[X] My Assistant

[Tman]

Oppy's first navcam pics near Voyager, unfortunately he stood there fairly aslope.

Navcam Oppy Voyager sol424 (400KB)

[Tman]

Probably, suddenly I get appetite for Viking too

In the meantime I've found a nice solution in order to flatten Voyager...

Navcam Oppy Voyager sol 424 (520KB)

This post has been edited by Tman: Apr 8 2005, 03:26 PM

[dvandorn]

Probably, suddenly I get appetite for Viking too

In the meantime I've found a nice solution in order to flatten Voyager...

Navcam Oppy Voyager sol 424 (400KB)

Looks really good, Tman!

It's pretty obvious that both Viking and Voyager are a little smaller than Eagle -- I can't see the landing platform fitting inside either V or V with room for Oppy to roll off without driving halfway out.

Voyager is also obviously older than Viking. This is a really, really good example of how the ejecta blankets of craters of this size erode -- notice how here, around Voyager, the ejecta blocks are still visible around the crater, but they are efficiently flatted down. They still form a slight bit of relief (a small mound that the crater sits neatly amidst), but the blocks themselves have been worn down to a nearly flat surface. Note how nice and even Oppy's tracks are as they run through the ejecta blocks -- that's a flat surface.

Viking looked exactly like this *except* that the blocks around Viking are still partially intact.

This evaporite erodes down very, very efficiently, doesn't it? No matter what landforms were created within it, it seems to erode right down to flat fairly quickly... so it doesn't retain its structures above-ground all that well. The only thing it seems to retain is holes.

Makes you wonder what caused the cracks (i.e., Anatolia, etc.). Are they evaporation cracking of the surface, or are they erosional? Seeing how easy it is to erode these rocks, erosion might be a little more likely than I had thought.

-the other Doug