Curious about Curiosity - Page 16

Welcome Luke.

What will happen is you will be directed to the Analyst's Notebook, which does contain all the original data - about 6 to 9 months after it is produced.

For government that is "lightening fast"!

But there is no statement in the FOA act about "real time" access to the data!

So if you want the real deal - including spectral data and other non visual data - and planning notes - and daily goals and observations - and anything else you can imagine about the mission - all you have to do is ... wait a couple of hundred days.

But I am sure "national security" trumps "freedom of information" - so data can be withheld "in the national interest"

So the LGM ( Little Green Moss ) - if discovered - can be classified "super duper secret", and your grandchildren will find out about it in their history downloads to their B-pads ( brain pads ) attached to their brain stems...

world's first(?) color 3D from Mars?:

Combining a Mastcam-34 with a Mastcam-100 can result in a color 3D image 560x400 pixels.

So far, none of the Mastcam-100 images have been in focus. Sure hope the focus control isn't broken!

The acid test will come with the full frame of this image:

sol 0015 toe wiggle and as seen below:

and heel turns:

The arm was also extended for the first time.

The temperature was a balmy 37F around noon. The air pressure peaked at 7.8 millibars.

So... when and where are we gonn'a see this every sol?

STILL no Mastcam-100 focused images posted.

And why do the counts for the images not agree with the actual number of images???

Lots of new Chemcam images - but I'm being contrite and will not post them here.

You can find a few on my Flickr website.

Well, this mean the data stream from MSL is been improving? We'll wait and see what's happen...

[link]

The mismatched stereo is a consequence of the Cameron zoom stereo camera not having made it on board. The two mastcam eyes have different fixed focal lengths, and it seems like the right eye might be permanently out of focus at the calibration target distance. Also one eye has a narrow field of view and the other a wide field, so the resolution may be different between the eyes. Stereo images may require some software correction to match the two eyes.

As far as the counts, it appears from posts on UMSF that there is some error in indexing such that the images have not been all indexed, but it is possible to get to the "hidden" images by modifying the urls of indexed images.

lets hope this data will be published at least monthly trough the mission - best would be in numerical form to feed excel and connect it to interesting observations)!

Temperature:

Pressure:

Thanks for the temperature and pressure data from Curiosity, Horton and MPJ.
Note that the pressure never fell below the 6.1 mbars pressure required for pure water to remain liquid, i.e., not boil off.
Also, eyeballing the temperature graph it looks like surface temperatures remain above 0C for perhaps 3 hours per day.

Bob Clark

Horton, MPJ, Thanks for posting that temperature and pressure data. That air temperature is from about 1.5 m above the ground and the ground temperature is the temperature "brightness" measured remotely, so I guess it corresponds to the very surface of the soil. Its interesting that the soil gets much cooler than the air during the night. This might be good for frost accumulation. There are wind sensors on this rover too, so that will be something new to follow. I'm overwhelmed by the amount of information accumulated about Gale by orbiting craft. I didn't bother to explore it much before the landing. It might be hard for me to keep up with developments, even if they're going to be stingy with the rover pictures this time.

Kye, that is a good point about air temp and ground temp, and frost accumulation. It is also fortuitous that the reverse is true during the day, which might increase the possibility of frost partially liquifying before vaporizing.

The regularity of the pressure curve is interesting. The maximum pressure seems to be in early or mid-morning, which might also be favorable for liquid water. Now what is the humidity? Also, when are we going to "sniff" for methane?

MPJ; The temperatures and pressures so far are as predicted. It therefore seems that there is a strong likelihood that liquid brines could persist near the surface for a few hours diurnally in the spring and summer, which is yet to come.

Even with the new apparent restrictive public image release policy for Curi, it looks as if there might well be some good news for the mars life folks in the near future.

Winston

Winston et al. I think so too: Pressure consistently above the triple point of water and temperatures high enough for water to exist in liquid form almost all day long (brines) and even pure for a few hours a day.
BUT i wouldnt land a probe in something like the Libyan desert to explore water related stuff!

Why for science sake this super-hightech probe - probably the last with some capabilities during our lifetimes - was not send to areas in higher latitudes where everything shouts water - even methane and other life related tracer gases like Mawrth Vallis.

Ok enough ranting: lets have a close look in Gale anyways - even the hottest deserts on Earth are full of (micro-)life.

Soemthing interesting to compare: Temperature readings in Beacon Valley during antarctic summer:

Lets see how the temperature plot in Gale Crater develops trough the Martian year

another view of the sol 15 wheel wiggle:

I was so annoyed by the official images ( the underexposed ones taken at midnight and printed on contrast number 5 paper ( do photographers even do that anymore? ( I did. ) ) ) that I processed my own - and was rewarded by the amusing discovery of several small rocks dancing about during the animation.

If you are as bored as I was when I did this you might also be amused.

Test

Horton, great catch! Maybe due to the 25m/s wind there? The ground seems quite firm, maybe some kind of cemented brine?

Forget the 25m/s, I misunderstood that. It was an example mentioned in this teleconference:

[link]

And...

We're off!

Can anyone interpret this graph from Curi below? Is the blue line results from an absolutely dry test without bound or other water? If so what is the red line showing?

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4506

Winston

Also, If the blue line represents a zero H control does the red line represent a measurable presence of H in the Gale crater soil? It would seem that if so the interpretion that is being given us, before any real analysis is done, is that the H represents bound water on salts. Do we know if there is any appreciable salt content there at present? If there isn't would the interpretation be that the indications for H are erroneous?

Need an expert. Could someone contact Serpens?

Winston

At the press conference, it was said that chemcam detected H at the surface of the target. There was also a spike for C, but that was attributed to CO2 in the atmosphere.