Possible Ice II

try these in stereo...sure looks like exposed ice with dirt on it and in it. That ain't ash or sulfur spoils or chalk crust. Get you glasses out!

both left and right images.

Horton>>> add your color!

yt
dx

seeing these images I would conclude that Phoenix is sitting on ice and the thrusters exposed the glossy stuff.

I guess ice all over the universe looks exactly the same as we see and have on Earth!

U

yt
dx

that could be frozen co2 ?

max>>>

another good answer!

yt
dx

okay, it could be a mix of frozen co2 and h20 ice

sol 21 visible / infrared view of the trench:

I will do a time series of the L9ACB infrared images.

Why oh, why have the SSI guys not highlighed the distinctive infrared views of the trench?

I would guess that only a small number of possible Martian minerals ( including water ice ) that have this distinctive "color".

Are they waiting to "see" sublimation / frosting before they announce? They don't want to steal the thunder of the MECA guys?

Mars is weird.

People who study Mars are weirder.

Put a chunk of the white stuff on top of the rover, a dark place, like maybe on top of the solar panel, put a camera on it.

sol 19-21 LA-LB animation:

I have tried to show daily changes in the ice by looking at the differences between the filters LA ( 931 nm ) and LB ( 1002). The two exposures are usually about a minute apart so the lighting differences are minimized.

The basic idea is that a comparison of filter differences would highlight changes in the spectrum -- not just brightness.

As a camera welding tourist just off the bus what I think I see is that something bright was uncovered that faded away in time.

The best candidate is sublimating water ice.

well folks>>>

The NASA/UofA group are burning the hell of what little soil they got in oven 2...Yeah, 6 left to get a few ice grains in one of them if that's what they want to do. They are also watching the 'bright-object' in DODO either disappear through sublimation or turn to stone[tic] one or the other, but it will still be a few days before any details are forthcoming.

I'm with horton on the 'sublimating water- ice' idea. But microbes or squigglies>>>>NAH, nada, never, no chance, no way man

Lets find out what binds the soil together first!...And NO, it ain't not microbes!

They did say the shiny stuff in DODO may be this very thing though,[sublimating water-ice] but won't reveal their hand before the results are in...hey, that's OK! What's a browned-off prof to do?

I'm going back to the Casino! Hell of lot more fun winning free cash then burning the hell out some Martian sand pebbles.[OOOOHH, BTW>> no taxes on the wins in Canada boys] Let me know if any little green men appear to snuff out the oven, that's their land leave it alone!!! LOL

yt
dx

That's the spirit DX.

which casino do you go to, dx? brantford?

max>>

Not visited that one yet, perhaps this weekend while in TO with friends. Its Casino Lac Leamy in Gatineau PQ our fav, across from the Nation's Capital.
Memebrs of, Windsor, Rama, Niagara, Gananoque
Rideau Carleton, Akwesasne and several other racetracks as we travel.
No LV...don't want to go. We are told by our experienced friends that Buffalo NY has one of the best around...may try it. Seneca, I think it was!

yt
dx

sol 20-24 LA filter comparisons:

I made some observational comments in the comments paer of the photo page.

The white areas dimmed over 4 sols - water ice. Lots of soil slumping in the trench.

yes its wery good obserwation .

This exactly looks like ice vaporization , even stones are moving . and the ice in the left down corner realy desappeared .

good point to obserwation is also in this place

Horton, I just read that NASA is confirming that the differences in those images is due to ice evaporating/sublimating:

Bright Chunks At Phoenix Lander's Mars Site Must Have Been Ice.
June 19, 2008 -- Dice-size crumbs of bright material have vanished from inside a trench where they were photographed by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander four days ago, convincing scientists that the material was frozen water that vaporized after digging exposed it.
"It must be ice," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. "These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it's ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can't do that."
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/06_19_pr.php

You may have been the first person to notice this. I think NASA should give you a little acknowledgement.

Bob Clark

Horton, this page suggests your ideas for detecting water in the infrared might work:

The Planetary Society's Mars Analog Blog:
Looking for Water in the Driest Place on Earth.
By Troy Hudson
June 5, 2005
"I’m already getting some great ideas for how I could improve these measurements were I to come back to this field site. For one, I really don’t think this infrared camera is working that well for water detection. Through the camera, I’m essentially seeing a grayscale, low-resolution, pixelated version of what I can see with my eye. Granted, this is a near infrared camera, which looks in the 900 to 1700 nanometer region, while my eye is in the 450 to 770 range. But still, wet soil looks dark. And if it looks like it’s dried up to my eye, that’s how it looks to the camera, too.
"We’d hoped that the strong water absorption feature at 1450 nm would stand out in these images and make the camera see black spots wherever there was water. But the band we’re looking in is too broad, and the filter we were able to obtain prior to leaving is centered at 1480 nm. It’s a moderately wide-band filter, so it still sees some of the effect of the water line, but a narrow filter exactly centered on 1450 would be much better.
"Better still might be a camera that sees in the thermal infrared. Experiments from a few days ago showed me that the soil surface was sensibly colder than the surrounding, unwetted soil far after and visible trace of the water disappeared. It took 40 minutes to come to equilibrium when the soil was in full sun."
[link]

Bob Clark

Bob Clark

Re. your link in reply #16, this may also be telling us something about Spirit and Opportunity instruments being unable to detect current water. My eyes told me and others that water had been there in several images but the instruments couldn't detect it. So obviously it had to be very fine fines that looked like water effects.

Its slowly unravelling.

I believe my instincts were right about phoenix. Don't be surprised if it finds strong signs of not only ice but water brines and life as well.

Winston

[link]

run this disappearing trick!

yt
dx

3D sol 20-24 animation of the shadow area:

Sorry if you can't do crossed-eye side by side 3D...

I did this to try to determine what remained of the clumps after sublimation. At lease for the small pieces in better light a fair amount remains with some movement nearby.

Unfortunately even the NASA version of sol 24 has a dropout in the deeper shadows so I'm not convinced the larger pieces completely disappeared.

I have to admit that I am annoyed that I didn't process the shadow area first. I saw immediately that the ice at the top of the trench had decreased in brightness and concentrated on illustrating that change.

Sheesh. Another opportunity to scoop NASA again -- and I missed it. Bummer.

folks >>>

Look at that animation in 18 above. Look at the shadow and estimate about 6 to 10 minutes for the shadow to travel from left to right!

Would you expect sublimation of CO2 in that time period?

What the hell do I know? Where is Henry, he should be here!

yt
dx