between grains, no problem. But if it is solid frozen water, no digging.

If does prove to be the latter, the next trip should carry a modified ice corer. Just imagine the layers of Martian history!

[centsworth_II]

Just imagine the layers of Martian history!

That's what I've been imagining. I hope it's not stymied by a layer of solid ice. I won't worry too much right now though... no use in that.

[climber]

Holy cow, it's ICE : http://planetary.org/blog

[Steve G]

I think this is a splendid opportunity to put MARDI to good use! If the "Snow Queen" is its field of view (and reasonably focused) it would be a freebie to watch the ice sublime over time. From what I read on the site, it looks like it has a very wide angle lens. (66%) Just depends on the placement. Maybe the microphone attached to it could listen for sublimation!

[4th rock from th...]

I've enhanced to under-side image to improve visibility on the shadowed areas and I noticed an interesting thing on the lander leg to the left. It looks as some dirt has sicked to it. The interesting thing is that it's only on this leg, the others look clean.


Just for reference, the same processing applied to the previous "ice" images, here joined in a mosaic and averaged over the overlapping area to reduce compression artifacts.

[bcory]

Maybe the thrusters melted some of the ice and formed a slurry with the dirt and dust that re-froze and stuck to the lander leg

[MahFL]

The whole point of the mission is to find Water Ice, remember this is frozen water you can melt and drink, not frozen carbon dioxide. Also to test the ice to see if it has been regularly melted, but with current summer high temps of -30 C that seems unlikely. Though at one time it does seem liquid water flowed all over Mars.

[mars loon]

This JPL press release has a bit more detail about this fantastic find of "ice" including quotes from Horst Keller and Peter Smith:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?rele...lease=2008-090b

News Releases

A view of the ground underneath NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander adds to evidence that descent thrusters dispersed overlying soil and exposed a harder substrate that may be ice.


Camera on Arm Looks Beneath NASA Mars Lander
May 31, 2008

A view of the ground underneath NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander adds to evidence that descent thrusters dispersed overlying soil and exposed a harder substrate that may be ice.

The image received Friday night from the spacecraft's Robotic Arm Camera shows patches of smooth and level surfaces beneath the thrusters.

"This suggests we have an ice table under a thin layer of loose soil," said the lead scientist for the Robotic Arm Camera, Horst Uwe Keller of Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany.

"We were expecting to find ice within two to six inches of the surface," said Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for Phoenix. "The thrusters have excavated two to six inches and, sure enough, we see something that looks like ice. It's not impossible that it's something else, but our leading interpretation is ice."

[nprev]

Did someone neglect to inform him that the cold war has been over for ~20 years?

Phoenix site back up!

Some trivia: Most cyberattacks & viruses originate in Russia & Eastern Europe per Symantec. Might be an artifact of organized criime activities, and transiently high-traffic sites are an obvious proving ground for new methods. In other words, no need to take it personally.

We now return you to our regular program.

[SpaceListener]

Normally, the surface of ice is plain, 90 degree to the gravity. However, the show ice pictures, the surface seems not to be smooth.
How can a water ice have rough surface.

[mars loon]

Phoenix site back up!

It was down about half the day for me. back up a few hours now

Fox News even reported on this hacking at about 720 PM EDT (30 min ago), saying that initially a website story had been changed.

More importantly, they reported on the "ice" finding after a shuttle launch report.

CNN has reported on the shuttle launch , but not yet on the ice

[nprev]

Glad to hear that CNN is exercising some restraint on the "ice". IMHO, the possibility that this is ice should not be trumpeted to the mass media unless there is confirmation.

It's really easy to say something to the press, but REALLY hard to retract it, and if this stuff turns out to be duricrust or pavement-stone sedimentary rock al a Meridiani the Phoenix team will take a beating that they just don't need.

[eeergo]

Normally, the surface of ice is plain, 90 degree to the gravity. However, the show ice pictures, the surface seems not to be smooth.
How can a water ice have rough surface.

Take a look at natural ice in some glacier or in Antarctica/the Arctic... obviously, the surface of ice is flat so as long no distubing factors appear: different slabs of ice freezing together and crushing each other with the expansion (as in the Arctic), breakages for other reasons with later refreezing, partial sublimation/fusion by weathering, local impurities within the ice which may cause some areas proner to evaporate first... Well, I could go on, but anyone who's seen ice outside the fridge or a frozen puddle knows ice surface doesn't equal smooth shiny surface. In fact, it's preety rare when it does.

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[bcory]

Accept here we're talking about permafrost ground ice.

Totaly different

[jmjawors]

For the record, CNN is reporting it, but thankfully using cautionary terms.

[Thu]

The ChemCam should be very helpful in this case. Did they ever think of shooting the ice using laser? Anyway the next few days are going to be interesting. I wonder if we're just standing on top of an iceberg

[SpaceListener]

Take a look at natural ice in some glacier or in Antarctica/the Arctic... obviously, the surface of ice is flat so as long no disturbing factors appear: .

Thanks for your comments. I am starting to understand it and am convinced that the ice surface does not be necessary to be smooth.

Hope that RAC would take pictures not only one but the rest of two more patches below of rocket thrusters.

[tuvas]

The ChemCam should be very helpful in this case. Did they ever think of shooting the ice using laser? Anyway the next few days are going to be interesting. I wonder if we're just standing on top of an iceberg

ChemCam is MSL, right? Anyways, from what I've heard, the science team is very interested in this artifact, and can reach the site with the arm of the lander. Should be quite interesting...

[JRehling]

The polygonal surface of the soil is enough to tell us that we're seeing something other than platonically perfect concentric spheres, even if the deviation is only on a scale of centimeters. Which is to be expected. Although how it relates to terrestrial permafrost is unclear.

[James Sorenson]

New images, is this a scoop mark in the soil?

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...1114&cID=27

[ElkGroveDan]

Now this one is cool, scoop, CD, and flag all in one shot.

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_1103.jpg

Don't know why but it kind of reminds me of this child's book.

[jmjawors]

New images, is this a scoop mark in the soil?

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...1114&cID=27

Kind of looks like a footprint.

Actually, it looked like a rock at first, and then my eyes readjusted so I could see it as the depression that it is. Definitely looks like a 'scoop mark' to me.

[glennwsmith]

ElkGroveDan,

I thought you were going to reference this child's book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0395169615..._pt#reader-link

[01101001]

Any speculation as to the cause of the hollows in this rock?
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...1159&cID=27

Could it have been recently modified by a nearby heat source.

[Steve G]

Sure looks like dirty ice, like what you see in the spring when it's melting off your driveway after a long winter.



Looks like channeling and definately a couple of vents. Hard to say if this is from the thrusters that acted like a blowtorch into the ice. Hard to tell, but doesn't seem to have much change in the pattern from the Sol 4 image. The artifact observed on Sol 4 is beginning to look like a spring of some kind.

[climber]

I agree we've got to be cautious but, come on guys, such a rounded shaped will be hard to find in a rock

[centsworth_II]

...such a rounded shaped will be hard to find in a rock

Don't forget duricrust.

[djellison]

New images, is this a scoop mark in the soil?

http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...1114&cID=27

It might be the RA 'touch' they were talking about on the Friday press conf to characterise surface characteristics.

[Syrinx]

Sorry to deviate from the excitement of ice for a moment...

Regarding the screw underneath the lander. Might it be an explosive bolt from the lander-backshell separation? Perhaps this particular bolt didn't explode exactly as planned.

[climber]

Sorry to deviate from the excitement of ice for a moment...

Regarding the screw underneath the lander. Might it be an explosive bolt from the lander-backshell separation? Perhaps this particular bolt didn't explode exactly as planned.

Doug proposed it is related to the helium venting

[Airbag]

I attempted to make an RGB image with one of the sol 6 RAC R/G/B LED illuminated images, but I suspect the ambient lighting drowns out pretty much any effect of the LEDs as the resulting image was still effectively greyscale. Any attempts to tease out more color information just caused the JPG artifacts to be enhanced. I wonder if they will use those LEDs at night? At least then there is no ambient lighting.

Hum, that gives me an idea - what if one were to subtract the "D" filter image from each of the R/G/B images first before combining them? That may work with the raw images but probably not with the stretched JPGs. Also depends on whether the camera uses the exact same exposure for each of the images or not - or at least knowledge of the relative exposures.

Airbag

[dvandorn]

Here is an observation that I will note I haven't seen here yet.

Recall that this area sees complete cover by dry ice every winter. Since we don't know what the deposition process was for the water ice, is it at least possible that there may be dry ice pockets within the water ice permafrost layer?

If so, a very small pocket of dry ice (or a few of them) could explain things like the rounded hole that appears to have been blasted out of the ice beneath the thruster bells.

Dry ice wil indeed sublimate very fast, almost explosively, in the current temperatures and pressures, no? We see it sublimating explosively and creating "dirt geysers" during springtime, which is colder than what we're seeing now.

So, if there are nuggets of CO2 ice buried in the permafrost, what further manifestations ought we be looking for (other than the possibility of Phoenix taking an unplanned-for hop)?

-the other Doug

[nilstycho]

But we do have relative knowledge of exposures! :-)

Open the orginal-size image in a text editor. It will start with something like this:

CODE

This image was acquired at the Phoenix landing site on day XX_DAY_NUMBER_XX of the mission on the surface of Mars, or Sol 6, after the May 25, 2008, landing. The ROBOTIC ARM CAMERA
acquired this image at 15:02:24 local solar time.
The camera pointing was elevation -44.4484 degrees and
azimuth 132.698 degrees.
### END of CAPTION
ÿþ
KPRODUCT_ID = "RS006EFF896752928_117A6MDM1"
FRAME_ID = "MONO"
FRAME_TYPE = "MONO"
INSTRUMENT_NAME = "ROBOTIC ARM CAMERA"
LOCAL_TRUE_SOLAR_TIME = "15:02:24"
RELEASE_ID = "0001"
SOLAR_LONGITUDE = 79.3957
FILTER_NAME = "N/A"
EXPOSURE_DURATION = 50.0
INSTRUMENT_AZIMUTH = 132.698
INSTRUMENT_ELEVATION = -44.4484
PLANET_DAY_NUMBER = 6

Looks like both SSI and RAC have this information. I was wondering if anyone could explain how it's possible to adjust the brightness (?) of RGB channels in Photoshop or ImageJ according to this information. Wouldn't this give us almost exactly the right hues without any human estimation?

[mhoward]

But we do have relative knowledge of exposures! :-)
...
Looks like both SSI and RAC have this information. I was wondering if anyone could explain how it's possible to adjust the brightness (?) of RGB channels in Photoshop or ImageJ according to this information. Wouldn't this give us almost exactly the right hues without any human estimation?

Unfortunately, probably not. As slinted pointed out elsewhere, the jpg images are still auto-stretched to improve contrast (like MER, and I guess Cassini). Although we have some exposure information, we don't have the parameters that were used to brightness-stretch the public images. It's a bit funny, actually.

Adding: However, maybe something could be done with the auto-panos, I don't know.

[ugordan]

Knowing the exposures doesn't help us really. That information is rendered useless by the histogram stretch. The ultimate raw image would also contain original DNs that were scaled to 0 and 255 respectively.

[Phil Stooke]

"Regarding the screw underneath the lander. Might it be an explosive bolt from the lander-backshell separation? Perhaps this particular bolt didn't explode exactly as planned.
------
Doug proposed it is related to the helium venting"
-----------------------------

Or the biobarrier?

(PS great mission so far! The pictures taken under the lander are very cool - I hadn't anticipated that. Remember when some of us were concerned this would be dull compared to the rovers? I'm frustrated I'm not in my office with Photoshop to play with. I want to make a circular version of the exaggerated relief panorama as soon as I get back)

Phil

[nilstycho]

Ah, OK. I forgot about the histogram stretch. So out of curiosity, what do the pros do about that? Is it something complicated that can't be easily automated? Is there a piece of information distinct from the image that tells them how much it was stretched?

[djellison]

They don't have to deal with it - they have calibrated data. The raw JPG's are just processed to be 'sensible to look at' not calibrated.

Doug

[cschmidt]

Thinking again about the ice, I have been wondering about something:

I am given to understand that the arm will dig down into loose soil, trenching, making tidy piles of soil, etc.
But given the high abundance of water here, isn't the soil going to be like plate of granite? Won't it be difficult or even impossible in this case for the scoop to dig?
The appearance of platy ice under that loose regolith undersores my impression that the "soil" will be really hard, except for the loose sandy top layer.

Idea: Why didn't they attach a convex lens to the end of the arm to zap ice into liquid/vapor via solar energy, then take a picture....

Thanks to all of you, especially Stuart, for this wonderful forum.

[jbytów]

.

[nilstycho]

So do the originals hit PDS eventually, and until then the public just gets the raw jpgs plus press releases? Or do we not get the originals at all? This mission is so incredibly open and transparent, I hate to ask this, but why aren't the originals released as fast as the jpgs? (Sorry to be OT, but I'm interested.)

[john_s]

Two reasons really- one is that the science team want to be sure that the "real" data are properly calibrated and ready for scientific analysis before releasing them, so people don't jump to premature conclusions from preliminary data. The other is that exclusive access to the full data set for a few months is the reward the science teams get for all the work they've done to make the data possible. Till recently, most the images from most missions weren't publicly available in any form, except for selected press release images, until a year or more after the data came down, so the availability of JPEGs is a big step towards open access. And yes, the original data will eventually hit the PDS for all to enjoy, probably within less than a year.

John.

[nilstycho]

Of course: Anti-scoopage. Thank you.

[elakdawalla]

Anti-scoopage is an important part of it, but that calibration part is really important too. They do a lot of work to characterize the camera before it flies, but the launch with all its vibrations, and cruise with its cold temperatures, and landing and operation with both, in the dirty environment of Mars, can change the characteristics of the camera in subtle ways, which they can't begin to understand until they've operated it on the surface for a while. So they need months to make sure that all the digital numbers in each image pixel are telling researchers good information about the way that the materials they see reflect light.

--Emily

[nprev]

Kind of hate to ask this, but if a given amount of scoopage contacts an equivalent amount of anti-scoopage, what happens?

(I'm truly sorry...just couldn't resist!)

[Tom Tamlyn]

One of the MRO engineers is continuing to post fascinating information concerning the problems with the MRO UHF radio (Electra) on his blog.
Here's a permalink, and another, for readers from the future.

TTT

[alan]

Speaking of scoopage the arm has grabbed its first sample
http://fawkes1.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...1404&cID=28

[jmjawors]

Speaking of scoopage the arm has grabbed its first sample
http://fawkes1.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?...1404&cID=28

Oh my!

So this is the scoop and dump, right? Still in that characterization phase.

[Reed]

Looks like it was scooped from the same area as the touch test http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/lg_1428.jpg

[dvandorn]

If this was the scoop-and-dump, the scoop leaks.

Here's an image of the lander deck from the RAC at 11:12 local time:



And here's an image from 12:38 local time:



Note the small pile of soil sitting just inside the wiring bundle in the second image. In both images, the foreground reflective surface is the side of the scoop.

All subsequent images of this portion of the lander deck show this little pile of soil.

-the other Doug

[James Sorenson]

False-color image saturated to 60%, of the RA scoop soiling it self .

[Marz]

whoa! Are the small clumps of blueish-white stuff in the upper-right portion of the image perchance ice?

[djellison]

I had a go at it myself - the LED's really work at this range - not so great imaging the surface at any sort of distance though.

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