That's got to be UMSF's Quip of the Month. Top marks.

Andy

Thanks Andy, I Real(Madrid) appreciate

What on Earth...eh Mars... is Spirit doing?

Closed/Open:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...CMP1936L0M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/na...CMP1936L0M1.JPG

Weird MI snapshots of some sort of port opening and closing:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/mi...CMP2909M2M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/mi...CMP2909M2M1.JPG
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/mi...CMP2909M2M1.JPG

Some sort of MI diagnostic? I was wondering why they imaged 'innocent bystander' twice on sol 1251/1252. Maybe something's wrong with the MI?

Smile OWW, she's taking a picture of you

Lots of nice surface detail visible in today's 456...

Click to view attachment

Interesting rock down the bottom there, two very different textures... or is the smooth rock just sitting in front of the pitted one?

Me Stupid. I don't recognize it. Someone knows what it is?

Looks to me if there is a substantial dust build-up on that filter/ lens cover. Images taken with the filter in place would be.....

I'm not 100% sure, but I think those MI's are looking at the miniTES aperture near the top of the pancam mast. Compare with the images here. Can anyone confirm this? What has the tracking database called these images? How close can they get the MI to the upper pancam mast?

Boy, if I'm right this is pretty interesting - imaging miniTES with the MI! I suppose there could be dust on the miniTES mirror that they're trying to characterize. Or is the miniTES aperture covered with a clear filter?

How close can they get? This close.


Peek-a-boo!



Well darn it, looks like OWW already posted this. Weird stuff here.

Sheesh, I had seen the navcams but hadn't checked the timestamps. The 3 MI images posted above were taken between the two navcam images. The navcams show the MI looking a bit downwards, towards the miniTES. So that clinches it.

I hope miniTES is OK.

Here's an animation from the four available MI frames showing the miniTES aperture:
Click to view attachment

Interesting - very thick - crust on the big feller top right...

Click to view attachment

fredk is right, they are imaging miniTES with the MI. They plan to use this technique to troubleshoot Oppy's miniTES (to find out if there is a mechanical failure in the mirror). They are trying it out first on Spirit.

It looks to me as if the two textures are part of the same fragment. If that's the case it represents two very different types of deposits.

Cool.

Nice annimation taken with the L0 Navcam.

Lenscap open and closed on Sol 1253.

Many of those vesicular basalt float pieces display a thin layer that is not filled with bubbles. There are several ways such a textural contact can form in basalts, but most likely both layers have very similar chemical compositions. Mainly, it depends on how quickly the volatiles can expand, float upwards, and escape from the flow, and how quickly the flowing molten rock solidifies. As you might imagine, there are a lot of variables that can influence those processes.

Since we are only seeing pieces of a basalt flow that once existed, it is difficult to put it into a context where we might speculate further about the nature of that contact. I continue to hope that Spirit manages to hobble over to an outcrop where some of this basalt is still in place, if such a place still exists nearby.

Many thanks for that informative reply Cosmic Rocker, much appreciated.

Agreed. If the incredibly frothy rock was once lava, that would make the non-frothy, angular rock apparently contained within it an inclusion, or xenolith ("foreign rock" for jargon afficionados) - a hitch-hiker it picked up while rising through the martian crust. The incredibly frothy rock might also represent a former impact melt, in which case angular inclusions might be expected too. Hope we get a closer look.

--HDP Don

One thing that I've noticed is that a lot of these rocks that look to be of volcanic in origin seem to have been laid gently down onto the surface. I don't see major signs of impact on the surface. I also don't see much sign of reworking either. Yet the rocks themselves clearly have an explosive origin. They look relatively young too. Where is the volcano?

There is a new update on Spirit's status at the MER homepage, including the reason for moving back to the same site already explored during last weeks.
Ah, and another dust cleaning event.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/sta...ll.html#sol1247

"Spirit is healthy after driving to a cluster of rock fragments known as "Innocent Bystander" (so named because Spirit accidentally ran over it when another rock, "Virginia Bell," was the intended target. The aim had been to crush Virginia Bell to expose a fresh surface for examination).

It was a fortuitous encounter, though, because indications are that Innocent Bystander may have been formed by either a fumarole or hot spring. A fumarole is a vent in the Earth's surface that emits steam and volcanic gases. Volcanic gases leach the original rock and leave silica-rich rock behind. If Innocent Bystander was created in a hot spring environment, then it could be siliceous sinter, a kind of silica-rich rock that precipitates directly from water.

Spirit had a solar-array dust-cleaning event on the rover's 1,252nd day, or sol, of Martian exploration (July 12, 2007). Even though Tau, a measurement of atmospheric opacity caused by dust, has been trending upward for the past several days, Spirit's solar power levels have risen slightly due to wind-related cleaning of the solar panels."

I don't want to open a new thread for this but, while we're waiting, I think this one is the most appropriated.
I wonder where Spirit will be if she had roved 16 kms as Oppy.
As HP was a main objective, she could have roved another 8.5 kms from there in case of a long distance goal as for Oppy.
This is pure speculation and as a matter of comparison with Meridiani. Here (a part of) the possible territory.
Click to view attachment

If, if, if. Well, I don't know where we would be. I just wish we were not here ;-)

Paolo

You know where I would like to see Spirit heading to...
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...t=0&start=0

Just waiting for that wheel to unstall during the unstuck maneuvers...