New Mars Forums

Another day, another Media Briefing... I wonder what amazing things we'll see today?

In the meantime, treat yourselves by downloading this...

http://images.spaceref.com/news/2004rpano2FSr.mov

http://images.spaceref.com/news/2004rpano2FSr.mov

Closest you'll get to standing there in Gusev 

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Just downloaded the 44Mb version... just outrageously beautiful. (how my friends at work laugh when I describe these scenes as "beautiful" but I know all of you seeing them here will know exactly how I feel!)

Few things jump out at me - for one thing, the large number of rocks which show impact damage, i.e. nicks and craters on them, usually at the top. Saw these on pathfinder images too, and they were attributed to rocks slamming and smashing against each other there during the floods that carved out the Ares Vallis... but here? Well, some will have been caused by meteorite impacts for sure (busy scanning the panorama now for culprits!) others were maybe damaged when smaller rocks and pebbles were picked up by dust devils and snicked against them... but some of these rocks are *flat-topped*, and show grooves and trenches on their sides... maybe a good sign for the lake-bottom theory there...

And look at all that detail in Sleepy Hollow! And the hints of gullies on the almost-triangular, stand-alone hill... fantastic, just fantastic...

Looking at that panorama, can't you just imagine walking alongside Spirit, down that ramp, and stepping out onto the surface alongside her? Shielding your eyes from the Sun and scanning that horizon, taking in every rock, sand dune, hill and crater... kneeling down and taking a handful of dust in your hand, looking at it up close, seeing the fine, sunlit grains sparkling and twinkling in your palm before letting them fall back to the ground in slow motion... looking out to the horizon, beyond Sleepy Hollow, and seeing a dust devil drifting slowly across your field of view, almost reaching overhead... then patting Spirit on the side and heading out, together, into that silent sea of stones and sand...

We live in amazing times guys. Savour these moments. No-one can take them away from us.

S

Only a medium resolution version of the panorama "up" on the MER main site... looks pretty low resolution to me... wonder when a hi-res version will be available? I wanna go explore! 

S

Hi Adrian,

If you just go to the NASA WATCH page it's there as soon as it opens - a quote from the article, a link to it, and Keith Cowing's reply. NASA WATCH's website is:

http://www.reston.com/NASA/watch.html

Good idea re. the thread, by the way.

S

This is what I;ve written in response...

<< Sir,

Your dismissive comments re Beagle 2 in today's update of NASA WATCH are **deeply** offensive, and unworthy of both your website and NASA as an office. As the editor of a widely-read website, you should have been aware that the opinions given in the Telegraph article were just those of a single writer, and the overwhelming majority of people here in the UK with even a passing interest in space exploration have been as delighted for NASA as they have been disappointed for the Beagle team. This isn't a race, or a competition; we are all striving to push back the boundaries of knowledge and technology, overcome enormous challenges and make discoveries of benefit to everyone, yet you chose to sound, frankly, smug at a time when the scientists of Beagle 2, their familes and all the science enthusiasts of the UK are feeling great sadness. You have let yourself down very badly, and as an avid reader of NASA WATCH ever since I went online I feel very disappointed in your comments and attitude.

Your dismissal of Beagle, and your flippant opening remarks re the failed landing are genuinely offensive. I am sure you are only too well aware of the incredible struggle Colin Pillinger and his team faced to even get Beagle built, let alone launched. That it failed was down to a technical fault, not down to them, and as was proven with NASA's own Polar Lander and Climate Orbiter, technical faults have no respect of, and are not awed by, huge budgets or ambitions. If a British space website had ridiculed the NASA team behind Polar Lander at the time of its loss in the way you have treated the Beagle project, NASA WATCH would have been *ablaze* with outrage, and rightly so.

True, you "leap", and everyone respects and admires you for that, but you cannot compare the space programs of our two nations, there is no real comparison. Beagle was a pioneering effort, a first brave attempt to attain your high standards and leap as high as you do. That it failed is a tragedy, but a tragedy we will, I am sure, recover from, and whether it is a Beagle 3, 4, 5 or 10 that eventually opens up on the surface of Mars, when it does it will be a great day for everyone, not just its British designers and builders.

Spirit is a triumph, and we all applaud you for that. But your attitude in this matter is, frankly, very offensive. Should Opportunity fail, the first people who will call JPL with commiserations will be Colin Pillinger and the team.

On their behalf, I ask for an apology at the earliest opportunity.

Regards,

Stuart Atkinson >>

Hope I have everyone's agreement.

S

Ready here... got my popcorn and 3D glasses at the ready... 

High hopes for some more - or even all the remaining parts - of the panorama today. LOVED yesterday's release... I'm half comvinced one of the large, angular rocks on the right hand side shows patterning that isn't down to dust...

Oh, she's on... shush...

I'm intrigued by the very light material on the left side of that Sleepy Hollow-esque patch up at the top there... mottled in this medium-res image, going to be *very* interesting at hi-res. Won't be able to track it down til tomorrow my time cos I'm going out in ten mins, curses! 

Stu present Sir! (salutes)

Not taking notes today tho, been out all day.

S

Well, the coolest thing *ever* would have to be for Spirit to trundle its way carefully down the slope of that crater, find a nice firm terrace to sit on, lean forwards with its robot arm and, peering into a sedimentary layer with its microscope camera, see tiny teeny fossils embedded in it...  :;):

Oh well, I can dream...

Seriously tho, I find the whole carbonate thing intriguing, they're all obviously very fired-up about it. You can tell that they just can't wait to start snuffling around in all that lovely orange dirt.

S

Sol 6 Conference Highlights

* 72% of the panorama is now on the ground, 100% is stored onboard Spirit. No more panorama images were released today (boo!)

* Spirit's imaging and download performance is far exceeding that of previous probes.

*Today's Conference centered on the first results from the mini TES instruments, and Phil Christensen was obviously delighted with their performance. ("We have a laboratory-quality instrument on Mars," he beamed, adding, "in fact, it's a better quality instrument than I have in my lab... I might have to get my students to do something about that...!") During his presentation he showed a variety of false-colour images, superimposed on "normal" images, to show how miniTES is measuring the temperatures of the rocks and terrain around the Memorial Station. Rocks, being cool, appeared blue, while the dusty ground showed as various shades of pink, orange and yellow. Mars as a Predator might see it ;-) The dust inside features such as "Sleepy Hollow" appears to be very fine, very fluffy in consistency - which means TES will be used to help the team drive around the area, avoiding patches which might cause traction problems for Spirit.

Heralding the beginning of "the squiggly line science", Phil C showed a graph showing miniTES measurements compared with measurements from MGS - and both showed that CARBONATES are present in the vicinity.

This was the key point of the conference, because the presence and location of carbonates is the key to understanding the very nature of Gusev. paraphrasing Steve Squyres, Carbonates are minerals formed under different circumstances which can be dissolved in water.. meaning they can also be precipitated out of water, and leave traces in sediments. Carbonates in Gusev could come from other areas, and were blown in on teh wind, or they could have originated IN Gusev. How will they tell? Well, if the carbonates are found on the surface, they were probably blown in there from afar. Ifthey're found beneath the surface, or under rocks, then they are "Gusevian" for want of a  better word, and were possibly deposited there thru sedimentation processes in an ancient lake. This is obviously going to be one of the mission's major tasks - find carbonates, and find out where the heck they came from. Steve Squyres said "We're going to be chasing carbonates for months..."

It was also announced that JPL will be arranging for schools to send in rocks so they can be compared with rocks studied on Mars, in the "School House Rocks" program.

There was also some very good engineering news, with the announcement that the first stage of the complicated Stand Up process has been completed successfully, and footage was shown of Spirit's front wheels lifting and spreading apart as the rover was raised off the floor of the lander. The airbags still stubbornly refuse to budeg, however, so it looks like Spirit will now turn 120 degrees to the right, and egress in a different direction. But this won't be a problem, it's all in the plan. It may, however, mean a reassessment of targets during the initial foray into the landscape - Sleepy Hollow might have to wait awhile.

Two more things struck me - Steve Squyres said that they're not exactly sure where they are yet, but he was sure that a "100m wide crater" lies within the rover's range. The hope is clearly that Spirit will drive there and be able to look at sub-surface material exposed by the crater's formation, i.e. carbonate-rich material. His eyes fairly lit up when he was talking about that, and he was very animated too - so animated in fact, that the guy next to him cheekily asked the press not to ask any more questions about craters, as it was "dangerous to be sat next to Steve Squyres when he's talking about them" :-)

Lastly, and inevitably, the panel was asked to respond to today's news story about an imminent pro-space Bush announcement. The silence was DEAFENING, I swear. Stony expressions all around. The only reaction was "We're focussing on our own objectives". Interesting.

More press conferences are scheduled for weekend.

Fascinating stuff, but I want more pictures... 

S

Does anyone know if the airbags surrounding Spirit vented any of their gases quickly after landing, i.e. in bursts, or did they just slowly go down over the course of a few hours, like a balloon with a slow leak?

S

No prob Josh, hope the notes helped you catch up.

I managed to get the pic eventually - no luck with the .tif image at all, maybe my browser doesn't like them or something.

Looking forward to the rest of the Mission Success panorama now... as an amateur rockhound I'm absolutely FASCINATED by the diversity of the rocks in the area.

VERY interesting story running on the BBC this morning... quickly looked for the "correct" Forum to post it in in the Manned Missions section but haven't got time now, so here it is...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3381531.stm

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