Phoenix on Mars

Hi Hort

Good question.

I think the same thing that makes the microchannels at meridiani and they are darker because of biochemical reactions going on in them.

Winston

NASA has blessed us with a 15K image of Mars on sol 87. This image appears to show a dark area similar to the discoloration around the trench. I have no idea the wave length this image is in,

If we could get a Hortification that would be nice.

Fred

The 1/4 size image in reply 362 is an R8 image that was part of this panorama:

Sorry. No magic can be worked on this image.

sol 90 sunrise - beginning of the extended mission:

sol 90-91 animation:

This view seems to be the "look at every sol" target. The 90-91 changes again include a slight change in the location of the tip of the solar cell panel which I noted in an earlier animation.

Since it seems to be repetitive, my guess is it is either a wind driven "flutter" - or perhaps a temperature driven "flexing". I'm sure the Phoenix guys know which.

Er, again, lots of very suggestive shapes to an old fossil collector. ( the old collector - not old fossils: well, actually both. )

sol 90 RAC HDRI of, er, whatever you think you are seeing:

I have given up trying to direct your attention to the multiple, interlinking braided patterns on the surface.

Well, sol 91 is almost done ( 20:40 as I type ) and very few images downloaded today. My guess is the bandwidth was used to send down some interesting TEGA and MECA results -- perhaps including some meaningful AFM views.

version 2 of sol 90 sunrise:

I like this one better. An anti-vignette filter was applied to the individual filters before creating the color picture.

I wonder how NASA will render this picture?

sol 56 view of soil in scoop:

Still catching up...

This image was created from 15 RAC images in an effort to overwhelm the JPGies and brightness clipping.

If you are uncomfortable with the 4x view, just keep backing away from the monitor until you see what you want to see.

Say, is it Labor Day weekend already?

Where is everyone?

More Labor Day Madness:

Sol 96 RAC super 3D of patterned soil in the scoop:

Well, I'm sure there is a perfectly reasonable rock-guy explanation for these patterns.

( I'm looking at you Brian. )

And here is a sol 96 RAC montage of this soil delivery to TEGA:

I sure hope some of that weirdness made it through the screens...

A sidelong glance :

It seems like my role is only to wake up when there is talking about weirdnesses on Mars.

And here it is the new one. Very special indeed. And this is about the key role that I'm following this mission, and the MER mission very closely. Did this tell you about me? Well, I have to admit, I'm only a simple marsaholic. This very special species seems to be very rare on Earth.

Mizar, - a rare species.

Now, back to the topic.

I'm guessing it has to do with static electricity or something similiar. Mars has much laess of an atmosphere than Earth does and less water vapor. Static forces might govern clumping in the dryness of Mars. The dryness, the energetic UV light, there is likely lots of odd static energy.

Hi Rpage,
This is from the bottom of 'stone soup' and once we get some information on the soil constituents then we could probably have a reasonable stab at the cause. But it sure does look like a form of static attraction. The sequence at 369 is interesting as the material has only stuck to the scoop funnel while the sides have retained very little. So the material is sticking together and forming a mechanical blockage, rather than adhering to the scoop itself. I believe they use the rasp vibration to assist the sprinkle of material and I wonder if this has caused some compression of material as it funnels out, assisting it to bond together.

Not sure this classifies as wierd.

The sod thing has always been odd, my guess is freezing, And static Distraction.

Its not only the Dust thats odd, the shapes of some of the conglomerates that seem to form attached to soil layers, these are very bio looking.

I ,made some images trying to see how the soil layers are formed, and they seem to be very disconjointed, small wafers, as compared to large, even layers. as seen in this cross at the edges of the trench.

the lack of any real details of the mission, even though they said they would open up, is agreat saddness. This is even wourse that the rovers by far.

The stain,seens on the right, would be worth putting some time into, along with the odd conclomerate seen in the lower left corner of the trench.

the spoils pile is starting to get some tid bits scattered about, specialy another odd conclomerate.

for anaglyphers

sol 97 early morning animation under the lander:

Er, ring shaped ice balls?

sol 96 WCL hopper animation:

strange soil.

New update at

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/

mentions some kind of problem with
TEGA where the gasses are generated erratically. Could partial combustion be occurring?

sol 97 RAC panorama ( rectified ):

with links to 3D pairs and a RAC RBG color image.

Always looking for new ways to put it together in the faint and waning hope that someone else in the world will bother to actually look at the images.

Horton, re 134

it seems to me that the "balls" are actually of almost random shape.

Nay be a dirt that was splashed on landing.

eS

sol 98 soil on WCL hopper:

No doughnuts for you!

Hey Rpage. Re your reply 371 you seem to be spot on. The clumping, sticky soil is nothing to do with any ice content (stand fast the permafrost ice samples of course). We need another definition of dry to describe the lack of H20 molecules in the overlying regolith. So the static explanation has got to have a high probability.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/release.php?ArticleID=1853

The regolith must be a far more efficient insulator than ever we thought. The only way I can see the air humidity varying if there is no moisture exchange with the regolith as a resevoir is from frost deposition on the surface. We need to keep in mind that the carrying capacity of the Martian air, particularly in the polar regions, is miniscule so high humidity means only microns of frost deposition.

Brian / rpage

Static electrical forces could explain part of the clumping and is probably actually a major component of it. Remember the Gusev dust devil animations that seemed to suggest that electrical discharges were part and parcel of dust devil movement? However, I don't think that static electricity would explain the continual clumping after days of drying out and shaking. Clumping which retained the bio-looking appearance of the SODs.

Winston