[X] My Assistant

[ElkGroveDan]

Dan, I think you've mistaken a part of sunlit soil in Phil's image as white stuff.

Agreed.

[ugordan]

Here's a flicker between sol 21 and 24 showing change (or, rather, lack of):


Ignore the color of the brightest part of the white stuff, it's overexposed. The small white chunk in sol 21 image appears to disappear in sol 24 (inset).

[hortonheardawho]

( briefly dropping out of lurking mode...)

As much as I hate to do so, I have to agree with silylene: the case for water-ice -- at least in the Goldilocks trench -- is "not proven".

Here is a sol 20-24 3D animation of the shadowed area in the trench.

I created it to see if I could see how much of the clumps remained after the "sublimation". Unfortunately even the NASA gif image drops out in the darkest part of the shadow -- where the most interesting clumps were. But if you look closely at the bright clumps that fade nearest the shadow edges I think you can see that the clumps do not completely disappear.

Even in the darkest shadow there appears to be "something" where the white clumps were -- so, yes, there may have been a dramatic change in the white clumps -- but perhaps no more so than the reductiion in the brightness parts of the top of the trench.

Yeah, I believe that it's water-ice but it's not yet scientifically proven.

I am still puzzled why the infrared spectrum from the left SSI camera has not been cited as supporting evidence for water-ice.

( jumping back into cyber-space...)

[chris]

I created it to see if I could see how much of the clumps remained after the "sublimation". Unfortunately even the NASA gif image drops out in the darkest part of the shadow -- where the most interesting clumps were. But if you look closely at the bright clumps that fade nearest the shadow edges I think you can see that the clumps do not completely disappear.

Also unlurking briefly....

If the lumps were dirty ice, then surely you wouldn't expect them to completely disappear.

Chris