[X] My Assistant

[ElkGroveDan]

we'll be looking down a long 70-80 meter high slope toward Endeavour, without so much foreground topography in the way.

But this time no one dares call it a "hell of a view," at least not for now.

[jamescanvin]

Thanks Tim, glad we're in agreement about what we are seeing.

[djellison]

Just guessing the theory behind the practice - a long hard drive will push all the gear lubricant around, squeeze it out from where it's needed. Give it a couple of days rest and it can 'settle' back into the right place, thus giving better lubrication next time around. I'd imagine running gearbox heaters for a while would help speed up this process a little.

Planning 'rest' days in advance may infact mean that the impact of the shift of Mars Odyssey to an earlier orbit can be reduced ( or the application of rest sols intelligently, combined with the Odyssey shift, can help each minimise the impact of the other ) by giving us pseudo-restrictied sols that can have post-drive imaging done post-Odyssey - which can push the time out on driving a little further into the afternoon.

All guesswork from a back-seat driver.

[PaulM]

Rui is charting the post-Endeavour course there as we speak.

Does anyone know how far beyond Endeavour the closest clay deposits are located? I am confident that Oppy could reach clay within another 5 years if its wheels keep on turning.

[BrianL]

OK, I'll be the one to raise his hand at the back of the class...

What's the importance of clay?

[ustrax]

My technical-leaning mind suspects something engineering or science related.

Sequencing error.

[marsbug]

What's the importance of clay?

Clays need moisture to form, I believe. Thats undoubtably a huge oversimplification though....

[Poolio]

Looks like Opportunity crept forward a few more meters yesterday. Could we be closing in on another cobble?

[ustrax]

Poolio, from what I've read the plan is to drive back to Resolution since this is one of the freshest craters found so far by Oppy...

[Fran Ontanaya]

What's the importance of clay?

I.e. montmorillonite clays from weathered volcanic ash can do interesting things with methane or lipids.

[ngunn]

And they may be able to do interesting things even without organics.

QUOTE from here: http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11919

"Some have even argued that the original genetic material was mineral, not organic.1,2 They suggest that a truly primitive replicator might have been a layered inorganic mineral, crystallizing from solution and in the process amplifying some particular permutation of stacking: either identical layers stacked on top of each other in different orientations or stacks of two or more chemically different layers. The “information” would be the particular stacking sequence of a crystal displayed like a bar code on its edges and maintained and extended through crystal growth with ions, or small molecular units, adding only to the edges. The stacking sequences would also specify particular phenotypic properties that would allow Darwinian competition."

[PaulM]

OK, I'll be the one to raise his hand at the back of the class...

What's the importance of clay?

I am an eager reader of the martian chronicles blog. I have reproduced an extract from the blog below:

http://martianchronicles.wordpress.com/200...workshop-day-2/

"Of the sites in Meridiani, one in the eastern part of the region really stood out to me. It would land in the area of Meridiani with the largest amount of hydrated minerals as seen from orbit, in a very safe area, right on top of a huge stack of layers. Plus it is one of the only places on the planet where clay and sulfate minerals appear to be very close to each other. One of the new theories about the history of Mars is that clays formed when the planet was wet and habitable, and sulfates formed as it was drying out and getting less hospitable. We really want to find out what caused the change between the clay-dominated era and the sulfate-dominated era, so landing at a site that has some of both could help us figure that out."

What I have learned from reading this blog is that at a very early phase of Martian history pure water may have flowed on Mars and clay may have formed in Earth like conditions which were favourable for life. Subsequently volcanic eruptions poluted this water and by the period represented by the Merridiani sulphate deposits conditions were much less favourable for life.

Almost all of MSL's landing sites target these presumably older clay deposits. One potential but now dismissed MSL landing site at which clay could be detected from orbit was Miyamoto crater. The Miyamoto landing site is 150 km SW of Oppy's current location. Miyamoto is not the Meridiani landing site mentioned above.

Here is an interesting link about the MSL Miyamoto landing site:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/captem/msr2008/pre...ions/Newsom.pdf

The question that I want to ask is whether CRISM has revealed clay deposits any closer to Oppy's current location. I would not be suprised if a small quantity of clay was found at the bottom of Endeavour crater given that Endeavour is very deep and there may be clay below the sulphate deposits throughout this whole area.

I got some of these ideas from the following page:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...mp;#entry106137

[Juramike]

Let's see.....150 km at 50 m every 4 days = 33 years.

(....or right about the time we settle back into Titan orbit....)

[Geert]

The question that I want to ask is whether CRISM has revealed clay deposits any closer to Oppy's current location. I would not be suprised if a small quantity of clay was found at the bottom of Endeavour crater given that Endeavour is very deep and there may be clay below the sulphate deposits throughout this whole area.

Above is image of highest value of three different CRISM filters, as an overlay on the IR image, red is high, light green is minimum of zero.
I am definitely not a specialist in this, but to me the answer seems to be 'No'.



Chemicals detected by CRISM along the route of Oppy, with the filters which might indicate clays, this is an average of all CRISM images available for this area. However note, that they also might indicate sulfates, which does seem to me more likely. Once again, I'm not a specialist, these are just the 'raw values' as measured. Problem with CRISM is that 'getting the raw values' is easy, but interpreting them is really something different, there are a lot of other factors which are influencing the measurements and it's far, far beyond me to give a clear interpretation of these measurements, I just collect the data

Also note that CRISM coverage is far from complete, they are just 'pinpricks' along the surface of Mars, if would take many,many, more years to cover the whole surface.

Regards,

Geert.

[Stu]

Anaglyph of (most of) Resolution...