MSL "Drive, drive, drive" toward Glenelg, The scientists (mostly) get the keys - sols 38-56 Options

[MahFL]

Rivers flowed on Mars, so it would be warm enough for rain.
Maven is going to provide answers to how quickly the atmosphere escaped, should it sucessfully get into orbit.

[TheAnt]

Rivers flowed on Mars, so it would be warm enough for rain.
Maven is going to provide answers to how quickly the atmosphere escaped, should it sucessfully get into orbit.

Oh yes in the far past, rain might very well have fallen.
If it came from volcanic eruption steam, chock melted ice (from same eruptions) or perhaps even a hydrological cycle in the first 100MY we don't know and there's still disagreement in the hypothesizes. But rain and more likely snow is far from ruled out, quite the contrary that idea is quite mainstream, the only question when it happened - see below.

Rain: Science Daily
And rain: Marsdaily
There were some more paper also, with a claim that they actually seen one area that appeared to have been altered by rainfall.
Couldn't locate that one offhand right now though.

[elakdawalla]

If you want to know what scientists think about rain on Mars, use the ADS Abstract Service to search. Only a few publications show up when you use "mars" and "rain" as search terms, so it helps to think: what polysyllabic word would scientists use instead of a simple term like 'rain'? Put in "mars" and "precipitation" and you'll get a lot more results.

[RoverDriver]

...
But rain and more likely snow is far from ruled out
....

Was I dreaming or one of the Phoenix press releases mentioned that it had observed water-based snow fall? I don't remember the details but I thoght I read something to that extent.

Paolo

[Paolo]

I think you are referring to this http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/...x-20080929.html and this http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/...aks_SD_001.html

[Pete B.]

Was I dreaming or one of the Phoenix press releases mentioned that it had observed water-based snow fall? I don't remember the details but I thoght I read something to that extent.

Paolo

MOLA evidently detected CO2 snow - 2nd figure at http://mola.gsfc.nasa.gov/clouds.html

[dilo]

Some days ago, looking to Sol54 MAHLI images, I realized that B/W pictures are "elevation maps" (or "Height Field") showing distance from the subject in the corresponding color picture using the gray scale (I would like to know how they extracted such info!).
So I used PovRay in order to represent such data in a 3D rendering (I had to smooth/interpolate original height map due to poor number of levels used):
http://youtu.be/2PbJiqWLTbM
This is a crossed-eyes stereogram based on two frames of the movie:

[TheAnt]

Was I dreaming or one of the Phoenix press releases mentioned that it had observed water-based snow fall? I don't remember the details but I thoght I read something to that extent.

Paolo

Snow, yes snowfall, yet without reaching the surface still why the 'more likely' on that one.
One of the Viking landers snapped one image of frost then back to Phoenix what was seen on one of the legs might have been hoarfrost.

And yes as Pete B said, CO2 snow at the south pole.

[Paul Fjeld]

...So I used PovRay in order to represent such data in a 3D rendering...:
http://youtu.be/2PbJiqWLTbM
...

That's really cool!

[Ant103]

Some days ago, looking to Sol54 MAHLI images, I realized that B/W pictures are "elevation maps" (or "Height Field")

And then, this like some kind of divine revelation. Thanks for pointing this. From my point of view I tought it was some sort of mask, or something. But now, it makes sense .

[Guest_Actionman_*]

At a point some time back, years, Michael Malin stated, in unequivocal terms about white in a photo was to be snowfall, water snow. The photo being of a non-polar region.

As white as CO2 can only be maintained at the poles.

[RoverDriver]

I think you are referring to this http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/...x-20080929.html and this http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/...aks_SD_001.html

Thanks. That was it. Good to know I was not dreaming.

Paolo

[dilo]

And then, this like some kind of divine revelation.

It was, indeed! Here below another processed shot from same sequence:
http://youtu.be/HnvY5k9sABQ

[pospa]

Some days ago, looking to Sol54 MAHLI images, I realized that B/W pictures are "elevation maps" (or "Height Field") showing distance from the subject in the corresponding color picture using the gray scale (I would like to know how they extracted such info!).

From MAHLI instrument description @ MSSS:
"• MAHLI can acquire multiple images of the same feature at different focus positions and use this to build a best-focus image and a range map of the target. This process is sometimes called z-stacking or focal plane merging."

[Eyesonmars]

Reading through some of these discussions here and elsewhere I'm reminded of a quote
" Mars is not Earthlike. Mars is Marslike"
By who I can't remember.