[X] My Assistant

[centsworth_II]

If I were driving.... First check out the "cliff" or not. But not over the drift!

from Ant103's pan

[atomoid]

Does somebody know what this linear feature spotted on sol 526 navcam image can be ?

whatever that fracture-fill is, it points towards a mighty ultramafic mushroom as the foothills beckon ever so crisply

[elakdawalla]

LOL. Looking at that stereo, it really is striking how pointy those scattered rocks are. A lot of the ones that stick up out of the ground are taller than they are wide, and that's weird.

[charborob]

No wonder Curiosity's wheels are getting chewed up!

[Gerald]

whatever that fracture-fill is, it points towards a mighty ultramafic mushroom as the foothills beckon ever so crisply

For convenience a "glasses" version:

[CosmicRocker]

Yeah, 2cents, I'd go for that cliff first, too, if I was driving.

Snake river was a similar-looking example back at Yellowknife:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/pr...NCAM05133M_.JPG

Indeed, it appears to be quite similar, at least in that navcam view.

Snake River was thought to be a clastic dike, formed by the intrusion (injection) of a slurry of fluidized sediment escaping from an over-pressured region or reservoir below. This kind of situation has often been created on our planet after a large amount of very wet sediment has been rapidly deposited in a basin.

I'm wondering, might that be a magic ultramafic mushroom we are seeing?

[James Sorenson]

Focus Stacked/Rotated

[Ant103]

Sol 526 Navcam pan updated. The little story about this image is that the 4 images that complete the panoramic were taken on Mars at the exact moment I began to stitch the first part.

[fredk]

Some of Emily's pointy rocks guarding the left side of the chute:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...2000E1_DXXX.jpg
I still think we could sneak through just to the right of those rocks...

[Ant103]

Sol 527 Navcam panoramic. We're starting to getting some details on the dune now.



And Mastcam34 from yestersol :

[atomoid]

once thought to be a lost model of the Promethius, upon closer inspection turns out to be just a rotten old discarded tire:

[walfy]

The tire, the dune, the bluffs, distant crater rim make for nicely composed 3D!

[Phil Stooke]

I added a couple of new images to Damia's pan and made a circular version:



Phil

[mcaplinger]

Question for the folks who are parsing the SPICE data: is it possible to figure out what position the arm was in when these photos were taken?

It would be fairly easy to compute the position and orientation of MAHLI. In theory I think there's enough information in the SPICE kernels (if you look at the five joint frames) to back out the 5 joint angles that define the arm pose. But the data products that the team gets just have these angles in them directly (you can see this, I think, in the PDS products), so I don't immediately know how to do it.

As an exercise someone should figure out how to move the LEGO model's arm based on those five angles.

[elakdawalla]

Information-packed release just posted to the JPL website. For those wondering about the Dingo Gap drive direction:

The team operating NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is considering a path across a small sand dune to reach a favorable route to science destinations.

A favorable route would skirt some terrain with sharp rocks considered more likely to poke holes in the rover's aluminum wheels.

While the team has been assessing ways to reduce wear and tear to the wheels, Curiosity has made progress toward a next site for drilling a rock sample and also toward its long-term destination: geological layers exposed on slopes of Mount Sharp. The rover has driven into a mapping quadrant that includes a candidate site for drilling. Meanwhile, testing on Earth is validating capabilities for drilling into rocks on slopes the rover will likely encounter on Mount Sharp.

Curiosity has driven 865 feet (264.7 meters) since Jan. 1, for a total odometry of 3.04 miles (4.89 kilometers) since its August 2012 landing.

Accumulation of punctures and rips in the wheels accelerated in the fourth quarter of 2013. Among the responses to that development, the team now drives the rover with added precautions, thoroughly checks the condition of Curiosity's wheels frequently, and is evaluating routes and driving methods that could avoid some wheel damage.

A dune about 3 feet (1 meter) high spans the gap between two scarps that might be a gateway to a southwestward route over relatively smooth ground. Curiosity is approaching the site, "Dingo Gap," from the southeast. The team is using images from the rover to assess whether to cross the dune.

"The decision hasn't been made yet, but it is prudent to go check," said Jim Erickson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., project manager for Curiosity. "We'll take a peek over the dune into the valley immediately to the west to see whether the terrain looks as good as the analysis of orbital images implies."