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Unmanned Spaceflight.com > Mars & Missions > Past and Future > MER > Opportunity
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Bobby
I think it's time for a new thread for Opportunity after her Block Island Studies and time to think about where
the Mars Rover Drivers are going to send Her. Will they decide to head south of Block Island or go back
to the western route they were on before?

Where ever they go. I hope they find some more interesting surprises along the way.

One Question I do have regarding the Rovers. Have they ever found any Diamonds or Gold along the way
and if mars did have them. Would they be buried beneath the surface??? Something I've been wondering
about for a while if any precious metals would be on Mars or Not? I would say yes.

Time to start wheel.gif wheel.gif wheel.gif
Stu
Patience, young Jedi, still a few things to see here I think. She'll roll on when she's ready! smile.gif
Tesheiner
Actually she is. Opportunity left the area today, sol 2004, with a 70m drive; first N and then NW in the general direction of the previous western path.
We're on the road again!

Click to view attachment
(This is a preview. I'll post a map update later on in the proper thread when the images are downlinked)
Stu
Ah, I'd missed that. My apologies, Bobby; I honestly thought we'd spend a couple of sols looking at the bits of darker material scattered around BI. Well... Onwards it is then! smile.gif

( A look back at the "Tour of Block Island" on my "Road To Endeavour" blog, if anyone wants a look. )
BrianL
QUOTE (Bobby @ Sep 13 2009, 03:58 AM) *
Where ever they go. I hope they find some more interesting surprises along the way.


I agree, as long as they find them roving along the rim of Endeavour. biggrin.gif

As a great man once said, drive drive drive!
Ant103
The Sol 2004 drive direction pan in color R1&R2
HughFromAlice
QUOTE (Ant103 @ Sep 15 2009, 03:13 AM) *
2004 pan in color


Nice one, Ant!! If this were YouTube I'd give it ***** !!
Tesheiner
I'll second that. The wheel tracks from the out and inbound legs are clearly visible on the mosaic.
Today is another driving sol. My take is that we'll catch that path and continue WNW until the same or similar point as during sol 1950, stopping for a quick science stop at those two craters Kaiko and Dolphin/Nereus.

Incidentally, I'm not really sure about the name of that second crater. The name "Dolphin" comes from the sequence used to shot the crater's pancam mosaic during sol 1950. However, it is named as "Nereus" on the monthly report from July. I'm tempted to take the second one as the correct one but it would be great if someone could confirm it.
jamescanvin
Here are my recent drive direction mosaics:

2002


and 2004


Both link to the same page.

James
Tesheiner
Navcam images from sol 2006 after yet another 70m drive available here: http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...cam/2009-09-15/
Wait! What's this, we're not alone; two more rovers are around here! tongue.gif
Click to view attachment
Juramike
Shouldn't we be on the other side of the highway? Or are we using British driving conventions? smile.gif

(So was Block Island just a roundabout?)
Ant103
My version of the Sol 2006 pan :


And just for the fun, a rectilinear version wink.gif

ps : HughFromAlice, thanks wink.gif.
brellis
So much for "the road less traveled", hehee. Roll on, Oppy!
climber
QUOTE (Tesheiner @ Sep 15 2009, 03:51 PM) *
Wait! What's this, we're not alone; two more rovers are around here! tongue.gif

It reminds me of this (from Tintin au pays de l'or noir):
Click to view attachment
Phil Stooke
Hey, wait a minute - Winnie the Pooh did that first...

Phil
Ant103
Sol 2007 navcam drive direction
djellison
All these tracks remind me of the time up near Larrys Lookout where we did the U-Turn and ended up with three sets of near parallel tracks smile.gif
Ron Hobbs
According to the Mars Exploration Rover calendar, tosol is Opportunity's 3rd Martian Birthday. Did anyone do a cake? I am speaking at the Seattle Astronomical Society and we will sing Happy Birthday.
elakdawalla
Egads! Almost forgot. Thank you for the reminder. Duly Tweeted smile.gif

--Emily
Joffan
QUOTE (Ron Hobbs @ Sep 16 2009, 03:09 PM) *
According to the Mars Exploration Rover calendar, tosol is Opportunity's 3rd Martian Birthday. Did anyone do a cake? I am speaking at the Seattle Astronomical Society and we will sing Happy Birthday.

I hope that you sing Happy Birthsol ... laugh.gif
djellison
QUOTE (Ron Hobbs @ Sep 16 2009, 11:09 PM) *
. Did anyone do a cake?


Nope - but UMSF, as ever, sent Birthday Cards to Cornell and JPL.
climber
Is there a place where I can se what I, I mean we sent?
HughFromAlice
Quick bit of before work fun - stitch and enhancement of pancam pics just down from Sol 2006 (earth time 15 Sep) - I'm a sucker for tracks..... especially doubles.

Click to view attachment



djellison
QUOTE (climber @ Sep 17 2009, 08:58 PM) *
Is there a place where I can se what I, I mean we sent?


Because I'm a total genius who basically FORGOT to send cards in time for Spirit's 3rd - so I rushed it and didn't take pictures before I sent them. They had big fluffy blue monsters on them smile.gif
Ant103
Very nice one HughFromAlice smile.gif

I also discovered that this is a color panoramic. So :
HughFromAlice
QUOTE (Ant103 @ Sep 18 2009, 08:15 AM) *
Very nice one HughFromAlice smile.gif


Thanks Ant! Having fun learning from you guys!! I 've just done a small colourized dust devil movie in the Spirit West Valley thread. smile.gif
Stu
Interesting area, this...

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment
stewjack
QUOTE (Stu @ Sep 18 2009, 05:09 PM) *
Interesting area, this...


VIRGIN VISTAS AGAIN - wheel.gif

Jack
Bill
Does anybody understand something about the name of the craters here ?

For tosol they plan :
02010 p2410.20 0 0 0 0 0 0 pancam_Nereus_11x2_L257R2
02010 p2559.23 0 0 0 0 0 0 pancam_Nereus_ejecta_L234567Rall

Is Nereus the new name of Dolphin or the name of the next small crater on the way ? unsure.gif
brellis
Regarding the color panoramic in Ant's post 25, what causes the dark marks along the path? Does the rover stop at regular intervals during a drive? How does that work with the auto-nav update?

Apologies as I presume this has been answered, but my searches don't lead me to it.
Tesheiner
QUOTE (Bill @ Sep 19 2009, 10:14 AM) *
Does anybody understand something about the name of the craters here ?

For tosol they plan :
02010 p2410.20 0 0 0 0 0 0 pancam_Nereus_11x2_L257R2
02010 p2559.23 0 0 0 0 0 0 pancam_Nereus_ejecta_L234567Rall

Is Nereus the new name of Dolphin or the name of the next small crater on the way ? unsure.gif


The former. It answers my question from some days ago.

QUOTE (brellis @ Sep 19 2009, 05:57 PM) *
Regarding the color panoramic in Ant's post 25, what causes the dark marks along the path? Does the rover stop at regular intervals during a drive? How does that work with the auto-nav update?

Apologies as I presume this has been answered, but my searches don't lead me to it.

The marks come from the wheels' surface which is not uniform. Let's see if I can find a picture...
Stu
Some lovely blocks around the edge of the latest crater in Oppy's tour...

http://twitpic.com/ibf9b
CosmicRocker
QUOTE (Tesheiner @ Sep 19 2009, 11:15 AM) *
... The marks come from the wheels' surface which is not uniform. Let's see if I can find a picture...

This picture is probably a good example. Each wheel's tread pattern contains what has sometimes been called a "star pattern." It occurs once on each wheel's circumference and serves to punctuate what would otherwise be monotonous and mostly featureless tracks in the soil. The patterns create repetitive features in the rover's wheel tracks that are useful for auto-navigation and other functions.
djellison
The star patttern isn't there for fun though, it's where the wheels were bolted down onto the lander deck for launch, cruise and landing.
HughFromAlice
Interesting rocks - so here's a b/w stitch of 4 left pancam images Sol 2010. Enhanced the originals to bring out as much detail as I could, although posted here at 15% below full res to get under the 1 Meg limit.

They've all been taken through basically the same filter (754/3nm - red) - so haven't gone beyond black and white. Hope jpegs taken through other filters are available soon as this set would be good fun to make a colour pic out of.

Click to view attachment
Stu
Definitely not a "rock garden" to wander into...

Click to view attachment

Fascinating geology here tho...
HughFromAlice
Decided to colourize it anyway - sort of how I imagine it might look! If I had a bit more time I would get rid of the white areas on the rocks as they should be coloured.

Click to view attachment

Stu - loved your anaglyph..... as always! You wouldn't want to be wandering around in your spacesuit amongst that lot during the night without a really good torch! (Rip - sad.gif )
dvandorn
Hmmm... not only are there two specific types of rocks in the B&W images, one appearing white and the other appearing darker gray, there are several rocks in the image which show both rock types within the same rock. You can see in several rocks a contact between the light and darker rock types. And in a couple of cases, the faces are oriented exactly the same on both sides of the contact, so this can't just be an artifact of illumination angle.

I will say that there seems to be absolutely no difference in how the two different types of rocks have weathered -- i.e., those rocks which exhibit contacts don't exhibit weathering differences on the different sides of the contacts. So, whatever is causing the albedo difference is not changing the overall softness of the rocks.

I'd have to think this shows some form of compositional change. This is the first place in a while where I wish the APXS and the Mossbauer were still working as quickly as they did a couple of years ago...

-the other Doug
HughFromAlice
QUOTE (dvandorn @ Sep 21 2009, 01:35 AM) *
two specific types of rocks in the B&W images, can't just be an artifact of illumination angle. I wish the APXS and the Mossbauer were still working - the other Doug


You've made an interesting point Doug. It was this sort of rock that made me think that the whiteness was probably due to an artifact of camera exposure or illumination. (Plus I only know a very little about geology!)

1 - Click to view attachment

But when I relook at things in the light of your comments and come across this ... the white area on the top of the taller rock in the front

2 - Click to view attachment ..... Click to view attachment

then I get what you mean. The slab behind it...... does it look to you as if it could be made up of two different rock types?

It is certainly an interesting place. It would have been great to stop, but having just been to Teishner's lastest map, it looks as if Sol 2011 may have taken us past here.
Juramike
I'm not sure, but I strongly suspect it might be an effect of sun angle glinting off flat surfaces of the rock.

(The shadows indicate we are looking close to the direction of the sun.)

It'd be neat if there were observations done at a different time....(are there?)
serpens
QUOTE (HughFromAlice @ Sep 20 2009, 11:44 PM) *
But when I relook at things in the light of your comments and come across this ... the white area on the top of the taller rock in the front

I don't see any difference other than angle of illumination. if it was indeed a compositional change then it should be evident in the side of the rock closest to us.
Stu
3d view...

Click to view attachment
Ant103
The Sol 2010 panoramic view :
RobertEB
Quote removed - Mod

The rocks look like they are full of blueberries. I wish they could take a closer look at those layered rocks.
Airbag
QUOTE (djellison @ Sep 17 2009, 01:46 AM) *
Nope - but UMSF, as ever, sent Birthday Cards to Cornell and JPL.


I can personally vouch for the fact that the 3rd anniversary card enjoys pride of place in the middle of the table in one of the Ops rooms in Cornell.

And many of you will like this - overheard during last Monday's Opportunity SOWG: "Drive, baby, drive!".

All systems normal (including that one wheel's motor current) except for the mini-TESS' still present dust layer of course. They will leave the aperture open and hope to just get lucky one day with the wind coming from *just* the right direction to blow at least some of the dust off the mirror. Batteries also in great shape still.

Expect plenty more Westward travel before turning South, but that is not a surprise of course.

Airbag
jamescanvin
Recent Drive Direction mosaics:

2006


2007


2009


All images link to the same page.

James
HughFromAlice
Really nice smile.gif !!!
phase4
Absolutely delicious. Thank you!
dburt
QUOTE (RobertEB @ Sep 21 2009, 06:08 AM) *
The rocks look like they are full of blueberries. I wish they could take a closer look at those layered rocks.

Agree completely, and congratulations to the posters of the panoramas. "Berry nice" views of abundant spherules in the dug-up boulders! As usual, but not usually so clearly seen in images, the spherules are strictly size limited, not clumped together, and occur along (are apparently controlled by) bedding planes. Well worth a closer look, because these features are NOT typical of sedimentary concretions.

-- HDP Don
Ant103
Very nice views James wink.gif

Here is the Navcam view of Sol 2011 showing the Nereus -wink.gif- Nautilus crater. Anaglyph view at the right (Stu, if you read me pancam.gif )

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