Post Solar Conjunction/Santorini Study Drive, The second leg in our Journey to Endeavor Crater Options

[Ipparchus]

Paolo, I` m not sure I understood the route you said Opportunity is going to use to arrive to Endeavour crater. Is it going to be like one of the routes I draw? Which (hypothetical) route resembles more the planned one? Are we really 2-3 km away from "parking lot" terrain? Are we going to pass near the "mini-Endurance" crater (nearly in the middle of the route)? Explain me, please. Thank you.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Geert]

Different wind local? or the first sign of the "confusion" zone that can be seen at the southern end of the HiRise crop?

Agree with you, I don't like the look of it also. There does seem to be a whole line of confused dunes more or less leading from the present position towards the center of Porcupine. To the north and south of this line is better terrain with also more bedrock. Bit weird why there are confused dunes in one line, with bedrock patches on both sides but not inside this area.



Furthermore, she should have passed a small crater, which is still quite close to the east of the sol 1816 position, don't know whether it shows up on any of the images?

Regards,

Geert.

[RoverDriver]

Paolo, I` m not sure I understood the route you said Opportunity is going to use to arrive to Endeavour crater. Is it going to be like one of the routes I draw? Which (hypothetical) route resembles more the planned one? Are we really 2-3 km away from "parking lot" terrain? Are we going to pass near the "mini-Endurance" crater (nearly in the middle of the route)? Explain me, please. Thank you.

The route is similar to the rightmost one you posted. In 2-3 Km we should be clearing an area that has a large concentration of "purgatoids" (=purgatory like ripples). Then we should be able to start heading east. The "parking lot" terrain is much, much further out.

Paolo

[Juramike]

Bit weird why there are confused dunes in one line, with bedrock patches on both sides but not inside this area.

I'm wondering if the bedrock patches (and associated higher dunes at the margins) affect the local winds.

Another possibility is that the SW-NE orientation places it parallel to some of the repeating patterns (organe arrows indicated banding zones) seen to the E of Porcupine. Possibly from a more recent wind regime?


-Mike

[EDIT: Actually, looking at this from way back, I'm wondering if the some of the current bedrock pattern is part of this overall pattern as well. Did winds along a NW-SE vector cause some sort of rotor effect and scrub/deposit sand in a series of SW-NE oriented bands?]

[Tesheiner]

> I'm wondering if the bedrock patches (and associated higher dunes at the margins) affect the local winds. ...

Here's my take. If you have a look to the area east of Porcupine in Google Earth with e.g 2x vertical exaggeration you'll see it's in a hollow and that might disturb the N-S local winds.


In another topic, here's a quick mosaic of some latest navcams from sol 1818. The crater to the left (SE) is a tiny dot on the map here.

[mhoward]

Opportunity sol 1818; anaglyph rectilinear projection of Navcam images.

Don't know what the crater is called yet.

[Zeke4ther]

> I'm wondering if the bedrock patches (and associated higher dunes at the margins) affect the local winds. ...

Here's my take. If you have a look to the area east of Porcupine in Google Earth with e.g 2x vertical exaggeration you'll see it's in a hollow and that might disturb the N-S local winds.

We sometime seem to forget that this is a three dimensional surface that we are driving over. There is bound to be local effects due to elevation.

[Ant103]

Hi all!

A long, loooooooooong time without posting anything. I put the end of a period where I did not produce any picture. I don't know why. Less motivation? The end of Phoenix? I don't know.

So, I'm back, with 3 panoramic picture of Oppy on the road.

Sol 1816


Sol 1817


NOTE : UPDATED
Sol 1818



Happy to be back

PS : I follow this forum during my "non-work" period, and you've always doing great stuffs (tesheiner, MHoward, Stu, James Canvin, and I certainly miss other).

[Stu]

Welcome back, Ant! Missed your contributions. Hopefully you'll be showing us some "Endeavour, Ho!" images soon...

[jamescanvin]

Thanks Ant - welcome back


I've been waiting for the rest of the Ranger Crater pan. However I've just checked the PDT and it looks like the second tier has already been deleted from the rover without being downlinked. So we are left with a long thin 19x1 image.



Click image

James

[Ant103]

A big thanks for your back welcoming (can I said that? ). This gives me more energy to continue
(and I have a " big event" for this month )

[Tesheiner]

Don't know what the crater is called yet.

It has been named Resolution.

> 01821::p2421::19::96::96::0::0::4::196::pancam_resolution_crater_L257R267

[jamescanvin]

Well that was a little unexpected. North-West?

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...93P0675R0M1.JPG

[BrianL]

Maybe they're testing SE drivability but in reverse.

[Tesheiner]

Strange move.
I saw the driving plan for today followed by a pancam mosaic of "Resolution Crater" so I thought the intention was to do a little bump towards that little crater to better image it during sol 1821. Now I really don't know which feature is Resolution.

Let's wait for tomorrow.