New Mars Forums

How come when I click on the link to download the tiff image absolutely nothing happens?

I'll fill you in on the Press Conf content a little later, ok?

S

Well I promise you I hadn't seen it anywhere else, this is the only spacey message board I'm a member of. Just downloaded the image as soon as it became available and then wandered around... I'd never plagarise someone else's idea.

But kind of glad someone else *has* seen it, proves it's not just me imagining it's there.

S

Plan B, Cindy - find a candy store that sells loose sweets (we call them "Pick and Mix" over here), in clear but coloured wrappers, and hunt around for a variety of different-hued red and blue wrappers to use as substitute lenses... after a bit of trial and error you should come up with something... (and even if you don't, well, you get to eat the failures!)

Don't laugh like that, I did it and it works! :-)

Stu

Well, as far as the first half went, it was a bit light on news I thought... more of a "steady as she goes" update. Concern over the high gain antenna seems to be waning... everyone is delighted with the cameras' performance... NASA is staggered by the demand for images online... they were pleased to be able to honour the Columbia crew by placing the plaque on the rear of the HGA...

The main item I heard concerned the airbag obstructing the ramp. Yesterday's efforts to drag it back in succeeded in part, but there is still some material in the way, causing concerns that it might hit the rover's solar arrays if it isn't removed, so the plan today is to try a "lift and tuck" manouvre - they'll lift up that petal of the lander, then try to drag the bag back in, then lower the petal again, squishing down the bag in the process. Updates to follow, with images, later in the day, after Spirit has woken up.

As far as images are concerned, they hope to have a full, hi-res panorama by week's end, and today's grand unveiling was of a hi-res 3D anaglyph image of part of the panorama, which you can access at the link I posted above. Again, like yesterday's image, it shows amazing detail, including some rocks perched on what appears to be the rim of a ledge, beyond which is a drop to a lower-lying part of the landing site.

The nature of the landing site was also discussed - is it a lake bed? is it a flood plain? The rocks seen so far make it hard to conclude which. Some people think the rocks are mostly old, volcanic bedrock, excavated from beneath the surface by impacts. Others think they're rocks brought into Gusev by flood waters or river flow.

One thing was very obvious - the science team are DESPERATE to get off the lander and start driving around! Me too! :-)

Can anyone fill us in on the content of the second half of the conference..?

S

Ah, found one...

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004....yph.jpg

S

Thanks Josh, appreciate that. I'll give it a peek later. Another work day beckons for me here.

Crunch Day #1 for Beagle today... Mars Express pass is due for 12.15 UT, with results expected around 15.00 UT. I'd convert those times into US times but haven't had any coffee yet, sorry.

Still stunned about that picture... :-)

S

Yeah... unless you're trying to download it because you didn't have time earlier... :-(

I *so* want to download that huge 40Mb version... hopefully when I get up in the morning and the rest of the world is asleep and offline!

Hasn't this been a heck of a day guys? And made even better by the way that we all shared it here on NewMars? 

Stu

Don't know about that... *I* did get rather carried away the night England beat Germany at football (that's *our* football, "soccer" in the US) 5-0 ;-)

S

Actually, having looked closer (and more calmly!) there's another pitted rock of similar colour on the left hand side of the image, so maybe my meteorite idea is a non-starter... ( unless Spirit landed in a "strewn-field", an area which was strewn with pieces of a large meteorite which fragmented above it..? Naah, too much to ask for!)

Silly to speculate I know, but fun too... :-)

You are absolutely NOT making a fool of yourself! I'm just putting a theory forwards here, I'm no more qualified than you :-) Just going on what I've picked up from people in the meteorite community and my own, limited, field work. You are NOT over-reacting - I'm sat here shaking, just wanting to jump into the screen and run around that landscape picking up EVERYTHING I can get to! :-) So you fool around all you like... I might be about to REALLY embarrass myself in a couple of paragraphs time anyway...

(And hey, I may be a Red... with growing green tendancies, but that's a different story... but I fully accept a "warm wet" past for Mars. I need it to have had one, actually, for life to have developed there, so I'm fine with a long wet past :-) )

Okay, here I go, a couple of theories...

You see that big dark rock at bottom right, with the pits? The one I referred to as possibly showing volcanic processes? Well, it's ringing an altogether different bell with me. I think it looks an awful lot like a meteorite. Why? Well, it is a very different colour from nearby rocks, it has a very different surface texture, and I've looked hard across the rest of the image and can't find any other rocks which show the "pits" it does. Volcanic rocks have lots of smaller, rounder holes, or vessicles... some meteorites exhibit these same features too, but they're called "regmaglypts" (or "thumbprints") and they're caused by ablation (melting away) of less dense material from the surface of the meteorite as it heats up during its fiery passage through the atmosphere. I've seen, and held, many stony meteorites, and, well, this just looks like one to me. Another hint - it's partly buried, so has been there some time... Like I said, I may be waaaay out here, but boy, I hope they go and take a closer look.

Another theory... that "bizarre material" over at bottom right.... maybe the impact of the lander sent compression shock waves down into the ground here, briefly melting subsurface ices trapped in the soil, and when the bags retracted they dragged the resulting "dirty soil" with them. As the soil moved, like thick mud (which is exactly what it looks like to me... anyone else?) the water trapped in it gradually evaporated away and it solidified again, gradually getting stiffer and stiffer until it effectively "set".

Sorry for rambling, my brain's buzzing here... :-)

S

(Some!) Highlights of Press Conference:

Before showing the pictures everyone had come to see, it was revealed that the team had enjoyed a 10 min phone conversation with President Bush, in which he was full of praise for the team and its efforts, congratulating them many times. Apparently the call was full of humour and laughter, and the team invited Pres Bush to JPL to see them in person, and even invited him to "drive" the rover. ("After that the President just discussed string theory and quantam physics..." a team member laughed :-) )

( Later in the conference a reporter asked the panel if the President had given them the OK for a manned mission. Response: laughter, then "Maybe we'll tell you later..." )

* Unveiling of first PanCam picture - absolutely stunning! Any digital camera users on the List will be familiar with how impressive the resolution of even a 3 mega-pixel camera is... well, PanCam is a *12* mega-pixel camera, and the image shown at the conference was just stunning. The colours were very subtle, and features on the horizon were resolved with great clarity (including a flat-topped mesa approx 25km away)

* Rocks: individual rocks were shown in *amazing* detail - one shows what appear to be vessicles ("bubbles") caused by volcanic processes, others showed VERY smooth surfaces, which Steve Squyres suggested were typical of rocks "sandblasted" by fine dust in high winds; many rocks showed "tongues" of material deposited behind them, blown there by the wind. The landing site shows a great variety and diversity of rocks, which the team are looking forward to exploring, and although it appears that the rocks are exceptionally clean the abrasion tool will still be used to make some even cleaner, and to allow microscopic investigation of their interiors.

* "Strange material": when the airbags were deflated and dragged back to the lander, they disturbed soil close to the lander, effectively "raking" it and leaving trenches. However, the material exposed by this dragging has behaved in a very odd way, clumping and fracturing rather than just hissing apart like sand or dust would. S S described it as being "cohesive", suggesting that it could be similar to the duricrust seen at the Viking landing sites. Perhaps, he speculated, we were seeing soil and dirt cemented by salts left behind after moisture, seeping up from below, evaporated away. This is going to be a very important feature for the team, you could tell that from the excitement in their voices when describing it. ("It looks like mud, but it can't BE mud!" - a puzzled S S)

Also mentioned:

* Temperature issues: Spirit is a little "overdressed" for the conditions, as one of the panel put it - its temperature is a little high. Not expected to be a problem tho, as the internal temperature will drop once Spirit drives off the lander. In the meantime, they are "working around" the problem by turning off certain systems at times to allow Spirit to keep cool, and will even turn it off for an "afternoon siesta" later today.

* Air bag obstruction: simulations using the test bed lander at JPL have shown that retracting the air bag shown partially obstructing the egress ramp shouldn't be a problem.

* Full Panorama - available when? Within 4 to 5 days we should have a "full" 360 degree panorama.

I know exactly what you mean Josh... That is some machine those JPL guys landed on Mars... !!

Stu

There was also some discussion re the "83% power" figure which has been referred to in recent posts here. The panel confirmed that the arrays are generating 83% of their potential power, and also confirmed that it was "likely" that figure would not change. The reduced power was attributed to the martian environment itself - perhaps there is more dust in the air than expected ("You have to remember, there was a big martian dust storm last week" - S Squyres) which would reduce the levels of sunlight. Another panel member (wish I could remember his name) said that changes in the state of the atmosphere at the landing site might affect the arrays' performance - more cloud = less power, clearer sky = more power. But they don't seem too concerned.

Hope no-one minds me posting these mini-reports.

S