[X] My Assistant

[elakdawalla]

Now that Curiosity has her driving and science software installed and is ready to proceed, I figured it was time for a new thread. Please keep sol 0-8 discussion in the previous thread (including discussion of the full-frame MARDIs, as they come down), and post new stuff here.

Things to look forward to: a Mastcam pan of the top of the mountain to be uplinked in the next sol or two; testing of the steering actuators on sol 13; first drive on sol 15. This period, which Grotzinger told me would take "no fewer than 6 sols," will be followed by an "Intermission," during which the science team may choose to drive to a new site (not very far away) for Commissioning Activity Period 2, when they'll commission the arm and its instruments.

Also, an admin note: we allowed a lot of chit-chat in the landing thread because we were all so excited about the successful landing But as we move forward, I'd like to ask people to be mindful of forum rule 2.2. The strength of this forum is in its high signal-to-noise ratio; avoid posting things that just say "wow, awesome" or "I agree." Please keep chit-chat to the chit-chat forum.

[dvandorn]

Thanks, Fred. The Mystery Man and les Tours Eiffel (I hope I didn't massacre that spelling too badly) give a truly fine sense of scale to the scene.

Which leads me to another thing that I've been wondering about ever since the first navcam pan came down. The rim of Gale is obviously a lot closer to the north and west than to the south and east, but as you look directly east, at the far rim wall and past the rising flank of Mt. Sharp, the rim (and even the rise of the lower mound) become very indistinct, as if there is an awful lot of haze in the air in that direction. The haze layer straight to the west only obscures perhaps the lower 20% of the rim, while it obscures the entire rim to the east.

I know this could simply be an artifact of sun angle and the angle through which we are looking at a relatively uniform haze layer. But it strikes me that this could be evidence of strong prevailing winds from the east that flow around the rim, kicking dust over the east rim that then slowly settles closer to the ground as it circulates around the crater.

I'll be interested in seeing images of the rim from higher up on the mound, at different times of day and also at different times of year.

-the other Doug