[X] My Assistant

[SFJCody]

Had one of those 'woah' moments just now. Looked at the 1.4km distance to Santa Maria while thinking "Oh, that's not so far now. Shouldn't take more than a few weeks."

Then I remembered that 1400m distance is over twice the mission success criterion.

[NW71]

Had one of those 'woah' moments just now.

I'm glad it's not just me then!

We are still over ten times the mission success criteria away from Endeavour crater with a rover which has completed approximately 28 missions

Neil

[Astro0]

Nice Intrepid Crater 'look back' view with the tracks leading up from the distance.

[brellis]

Some future alien explorers might deduce that Oppy dodged that one!

[Stu]

'Road to Endeavour' blog updated: http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com/2010/...km-and-counting

[vikingmars]

Sunrise Over Endeavour this morning... (hope you don't mind me using crop of your gorgeous panorama, James)

WOW ! My dream is becoming true !
Here is the link to this fantastic image
http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com/2010/...over-endeavour/

[ngunn]

I like that image too, and I have no quarrel with the notion of artistic license. In fact I think artists should have the license/freedom to do almost anything so this is not a complaint. But in my mind's eye Martian sunsets are conceived as always being cold blue affairs, more like a failing fluorescent lamp than a comforting camp fire. (The alliteration is accidental, I promise.)

[serpens]

It's simply below the resolving power of Pancam or Navcam to make any meaningful interpretation.

Hortonheardawho did some full filter ratio analysis on this with some interesting results. The reflectance of the stain is pronounced in the ultraviolet as opposed to surrounding soil, and a sample of clean deck. He and others on the yellow forum have also identified when the stain started (bottom of Victoria crater) and that it initiated with a feature just visible behind the sundial which then spread. Most likely a dark material spread by wind and covered/uncovered by the ubiquitous dust.

It is disappointing that JPL have not bothered to investigate this, or if they have that they did not think it worth mentioning. They would have all the spectral responses for the pancam filters and it would be interesting to know the makeup of whatever the stain is. Surely anything unusual associated with the Rovers is worth investigating.

[fredk]

The simplest explanation is that it's an area almost clear of dust. Comparing the spectrum with other almost clear areas of the panels is tricky, even if you used the calibrated data. Thin films of dust could affect the spectrum.

We'd need pretty good reasons to contemplate a new material not seen elsewhere.

[Astro0]

ADMIN HAT ON...

I think I'd like to see discussion on the so-scalled "stain" to stop here for now.
There's no further information that anyone can draw upon and any so-scalled "analysis" by the armchair explorers among us is working from less than the full spread of information that will one day be available through various sources. If it's something worth investigating then the mission team will definitely let us know.

There is plenty of "discussion and speculation" going on in other forums, so I believe it can continue there.
At the moment it's cluttering up the "On to Santa Maria!" thread and does not deserve a thread of its own.

Remember that you can always just PM each other if you want to discuss it further.

For now, like Opportunity, let's move on!

[Pertinax]

ADMIN HAT ON...
...
For now, like Opportunity, let's move on!

Thank you.


-- Pertinax

[fredk]

From Maxwell:

Going ahead with thisol's drive despite lack of HAZCAMs. Not a risk we'd take every day, but taking it today. Commanding 140m, ~130m likely.

[nprev]

I know I'm gonna sound stupid for asking this, but are the hazcams all right? I assume Scott means that they just didn't get the images down, but it's scarily-phrased.

[elakdawalla]

Remember, Nick, this is Twitter. No room for detail. I think we can be quite confident that he meant "lack of Hazcam images in the downlinked data." And geez, do we need another warning about overinterpreting Scott's tweets?

[fredk]

The answer is here:

No HAZCAMs today because of screwed-up downlink.