Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

Shaun Barrett · 2004-01-25 20:58:57

Thanks, Stephen, and welcome to New Mars!

Super oxides, super schmoxides!!!
Never believed in 'em anyhow ... they were always a red herring to cover up for the negative results of Viking's useless Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer machine, that wouldn't have picked up the existence of organic compounds in a farmyard full of horse sh**!
Besides, the best evidence for life at the Viking landing sites was provided by Dr. Gil Levin's Labeled Release Experiment, and he was originally a sanitary engineer! How would it look if all those card-carrying members of the scientific elite who worked on Viking were upstaged in the search for life by a former sanitary engineer?!!
:;):

Palomar · 2004-01-25 22:13:56

Anyone know when we'll be getting color pics from Opportunity? I haven't seen any yet (I think I've gone through all the nice links provided so far by others here -- thanks!).
--Cindy

[http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=11648]Meridiani Planum *In Color*

*I don't see the above as having been posted previously (but then it's been hard to keep up).

--Cindy

Rxke · 2004-01-25 23:23:20

cindy, bless you! hee hee t's humongeous tiff time again!
*drools*

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-26 03:23:19

Heheh, Cindy, that color picture was available from the first hour after we got pictures down, go to page 15 to see mine and Stu's and others reactions, it was really excellent.

I've been waiting to see if I couldn't see a resun of the NASA press briefing on cspan.org, but to no avail. I'd missed todays/yesterdays (it's late here) briefing. Oh well.

Guess I'll stop rambling for now.

Byron · 2004-01-26 06:17:42

Has anyone seen the Opportunity descent pics of that big crater and the two parallel lines inside it? Ridges of bedrock, perhaps?? Good thing that thing is within driving range of the rover...I want to see what that is...lol...

B

remcook · 2004-01-26 06:42:12

it looks like a bridge!

Arccos · 2004-01-26 06:55:34

According to the descet images: Can anyone identify the crater, in(to? ech, my English ) which Opportunidy landed?

Rxke · 2004-01-26 08:15:58

They don't know that yet, Arccos, but be sure they will pinpoint Opportunity's coordinates within a few sols.

BTW Rem, that was NOT the one i meant, (after all) i saw better versions online (i think JPL) but i was at the academy, didn't get the time to post them there...

(i'll try and find them now...)

Rxke · 2004-01-26 08:17:39

Jpl indeed: [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rover-i … age-9.html]choose your own resolution

... and stand back in awe and amazement.

Rxke · 2004-01-26 09:07:57

Arccos, some answers to your question in this [http://www.astrobio.net/news/article802.html]Astrobio.net article.

The lander is half a mile (800 meters) away from that big crater, so it surely should be possible to visit it, once it exits his 'own' little crater... Steve will do everything to make that happen, I'm sure!

A more technical article: [http://www.msss.com/mer_mission/finding_mer/]msss.com (I think i posted this link already, in another thread, but can't remember where. Still a good read,though.)

remcook · 2004-01-26 10:56:22

rik...check again...the two are identical. Only difference is the brightness. amazing what a little image editing can do, don't you think?

Rxke · 2004-01-26 11:38:24

hmmm... could be, but i'm not sure it's been 'enhanced' The Rovers take different pics from the same settings sometimes, to get the best info out of them, like some of the RAWs are real dark, then there's a lighter one, and then again still lighter. but for the rest they're 200% identical.

If you enhance an underexposed pic, you still have less information than compared to a decent exposed pic.
dunno the bit depth of the original raws, though, if it's only 8 bit, enhancement would do strange things. and judging from the strange oversaturation effects on some RAW pics, it looks not to be 24 bit, that's for sure

EDIT: I did a *quick* enhance/brightness excercise, and i get washed out, flat picture when i try to get the dark one 'right' Proves nothing, though, only that JPL is better at it than me!

EDIT 2: Got better result with ImageJ... It is fairly easy to go from the dark one to the lighter ones without quality loss, so rem: you *are* right, it's the same pic.

(And I'm as good as JPL in image enhancement )

Rxke · 2004-01-26 15:30:24

Spirit's 'nervous breakdown' might be caused to data overload.

Hey, I sympathise with the poor thing, i feel a bit overloaded myself, lately.... [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3431617.stm]BBC News

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-26 15:50:57

BTW, I wanted to point out that the multiple raw images from the Spirit/Opportunity pages are I believe, images from different filters, this is why we often have three of the same image! And it also explains (rather obviously, really) why there are no color images on those raw pages; color images are composites.

In any case, the current panorama is really lovely: [http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA05152]http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA05152

And as I said before, they had the red filters oversaturated, the yellows on the rover no longer look red, etc.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-01-26 20:34:34

The smoothed roundish areas where the airbags impacted the surface look slightly raised in the full resolution jpeg image(?).
If this is really the case (and I admit I'm not 100% sure it is) I'm imagining a possible mechanism for it whereby the ground is porous (spongy) and semi-saturated with brine close to the surface.
Think about walking on the firm but wet sand close to the waterline on a beach. The pressure of your foot causes a drier looking area to form around it and, when you lift your foot, the imprint fills with water which wells up from below.
Visualise a similar process as the heavy probe's airbag first compresses the brine-soaked soil and then releases that pressure. If less-concentrated brine wells up in response to that sudden release of pressure, forming a slurry of dust and sand, it might then freeze-dry on contact with the thin cold martian air, forming a raised muddy looking plateau.

Any opinions on this hypothesis? ???

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-26 22:19:52

Mini-TES would've detected water in those quantities. The spectrometer, certainly. The former we didn't detect anything with Spirit, and I'm not sure if the latter was able to get data down before Spirit fritzed on us. So my inclination is just to wait a bit, I personally don't think so, though.

Just saw the CSPAN replay of the press briefing. Really fun stuff, as usual. I finally got an answer as to why we had a pancam image tonight rather than tomorrow night or day after tomorrow like with Spirit, it seems that they forewent downloading telemetry data. In any case, I was very excited to see these pancam images without having to wait nearly a week like we did with Spirit.

In other news, it seems Spirit's problems with the flash memory are related to the file system and too many files existing at once. Hundreds upon hundreds of garbage files that you really don't need. Try loading up thousands of files on your PC and you'll see that it clogs your PC up, now imagine that the only storage space you have is less than half a gig; obviously you're going to blue screen, and that's what happening here. So they're going to delete these files.

Personally, I see Spirit back on the road within a week. My projections that Opportunity might be the first to get driving far are totally incorrect, I think. Spirit is on a very fast road to recovery.

Rxke · 2004-01-26 23:33:04

but couldn't the H20 sublime almost immediatly thereafter, (airbag impact) so the 'ripples' stay 'permanent' and the moss doesn't see h20

just very wild guess...

'bout Spirit, IIRC with a certain probe, they did exactly that: constantly delete the redundaant stuff: cruising is done? ok, delete the program, won't need it anymore etc..

Stu · 2004-01-26 23:55:50

Just been looking at the latest hi-res image of Opportunity's crater landing site... some fascinating detail near the horizon don't you think Josh? I was *so* wrong about the exposed rock being a wall, it's more like exposed sub-surface slabs, almost like limestone pavement in fact. Reminds me of the rock structures seen on the surface of Venus by the Russian Venera landers actually... Great too to be able to see though a notch in the crater wall to the world beyond...

The "pancakes" are fascinating too, and I really like the brine-saturated ideas being floated here. Liked the recent "hard ice cream" analogy too... maybe the dark spots are choc chips... :;):

By the way, anyone wanting to read a very well-informed and thought-out web blog by a successful Mars writer, Oliver Morton ("Mapping Mars") should check out his website:

[http://mainlymartian.blogs.com/semijournal/]http://mainlymartian.blogs.com/semijournal/

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-27 01:34:23

Yeah Stu, I really can't wait to drive out that way. I mean, wow, we have the potential to see two totally different landscapes with Opportunity. The view from within the crater (and rock outcrops; which would otherwise be unavailable), and the view from outside the crater.

I think we're looking at a potential rock wall still though. Check out the low res pan.

[http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA05138.jpg]http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA05138.jpg

I could be wrong, but the further right (or east?) you go, the more those outcroppings seem to stand up! I sure hope I'm right here. I think so because you can see indications of layering (or at least rock stacking) in the high res pan.

Palomar · 2004-01-27 06:31:34

The "pancakes" are fascinating too, and I really like the brine-saturated ideas being floated here. Liked the recent "hard ice cream" analogy too... maybe the dark spots are choc chips... :;):

*Holy Moly...just when I'm doing really good on cutting out sweets (my sweet tooth is cursing me for its deprivation!), I have to come to New Mars and read about ice cream, pancakes, and chocolate chips...and vanilla (earlier post by Marineris Sauce).

Thanks a lot!

Oh well...it's better than everyone seeing skulls and shark fins and other macabre objects (Rorschach!).

--Cindy :laugh:

Rxke · 2004-01-27 06:51:49

(quick one from school:) did you see the caption on the jpl site? "scientist believe the circular feature near Opp. to be a crater" !
is that the one it almost landed on? (about the size of a pancace, i'd guess, from the polar projection)

Question? What structures do subliming brine leave? You could test that with a vacuum chamber and a pan of mud, water and salt...

brthrjon · 2004-01-27 07:57:38

I'm looking at a MOC picture at [http://www.astrobio.net/news/article802.html]http://www.astrobio.net/news/article802.html of the landing sight and noticing our now familiar large crater, which like all the other craters, including the one were in is dark in the middle and light around the edges.

As I look at this picture, I wonder, what are the things towards the bottom ( south ) which are light in the middle and dark around the edges. On earth I would think these were whitecapped peaks.

Any ideas? Any distance estimates? Will these be on the horizon when we come out of our crater?

Thanks.

remcook · 2004-01-27 12:12:29

nice 3-d image here (if you put your glasses on that is):

[http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … R1_br2.jpg]http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery....br2.jpg

(this is the medium resolution version)

Rxke · 2004-01-27 12:35:32

Did you see that huge thing on the right? I wonder what it is? A monolith?

Seriously.....

what a place to land.... Marvelous. Can it get any better from here?

brthrjon, i think that are craters, actually, with frost (?) in their deepest parts, these *do* exist on Mars, but i didn't know they'd be there, ...

Palomar · 2004-01-27 13:05:26

Did you see that huge thing on the right? I wonder what it is? A monolith?
Seriously.....
what a place to land.... Marvelous. Can it get any better from here?

*Whew! Trying to keep up. Yes, that looked like a Monolith to me too, Rik. :;):

The last I heard/read, JPL controllers were stating it may be a while before Opportunity rolls off its lander (even longer than Spirit's delay), particularly because of the ongoing ailment of Spirit.

Does anyone know about -when- (date) Opportunity might get off the lander? Maybe I missed the answer to that question in all the posts, articles, etc...

(Yes, it can get better from here...especially if, unlike its *twin*, Opportunity doesn't start ailing after a few weeks)

--Cindy

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