Phoenix on Mars

Hi Hort

Do you know if the scoop scraped the trench between sol 19 and 20? If it did'nt the changes are quite remarkable.

Here's a crop of the area of the "bright clump" from sol 19.

It has a somewhat organic look, but it might indeed be a rock.

Did the scoop break it up between sol 19 and 20? It wasn't there on sol 18. Did the Scoop uncover it between sol 18 and 19?

Was it really broken up into separate pieces between sol 19 and 20?

The area needs some more investigation

Winston

Winston, see reply 159-160.

Yes, there was more digging on sol 20. I think the white clump was broken and scattered in the shadowed lower left area of the trench. I think the three scoop tracks were labelled Momma, Poppa and Baby Bear -- but I don't remember ( or care ) which is which.

Hopefully some RAC 3D images were made of the white clump before it was destroyed. I will check later today to see if there are any new sol 20 images.

HI HOrt

Thanks!

Here's a composite of the sol 20 image of the scoop area with the shadows reduced. There seems to be three pieces left but the pieces together seem to be somewhat larger than the original thingie.

This glyph gives some indication of the spatial arrangement of the sol 19 thingie/s. It seems to be in a hollow and, if you look closely, it seems to be made up of a twirling mass of clear filaments, spheres, etc, that was also seen in the colour composite in reply 161.

Depending on what the biochemical analyses come up with I think that this area may be quite important.

Winston

sol 20 L12R12 of ice in the trench:

OK, I'm convinced. The scoop scrape marks in the whitest part of the white layer convinces me this is ice.

Here is the full sol 20 L12R12 view of the trench.

A square root brightness stretch was applied in both images.

Even if not one microgram of water has reached TEGA I now believe this is ice based on its hardness and color -- especially in the infrared.

the whitish line at low right can be diffusion front, which means that flowing water was there after the sand was formed and established.

eS

Comprehensive update from the BBC - very much the story so far

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7408033.stm

The ice is not ice as we Know it. I see many Pockets, Round, like hollow ice balls, along with many other features that blur the line between soil and ice.

Lots of spaces for active biology.

sol 21 super 3D under the lander:

As always, best viewed with StereoPhoto Maker and liberal use of the ctrl-A alignment mode.

3D of curious rock:

I don't plan on processing many of the SSI images, but this one caught my attention because of a curious "white line" in one of the voids in shadow in the rock.

Not a clue.

Here's a gif anim from the first trench. You may recall that there was a curious translucent blob with markings that appeared to show spheres and filaments that was seen in the sol 19 image of the trench. That blob was apparently broken up by retrenching in sol 20 leaving at least 3 remnants in the left shadowed side of the trench.

This gif shows the images of the trench for sols 22 and 24 with the shadows reduced by 50% to allow us to see in the shadows. The 3 remnants are there in the sol 20 image but have completely disappeared in the sol 24 image.

http://LWS.smugmug.com/photos/316292012_EUbYB-X3.gif

Because the magnification and resolution of the images are not particularly good it is impossible to say if something within the blobs might have slumped on to the trench surface or not.

In any case, the gif clearly shows the sublimation of the ice in several parts of the image.

Winston

Oops! Anim did'nt show.

Here it should be

http://LWS.smugmug.com/photos/316292012_EUbYB-X3.gif

Winston

Reports of ice on mars are now on MSNBC, see the link below:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25274243/

Thanks Mafesto

Just looked at the msnbc report. I hope they consider the slim possibility that the blob might have not been just ice only.

Here's another try with my gif anim.

Winston Small

Thanks Winston, i see things that dissappear, and thing that pop up also. A very dynamic, high energy situation.

So the ground gets warm enough to melt the ice, yet stays frozen just under the surface. Wow, vaporized h2o, moving, through soil.

Would one be able to see the change of state from ice to gas? Where does the o go?

I wonder, why people behave like finding ice is sooo important, and just ignore the ice lamp under the Lander

HI Mann

Yes! It does appear to be a very hi-energy dynamic situation. We see here now the consistent appearace of those "blobs" in the holes cracks or crevices in the surface layer. I hope that Phoenix can study these environments in much greater depth.

Winston

the msnbc report ways that nasa identified it as water since the "ice" seems to sublime. However, to me it just looks like its getting covered by dirt...

nevermind, there are some spots that seem to sublime.. its too early in the morning

Here are 2 images with two rocks that I would really hope that they would examine as closely as possible.

The first image, one of my Rabc colour composites, shows a smooth, apparently symmetrically shaped rock with an accumulation of soil on one side. The soil looks peculiar, almost like hair, composed of the now familiar small spheres, filaments and other strange shapes.

The other image shows the same rock above in the NASA release, resolution is much higher but it still retains the strangely shaped fuzz like soil adhering to the side of the rock. Not too far from it, in the middle of the pic, is a much smaller pebble with a trail behind it, looking like a small snail or a meridiani berry.

Wonder if the lander caused the movement of the small pebble and the accumulation of the soil on side of the larger rock.

Hope they examine these more thoroughly

Winston

In post 173 above, look at the middle bottom-most portion of the animation, and watch the shadow change and demarcate the "suntan line" that seemingly matches the line of the shadow cast by the sun hitting the upper edge of the left hand side of the trench. It seems that the line in the soil matches that shadow's line almost perfectly and that it caused the "ice" to melt where the sun was and to not melt in the shadow. On other photos of this trench here at http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=7280&cID=92 we see that suntan line without the shadow -- and I'm not sure how to "look at" it, but you might be able to use it as your reference for helping interpret the above animation.

Theory: I think that it shows that after the trench was dug, the shadow that was immediately present became the suntan line, and the trench's bottom surface had a "negative image" formed -- just as a photographic paper might -- enough so that this line was preserved in the other photos over time.

Note that this line is thick enough to be its own color compared to the color of the substances/surfaces on either side of it. This would be a typical "edge caused by moist area meeting a dry area" that any housewife would be familiar with from having done the family laundry and noting the staining differences seen from dirty areas having gotten partially wet and wicking into the dirty area. A scum line is formed like a bath tube ring that is a combination of the two areas -- like a Venn diagram in mud having its borders made more distinct by a photoshop trick.

I'm prepared to be wrong, but the matching of the shadow's edge to the trench bottom's surface's mottling seems was too "perfect" to be a coincidence and that this tells us that ice melted in the bottom of this trench and partially dissolved compounds there enough to make "chemistry happen."

Unfortunately for this theory, the other reference photos do not show this "edge line" so I'm at a loss as to how to explain it. But there it is for all to see.