Spirit - Still Alive - volume 2 - Page 2

MPJ I do not believe it is constantly around 7 mbar and air pressure is changing all the time but your right we need more data I am simply trying to imagine what processes could be going on. I don't think these are Ice Needles but Peles Hair and Peles Tears can be seen in some oval shaped rocks in Horts reply 10. A feeling or a thought is not science I know but based other things we have seen I keep being reminded of a day on a beach where the sand on the top is dry as can be but dig down a bit and it just gets wetter and wetter.

Maybe we should let Spirit have a holiday and build a few Sand Castles!

sol 2028 ( Sep 16, 2009 ) "rock doily":

Radial symmetry like this always triggers my "stop and look closer" circuits.

Looks like a partially buried Meteorite maybe a fragment from Rock Island we should take a look.

Horton, re your 18, Thanks, Yes Please to your offer of a binocular hazcam animation of the trench.

I've been going back through your flickr collection and I've found a 3D color pancam you made of the bad wheel drag track from sol 1987, Aug 6. I think that I got the idea about talus-like sorting from those images. There is a distinct dark blue band and a less distinct coarse light band paralleling the base of the slope of the big long soil pile that has been pushed up by the bad wheel. These bands were not clear in the earliest images of this feature.

3D Hazcam views of Troy. Clink on the slideshow link to watch the changes in the trench.

Images of the trench obscured by the arm or half-size images are not included.

Horton, Thanks very much for the 3D Hazcam views of Troy. I've stepped through the animation a number of times and made these observations:
The dark band across the near side of Rat-press Hill first appears at about frame 14 and after that is visible in every frame, slowly darkening overall to the end of the sequence.
The new dark bands further in the foreground that are frequently shadowed by the rover seem to appear and darken at about the same time as the band on Rat-press Hill. The second to last frame of your animation shows these really clearly because they are not shadowed.
With the 3D info it seems that all three bands cross slopes roughly horizontally like the contour lines on a topographical map but they all seem to be well up on the slopes rather than at the slope bases. Together they almost surround a depression.

The image linked in reply 0 of this thread shows part of the dark band on Rat-press Hill in the lower left corner. This is a pretty high contrast feature to have appeared from nothing. If the change that made it appear is a chemical process this would be very interesting. Even if the process is mostly a mechanical one like talus sorting it would still be interesting.

Fact: Mars is a planet with a lot of water and a lot of salt.

The water is mostly ice and vapor. Salt can cause ice to melt through freezing-point depression. Salt can concentrate water vapor as liquid through deliquescence. Both phenomena should happen under current Mars conditions.

I'm proposing that on Mars, in some way related to deliqescence and freezing-point depression, water and salt "attract" each other. Somehow they help each other to concentrate in deposits of hydrated water-soluble minerals. Water is very mobile as vapor in the atmosphere and salts are mobile as dust in the atmosphere, so any location on the surface has a very large supply of both in the long run.

sol 2028 ( Sep 16, 2009 ) infrared / visible of another peculiar rock:

Perhaps related to this one?

sol 1994 ( Aug 12, 2009 ) dust devil animation:

I wonder if this one could have been visible to MRO HiRise?

This one pancam image has a good selection of the type of "markings" that are appearing all over the disturbed areas around Spirit:

The wide rough dark band (turns a 70 degree angle)in the lower left of the image was not present at all when the rover disturbance ended. Horton's hazcam series (reply 25)shows it fading-in from nothing over time. Another newly clear feature in this image is a long thin dark band paralleling the edge of the main trench, upper left corner.

I thought it would be difficult, because of lighting changes and other complications, to tell if colors had changed in the disturbed material over time. I wasn't expecting forms to appear. They make it really easy to say with confidence that colors have changed, but these changes are perhaps not the type of process that I expected. It may be mechanical rather than chemical. Whatever they are, the color changes are really surprisingly, interestingly obvious.

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Whatever they are, the color changes are really surprisingly, interestingly obvious.
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Darn near Spooky,way I see it.
So we know its wet and salty and cold,
somewhat sticky,with less atmospheric pressure and less gravity.
Something alien could live here,
I don't know if we would recognize it or not.
Gut instinct says HELL YES.
Joe in Texas

sol 2044 ( Oct 3, 2009 ) MI animation under the rover:

looks like the pointed rock is touching the rover. This is not good.

If that pointed rock can't be forced downward some way , my guess is that spirit
will be here a long time.

I think Spirit is about to become a lander and with another winter coming soon and no chance of reaching a safe haven her days will come to an end. The NASA guys are trying everything they can to devise an escape however it is clear if that goes wrong it's game over, it is not looking good. If they pull it off even I will crack open some Champagne.

Even if it becomes a lander and shut down due to low power in winter, will it wake up in spring when there is enough power again (eg some Phoenix like Lazarus mode)?

I hope they either succeed in getting him out there in time or keep using it as lander.

True MPJ but you need some power to awaken Spirit in the Lazarus mode and if the panels do not get sufficient light the batteries could drain completely. Is the heating system stuck on as well? That used to be switched off during previous power saving situations but you can only do so for so long before it needs to be switched back on otherwise the extreme cold drains the batteries completely. NASA plan to get out of Troy and head for a winter haven.

Ben. Reference your post 33, I don't think it is a pointed rock. Rather because of the positional limitation of the MI we are seeing one side of a block. That is, I believe that there is a ridge running towards the rear of the Rover. I think this is why they have indicated that the probable approach will to be to crab sideways uphill, towards firmer ground away from the silt filled hollow, pushing rather than pulling the dead wheel.

Tendrils?

sol 2044 ( Oct 3, 2009 ) MI closeup of Barsoomer's "tendril rock":

with 3D and location links.

Lots of short fibers visible in the 3D link.

I think they are in the blue-grey whispy areas on the rock in the location 3D.

Not a clue what they are. The APXS results should be interesting.

Horton, your 3-D image is fascinating. The lower one third has a similar lumpy appearance to the upper two thirds except that it seems to have an overlay of darker material consisting of a large number of very tiny individual pieces.