On the Road Again - volume 6 - Page 15

Today's planned activities:

4. What EDRs did we request?

Expected EDRs by sequence number and image type:

Sol Seq.Ver ETH ESF EDN EFF ERP Tot Description
----- -------- --- --- --- --- --- ---- -----------
02269 p2444.24 12 0 0 12 2 26 pancam_ripple_3x1_L257R2
02269 p2445.24 38 38 0 0 8 84 pancam_superres_endeavour_rim_2x1_L26R12
02269 p2552.25 1 0 0 1 1 3 pancam_bedrock_LOCO_R1
02269 p2601.04 4 2 0 0 2 8 pancam_tau_L78R48
02269 p2631.01 11 0 0 0 2 13 pancam_sky_spot_L234567R34567
02269 Total 66 40 0 13 15 134

The image sequence for 2267 looked like a drive sequence - but the front hazcam view ( thumbnails only so far ) looks almost identical to the sol 2256 view.

All the recent strange images were taken to diagnose a possible mast assembly actuator problem. See Return to Driving Anticipated

Sure hope the Exploratorium update problem is resolved soon.

sol 2271 ( June 14, 2010 ) R12 ( stamp ) in next drive direction:

Looks like Oppy is headed east at last.

The last Oppy update on Exploratorium is sol 2252 ( May 26, 2010) and sol 2266 ( June 9, 2010 ) on the official MER site.

Today's drive ( sol 2272 ) is now over - but no images posted anywhere yet.

Hi Hort;

Where did you get the sol 2271 images?

Winston

This image (at bottom) seems a little odd. Did Oppy dig this pit or trench, knocking little rocks out of the way? The soil inside looks very dark---almost coal black. What is the shiny object inside the pit?

To see thumbnails of the latest Oppy images:

1. Go To MER Pancam Data Tracking Web Interface

2. Click in the "MER-B" Radio button

3. Click on the "Table of All Images from All Sols" button

4. Click on the brouser "Stop" button after a page or so of image sequence lists.

5. Click on the "Seq.Ver.Iter" link for a selected image.

A list of all images in the sequence that has been downlinked will be shown.

If thumbnails have already been created for an image the thumbnail image will be displayed.

Hope this helps.

Does the stain seem larger now?

Sol 2272 ( June 15, 2010 ) 3D of peculiar rock:

with location link.

sol 2239-2268 ( May 12 - June 11, 2010 ) animation of rover deck:

Looks like the stain has changed shape and gotten smaller. Notice that there is slightly less dust on the solar cells.

Nice animation. Definitely smaller. While the solar panels are indeed less dusty overall, it appears that there is more dust in the vicinity of the stain. So the diminution of the stain is likely due to being partially covered with the reddish dust.

It will be interesting if in the future the dust within the stain clears while the dust immediately surrounding it does not.

Barsoomer; Your interpretation of the changes in the "stain" might indeed be correct but what is intruiging to me is the sharp lines at the edges of the stain. Why did the cleaning event remove those well demarcated areas or alternatively impacted those well shaped dust particles at the edges? I wonder if the stain area is within the work volume of the MI. It seems to me this would be a good area for Oppy to test the MI after several weeks of inaction.

Winston

Er, Winston, the sundial is in the back of the rover...

I believe the sundial is at the rear of the rover deck.

link

I think the sundial is what is called the "calibration target" on page 2 of the above link. It seems unlikely that the rover arm at the front of the rover could reach back far enough to image the rear of the deck.

Thanks Hort and Barsoomer. Just another ill conceived idea.

Winston

Another partial moat around the bedrock.

Bedrock has many cracks. Some appear to traverse disconnected fragments. Are they all dessication cracks, or are some fluent features? (Possibly from flowing dust?)

Unusual small rock near bottom of image.

Barsoomer, re. your reply #295 above, the bedrock or inter crater pavement rock outcrops seems to me to be deserving of more in depth study than they have received so far. Your point about the continuation of cracks across apparently unconnected pieces of pavement is one of the observations that suggest that the current explanations for their provenance may need some work.

Below is a 3D of a somewhat atypical example of pavement rocks from today's releases. Wonder what produced the channels in the nearby "soil". These aren't typical microchannels that form between split rock surfaces, these apparently have no connection with the exposed rock. Could the process of formation of these soil channels be similar to what caused the cracks that you mentioned above?

Winston

sol 2274 ( June 17, 2010 ) L0 3x1 in next drive direction:

Today's drive ( sol 2276 ) should be underway as I type. News at 6.

sol 2222-2268 ( Apr 25-Jun 11, 2010 ) animation of changes to the dark area near the sundial:

Notice that the dark area got smaller on both the near and far sides.

OK, maybe the near side of the stain was perhaps covered with a bit of red dust blown backwards - and some of the "dark stuff" was blown forwards on the far side - and yet another bit of wind blowing sideways moved the small dark grain on the sundial???

Winston, thanks for that other image. My suggestion is that overnight frost on the pavement reacts with the salty pavement substance to create a low-temperature brine that runs off to produce some near-pavement erosion.

Horton, it does seem difficult to invoke wind to explain all the changes. Since the atmospheric opacity is decreasing, there might also be some downfall of dust. Of course, these changes might also be consistent with a biological explanation where the "stain" is dying or becoming dormant, perhaps because of the low winter temperatures.

Several small ridges and depressions in the soil near the bedrock here. How did they form? Are the ridges "mini-ripples"? There is a small bowl-shaped depression that looks interesting.