Incredible rock in the MI field on Sol 1035...
Click to view attachment
This is an "artistic" composition of 3 frames at slightly different distances (nothing scientific, guys!).
It strongly recall a red fruit but I do not know english name. In Italy we call it "melograno" (Punica granatum).

pomegranate

Doug

Anybody know if they're planning a TES integration on "The Pomegranate"? (Come to that, is Spirit's TES still operational?)

Driving again on sol 1037!

Sol 1037 Navcam equirectangular

From the latest MER Status Report...

Sol 1023 (Nov. 28): The panoramic camera took images of targets "El
Dorado" and "Prat" as well as thumbnail images of the sky. ..

"Prat"? sigh... that poor, poor rock. I know it's probably been named to honour some scientist, but someone should have told the MER guys what a "prat" is over here in England... would have saved that little rock a very hard time when it's older...

Perhaps the rock has a crack in it.

Here is poor Prat - doesn't look like one.

Just goes to show that beneath the surface of every poor prat there's a complicated creature with lots of hidden layers...

And Prat in colors

Here is the complete 360 degree panoramic view

taken on Sol 1037 with the L0 Navcam.

jvandriel

and a polar view from Sol 1037.

jvandriel

Lot of layers, yes thats the word Stu. That port prat doesnt even have the looks for this neighborhood - while it sits there falling to pieces it looks quite more like a runaway from Meridiani.

From the planetary society update:

"...then heading back to Home Plate, the formation that science team members believe may be the remnant of an explosive volcano. After that, the rover may head southeast, lured by a bounty of new unusual rocks and formations the MER team can see in an image recently sent down from" MRO.

And

"If Spirit does head southeast from Home Plate, to some of the intriguing targets now visible in the HiRISE image, that means it will be going in the opposite direction of McCool Hill, where the team initially had planned for it to spend its second Martian winter."

Obviously an error here - McCool Hill is southeast from Home Plate!

There's certainly interesting stuff in all directions, but do people wish to speculate where would be most interesting to go after Home Plate now that we all can see the hirise image?

Kind of a watershed moment with tosols drive (1039), Spirit has lost her north tilt, we have left the 'haven'.

James

Von Braun looks like it would be the next interesting feature going southwest, and pancams from its base should be spectacular even if the rover can't climb up to its "cap".

Can anyone who downloaded the full size image of Spirits landing site post a crop of the terrain just to the south of the Columbia Hills that Spirit might visit after returning to Homeplate? Thanks

James posted a small section of the 'promised land' here
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&p=76795

I'm excited to see that Spirit may head off to the southeast after HP (and hopefully VonBraun as well). Looking at the last crop Emily posted containing Spirit's current position and the sand-trap she fell ill in, eastward and just on the other side of the sand-trap is another 'strikingly' circular feature (the one Korolev and Faget are part of) that seems to be one of the more interesting accessible features (and now with better imagery to navigate around the "obvious" sand-traps. A relative of HP, impact, or other. If this feature is indeed what is interesting the folks at JPL, it will be exciting to see.

Nothing new and mars-shattering I know, but interesting. Any thoughts?




-- Pertinax

Watershed might be a prophetic word to describe the latest MI picture from Spirit!

Is this a sign of liquid water on Mars... more specifically, a drop of water that has refrozen? (look at the left center of this image)

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/mi...00P2979M2M1.JPG

Could this be a drop of oil lube from Spirit's arm, or melted frost on the arm that trickled down and dropped, or something completely different? I don't think it's a camera artifact, since the drop has displaced dust on the surface.

We've had similar views before. I think the drops are adhesives used in the construction.

I know the gully/water news is exciting but let's don't go crazy kids. They are indeed just epoxy adhesive and solder weld dots on the panel joints.

Thanks for the link; here's an enhanced version of the image on that page for comparison.
Click to view attachment
The drops were there on sol 350.

Steve

Ack! I'm so embarrassed! I remember those epoxy drops now, but when viewing the MI today I just tricked myself into thinking it overlayed dust grains. Sorry for the false alarm.

Here is the 360 degree panoramic view taken on Sol 1039

with the L0 Navcam.

jvandriel

Here is jvandriel's latest pan in polar format.

Phil

Click to view attachment

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre.../20061213a.html

Data from the rover's Mössbauer spectrometer provides evidence that they have an enhanced amount of the mineral hematite relative to surrounding soils.

My gosh, how long does an integration take now? I seem to remember that the radioisotope that drives the spectrometer had only a 90-day halflife, so it would seem to need 1000x more time than it used to.

Or did they do this one integration all during the winter? :-)

--Greg

It's actually more like 200-and-something days.... so we're looking at integrations of 4 days instead of 12 hours.

Doug

Some worries and a water ice cloud over Spirit...Where?!

I think they think of this image (clouds in upper right corner)
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...42P1312R0M1.JPG

I haven't seen here any panorama from sol 1041, so I'll post mine.

Click to view attachment

I used it (actually a polar version) to refine the last plot on the route map. I find the correlation between the ground image (rover's navcam) and the orbital one (HiRISE) is so good that I made this picture below matching some rocks on both images. I could continue matching other rocks but those are more then enough! The

... and the current rover's position is quite obvious.

Click to view attachment

Edited: The scale for the HiRISE image background is 3.33 cm/pix.

Has Spirit found blueberries?

Good question! What does "enhanced hematite" translate to re the concentrations in blueberries (which could be well over 50%)? Have any of the Meridiani concretions shown the glossy surface that is apparent on King George granules - before or after RAT brushing? I assumed that these granules were reworked but chemically unaltered basaltic sand. If they are more akin to blueberries, the theorists will have a field day working out a microcosm of Meridiani evaporite sandstone diagenesis here in this little corner of Gusev Crater. I wish them luck!

Wow. I know that I have to stop being amazed by the quality of the HiRISE imagery at some stage but the fact that you can do this is astonishing. Those really are pretty small rocks. Wow.

HiRis Simulation for sol 1041 with Tesheiner's Map

Click to view attachment

It is amazing that Spirit has now found blueberries in Gusev,very similar to the ones covering most of Meridiani on the other side of the planet.The haematite rich berries in Gusev most likely to have formed(I presume) from volcanic activity .Would this make scientists rethink the source of the haematite in Meridiani.Is the haematite water related or volcanic in origin?It seems that with the new opportunity findings of bigger sized blueberries around Victoria are making scientists having second thoughts as to the role of subsurface or surface or if any water playing a role in the formation of haematite??Would you agree that haematite in gusev is more likely to be volcanic in origin or is it a clue to the watery past of Gusev basin?

From sol25, in a wheel-dug trench, so no brushing. http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/all/opportunity_m025.html
Click to view attachment

Here is the 360 degree panoramic view taken by Spirit

with the L0 Navcam on Sol 1041.

jvandriel

Here's a Sol 1041 polar derived from Tesheiner's version of the panorama.

Phil

Click to view attachment

Can someone point out Esperanza, our next target, on one of the maps/pictures? Thanks

It's probably this one (in front):

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/gallery/press...notated_br2.jpg

Phil

I hadn't noticed before, but the new HiRISE image makes the Faget-Korolev area look like a second Home Plate, half buried under the flanks of McCool Hill. If Home Plate is the site of an explosive eruption (magma encountering ground ice as it nears the surface, as seems to be the picture now), there might have been several places where this happened. Maybe Goddard (just south of this image) is another smaller vent... have we stumbled on a field of small volcanoes? That would be quite a finding in itself for Spirit (the interpretation relies on Spirit data, not HiRISE).

Phil

Click to view attachment

Yes I do think Goddard are another feature of the same kind, and in images from MGS there seems to be yet another fourth one also - I have to give a good look of new hirise imagery for this area.

But the idea that ground ice have been found here at one point would not suprise me the slightest, theres some parts in the area that look eerily similar to places I know of on Earth which have been grinded by not only one but several ice ages.

As for Julius question, there are already one alternative theory for the creation of the hematite in Meridiani also. Personally I dont think it will stand up expecially well, blueberries found there originates in the bedrock which have a wet origin. (Even though many have eroded out of same bedrock)

Its good to have many competing theories though, for some it is confusing but personally I start to worry when someone claim it have to be this way or that. Its better when you have the question 'Are we looking at this in the right way.'
We know Gusev have been wet at one point, images from orbit show that, the area have later been pelted by volcanic rocks from eruptions that happened quite some distance away and covered most but not all - we might have seen a few samples of the rocks from the 'wet' period and one or two of those were really odd.

"Mini homeplate" just south of Eldorado. We passed by fairly close to it on our drive but I believe it was hidden behind a ridge.
Click to view attachment

Yes I remember it was discussed back then and if we could see it or not at the time.
Having looked at the medium resolution image (the 1.2 GB are out of question for me sadly)
The one east of Homeplate got one arrow, then I feel somewhat less certain but still havnt ruled out the southern one might be another here its pointed out with one arrow though.

I added one arrow with a question mark for yet another feature even further to the southeast that very well just can be one imposter 'Homeplate look-alike'.

I wasn't aware of that press release. I was looking to the pancams and navcams searching for any imaging sequence which include Esperanza but with no luck.

BTW, sol 1051 was driving day and it looks Spirit is finally there. Esperanza within the IDD work volume.
http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/...AFP1214R0M1.JPG

Winter's vestiges :



This is the place of the work volume of Spirit during the winter.

Perhaps this King George rock was blasted here by an impactor from elsewhere on the planet? (I believe that is what Bounce Rock is).

If not. If King George formed where Spirit found it, then it still could have a watery origin. Don’t forget, the main reason Spirit is here is because Gusev is believe to have contained a lake at one time.

Side note: Up close, the Spirit Blueberries do resemble the Opportunity Blueberries. They have that same nice sheen to them.