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Stephen

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Registered: 2004-01-16

Posts: 68

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

Now that Oppy's spending time examining its heat shield and that meteorite, I wonder if they're -still- considering undertaking the proposed trek to Victoria Crater?  Didn't Dr. Squyers indicate going to VC might be out of the question a few months ago (before the meteorite was found)?

Yes and no. What he said was he was not sure if the rover could make it through the etched terrain to get to Victoria crater. Since no one knows for certain what the etched terrain will be like on the ground, it could well turn out to be badlands-like terrain that might be impassable to the rover.

After leaving the heat shield the rover's initial target will be to go a crater-like feature due south they've dubbed Vostok, zig-zagging between craterlets (and doubtless any of the so-called "cobbles" they may spot) along the way. Victoria crater is still a target. It's simply a more distant one that they will try to get to if they can.

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Stephen

Shaun Barrett

Member

From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Registered: 2001-12-28

Posts: 2,843

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

Stephen:-

What he said was he was not sure if the rover could make it through the etched terrain to get to Victoria crater.

    Natural caution - maybe not wanting to promise too much.(IMO)
    When I see what Spirit has managed, much of it with a crippled wheel, I have high hopes for Opportunity. Go get 'em Oppy!   

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The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/3d/]Gallery:  All 3D images of Mars from both MERs

*Thought I'd toss this in here.  Lots of folks have posted individual 3D images throughout the S & O threads.  This is a compilation of all.  Now that I've got a pair of 3D glasses thanks to a friend's kind sharing, I'm having a hey old time. 

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

*Oppy is on the move again.    Spent 25 Sols at the meteorite and heat shield (Oppy took microscopic images of the heat shield, with its dust cover open), and now is headed on a "long migration" south (Victoria Crater here we come...); its first stop along the way will be a small crater named "Argo," which is aprox 984 feet away from heat shield area.  I've always liked that name, "Argo."  Solar power is more stable now that dust storms in the area seem to be settling down.

Spirit still studying "Peace" and has driven aprox 66 feet (-!) closer to the top of "Cumberland Ridge."  Possible dust storm(s) in the area.  Spirit is healthy though.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.htm … 282]Update article

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

djellison

Member

From: Leicester,UK

Registered: 2004-08-31

Posts: 113

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

They've left argo behind already - wizzed straight past with approx 390m of driving from the heatshield

Doug

Palomar

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From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

They've left argo behind already - wizzed straight past with approx 390m of driving from the heatshield

Doug

*Gee whiz.  ???  And that article was posted new to spaceref.com just this morning.  :hm:  I also checked the NASA/JPL homepage for new info just the day before last.

Huh, well...

go Oppy!  :laugh:

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05l.html]RAT going at it

*Spirit hard at work on "Peace" rock.  Scientists have thrown the entire science equipment payload on Spirit at "Peace."  RAT has drilled to 40 mm on "Peace"; that's the deepest hole it's yet drilled on Mars. 

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05m.html]*Oppy does a rover-trenching dance

You put your right wheel in and take your left wheel out, then shake it all about...  :laugh:  (Okay, so I can't remember the exact words to the old rollerskating tune).

They say Oppy had to trench through a dune ripple crest.  Apparently this involved moving, scuffing (dragging front wheels backwards many times), finally trenching in the sand.  It was then in "good orientation for later communications."

Examined "Strange Rock."  Is continuing south. 

Oppy has broken the distance-driving record; in fact, has broken its own 1-Sol distance record twice:

After a directed drive of 90 meters (295 feet), the rover turned 180 degrees and continued in auto-navigation mode, resulting in an impressive 156.55-meter (513.6-foot) traverse. That is a new record for a single sol of driving on Mars.

Interesting:

Alternating the rover's drive direction is part of the engineering strategy for maintaining the long-term health of our wheel drives.

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

REB

Banned

From: Houston, Texas

Registered: 2004-04-07

Posts: 555

Website

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … nteresting Pictures From Spirit

It looks like Spirit may be near 'Larry's Lookout'.

Check out these two pictures;

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … PG]Picture 1
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … PG]Picture 2

If you look at the sky in picture 1, you'll see what looks like a star. If you look at picture two, you can see a fainter star.

Line the pictures up so that the landscape matches, then flip between the two pictures and see what happens. To me, it look like the object moved, telling me it could be one of Mars' moons. Cool!

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"Run for it? Running's not a plan! Running's what you do, once a plan fails!"  -Earl Bassett

slinted

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From: San Francisco, CA

Registered: 2004-05-21

Posts: 8

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

To me, it look like the object moved, telling me it could be one of Mars' moons.

The left and right frame should have been taken at the exact same moment as they do have the same timestamp.  It doesn't show up in other left navcam shots, so its not a consistantly bad pixel, though it might have been other mechanical problems (cosmic ray hit) causing one really bright pixel, which after compression spreads out into the fan pattern you can see zooming into it.

alan

InActive

From: Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Registered: 2004-12-09

Posts: 18

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

I beleive this is Larry's Lookout
http://s04.imagehost.org/view.php?image=/1862/first_pnorama-sm.jpg]

Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

*Spirit is in excellent health (this is the MER they almost pronounced dead a year ago, shortly after arrival...remember?  Amazing).  Has completed examining a rock named "Alligator."  Batteries are recharged, atmospheric dust is stable again.  Is ready to head for "Cumberland Ridge."

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mer … tml]Update

Hopefully we'll get that image of "Peace" soon.

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

Rxke

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2003-11-03

Posts: 3,669

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

They keep running, don't they? 

Also, nice touch to let oppy run backwards half of the time in order to spare the wheels. Looks like they're learning something new every day, engineering-wise.

*going into optimist mode:* this endeavour shows once again Mars isn't that hostile to hardware, the Vikings survived a looooong time, too. If only the weight-constraints, launchwise weren't so bad, we could start building stuff to last for years upon years upon years, heehee!

*going into normal (semi-depressed) mode again:* If only the agencies got their act together... Scrap the shuttle! Scrap ISS! Scrap Hubble! Zubrin for President! (oh, wait... he was against trashing Hubble, errrr...)  :;): 

Stephen

Member

Registered: 2004-01-16

Posts: 68

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

I beleive this is Larry's Lookout

Then I guess that must be Tennessee Valley we can see peeking over the ridge crest at the bottom of the following pair of navcam images, one from Sol 390 & the other from 392.

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Stephen

Shaun Barrett

Member

From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Registered: 2001-12-28

Posts: 2,843

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

I just noticed a couple of interesting 'microscopic' pictures from Spirit.

    The first is from Sol 376:-

    It was the light-coloured object in the top half of the picture which caught my eye. It looks a little like a fossilized clump of asparagus stems to me!
    I know crystals can grow into shapes remarkably like biological forms, so we can't possibly know what this thing really is unless we send people there to pick it up and examine it. But I thought you might like to see it, if you haven't already.   

    This 'microscopic' shot was taken on Sol 386:-

    At first glance, I thought for a moment that the "ceiling rose" near the middle of the picture looked like a fossilized plant or coral, or something along those lines.
    Almost immediately, though, I realized it's just an artifact of Spirit's rotary brush.
    But it had me going there for a second!!      

    Just going back to the first photo - does anyone have any thoughts about the "asparagus stems"?  While you think it over, put it in the context of the infamous "fossilized crinoid" which Spirit found, then RATted, early in its mission.
    The "crinoid" and the "asparagus", considered individually, are easier to dismiss than if you consider them together. Not that I'm suggesting we can't simply dismiss both as no more than interesting curiosities, of course ... because we certainly can and, evidently, we already have!

    But these things do make me think when I see them, and I still wonder sometimes whether we could be cheerfully rolling past whole fossil beds on Mars without even realizing it. The potential irony of it is almost unbearable to contemplate, isn't it?!    :bars:

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The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

REB

Banned

From: Houston, Texas

Registered: 2004-04-07

Posts: 555

Website

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

Shawn, my first impression of the first picture is that it is a crystal, which is actually a rather exciting find, if true. To my knowledge, we have not seen any crystals on Mars, certainly none this large. It looks sort of like a cluster of corundum crystals.

Examples
http://www.crystalsandjewelry.com/carvi … .html]here, http://www.gggems.com/Madagascan_corundum.htm]here and http://csmres.jmu.edu/geollab/Fichter/M … .html]here.

Ruby and sapphires from Mars? Those would be some valuable gemstones.

Or possibly a cluster of http://njminerals.org/tremolite.html]tremolite crystals?

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"Run for it? Running's not a plan! Running's what you do, once a plan fails!"  -Earl Bassett

REB

Banned

From: Houston, Texas

Registered: 2004-04-07

Posts: 555

Website

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

http://njminerals.org/tremolite.html]Here is the tremolite link

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"Run for it? Running's not a plan! Running's what you do, once a plan fails!"  -Earl Bassett

Shaun Barrett

Member

From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Registered: 2001-12-28

Posts: 2,843

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

Thanks for the links, REB.  :up:
    I wish we could just phone Dr. Squyres occasionally and run some of these pictures past him for a comment!
    I get a little frustrated that we're not getting any expert-opinion-feedback on stuff like this any more - no press announcements or science summaries etc. All we get is a stream of photographs, which is great, of course, but no information to help put it all into perspective.
    I guess we'll have to wait many months before the first books and papers emerge out of all this data(?).   ???   

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The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

Shaun Barrett

Member

From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Registered: 2001-12-28

Posts: 2,843

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

Correction.
    In my post about the 'asparagus stems', I compared them to the 'crinoid' fossil discovered last year. Unfortunately, I attributed that discovery to Spirit during its Sol 33 'microscopic' investigations.
    In fact, the 'crinoid' was found by Opportunity in the course of its Sol 34 activities.

    I've found the full picture of that 'crinoid', with blueberries nearby for size-comparison, and I thought I'd paste it here as part of this correction:-

    Still looks suspiciously like biological remains to me - the cylindrical segments neatly arranged, the bifurcating segment on top ...
    Hmmm.  ???    :;):

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The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

Stephen

Member

Registered: 2004-01-16

Posts: 68

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

Dunno whether this has been mentioned yet on this forum, but Jim Bell is apparently writing a "pictorial history of the rover missions", to be published some time later this year, called "Postcards from Mars".

There is a mention of it on his resume at a Cornell website http://marswatch.tn.cornell.edu/resume.html]here.

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Stephen

atomoid

Member

From: Santa Cruz, CA

Registered: 2004-02-13

Posts: 252

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

Just read an interesting article that mentions a novel (to me at least) interpretation of all that termite-eaten petrified-wood-like corregated cubby-hole micro-encrusted pock-rock so prevalent at the Opportunity (and Spirit) sites. This had me mystified, and although it surely still does, i like this interpretation, it makes a lot of simple sense that i hadnt considered... to quote:

In imagining the texture of the rocks found by the Opportunity rover, the mission team has compared them to spongy sandstone. They are pockmarked, porous, dried and cracked. The voids and holes in these spongy rocks may have arisen from repeated cycles of evaporation to harden the surfaces followed by a washing away to dissolve the more soluble interior portions.
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.ph … ...thold=0

yeah, so condensation from frost absorbs in and then evaporates back out, weakening it ever so slightly etching away at the powdery rock, slowly eating away widening voids over the eons leaving hard mineralization rinds on parts that dont erode as fast, hmmm very simple. now how come i didnt think of that?

Gosh, its been a while since ive checked these forums and, looking back through the threads, its nice to see such unwavering attention by all you enthusiasts in that neverending search to peel away at Mars' secrets. its been months since ive written anything to these forums (quality time will a software job take away, not that im not glad to finally be employed again though...) so thanks for keeping the light on!

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"I think it would be a good idea". - [url=http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Mahatma_Gandhi/]Mahatma Gandhi[/url], when asked what he thought of Western civilization.

Rxke

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2003-11-03

Posts: 3,669

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

*off-topic:*
Good to see you back, Atomoid! Be sure  to check the "you're a first settler on Mars," errr... fiction thread, the mysterious wabbits play a big role in them, at the end! 

'bout the erosion, weird eh? more erosion by water than by atmosphere, even when the land is very dry... Geologists must be having the time of their life, trying to piece the stuff together.

Yang Liwei Rocket

Member

Registered: 2004-03-03

Posts: 993

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

I like these pics

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit … ...0M1.JPG

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opport … ...1M1.JPG

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'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

Well I went to post about a favorite subject of Viod and to my amazement I located 8 topics about yes Spirit & Opportunity which are from the old software which is making them unreadable....

I have lots of work to do to fix all of them....

Curiosity’s study of Martian sands halted due to anomaly

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Opportunity & Spirit **8** - ...More...

Just now finished making the edit of 223 posts with only 1 not being able to change....
Happy reading...