Phoenix on Mars

Horton>>>

I'm about done in here until the LAB results are known, what, with all the exo-bones and dead neurotic brain cells laying around on the topsoil its a wonder the heat of Phoenix didn't resurrect someone or something right in front of our noses[tic] our eyes[sic]!!!!!>>>DUUUHH

yt
dx

Looks like just enough ice for a very dry martini. Shaken, not stirred of course.

a lewis>>>

now you're talking coffeeee!

yt
dx

Horton, Thanks for the sweet images!

horton- The RAD idea for the duplicate images was just a quick thought before work. My mars time is very limited so I haven’t had much time to experiment but noticed very quickly things were amiss (or amess if you like). I figured if anybody was at home comparing images it would be you. I have sent an e-mail to the Phoenix team concerning the duplicates. We’ll see if I get a response I guess. How in Ares do they get a Viking image into the mix. Mind Boggling. I sure am glad you are on our team (the public). Thanks for the PDS Reader plug in and your continued devotion to Mars exploration and this forum.

Concerning the white stuff. Sulfate and Gypsum dunes North of Phoenix have been imaged with CRISM link . I wonder just how far these deposits run? If these are found at the dune crests, couldn’t this be an ongoing process in relation to seasonal ice/water/gas cycle? Could we possibly find gypsum or some other hydrous sulfate at the top of the polygon set aside for later study? I have yet to find the CRISM imprint for the Phoenix area (if one exists yet) but it is on the to do list (the big one).

dx- Gypsum is a hydrous calcium sulfate. Milk is a good source of calcium and helps build strong bones. Milk comes from mammals. Therefore the Northern hemisphere of Mars was once (and may still be) inhabited with humans. It is really that easy…

sorry... http://crism.jhuapl.edu/gallery/featuredImage/image.php?gallery_id=2&image_id=138 ... (link) should work here no?

moe>>>

great logic-stuff indeed, LOL, I don't drink milk though but I can see where you're going with it. Anyway, just Martini's please!

The link did not work but http did on a cut and paste.

That 'scoop' of Martian dirt looked big and full and it was a clean cut too, no moisture to speak of, just a clean cut through beach-sand. Looks like the trial was about a few inches in depth.

yt
dx

Hi Hort,

It may seem a bit frustrating where the "scoops" are taking place, I suppose they are feeling their way around, there must have been a fair bit of dust and soil piled up around Pheonix that was pushed out by the thrusters on landing so this may need to be cleared to dig down a bit deeper to reach the ice cap.

As ever great image thanks for those.

Wanted to drop this image from sol 9, from the SSI left side camera, as indication of some of the altered images I am going to be placing on a couple of my topics where I'll keep most of my enlarged or altered images for this mission.
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From the original # 295960579 , also listed as image # 2933, a 64kB original, at 1 to 1 size(same size), processed to show as much of the highlight area as possible, and with a 'solarized' equal upper tone line in black showing the surface texture in the 'blocked' bright highlight are not viewable, this is not a proper source original, and is altered somewhat. Unless the Phoenix team can provide better dynamic range control I'll be releasing images similar when bright ares are not detailed along through the mission.
Hopefully this will aid some of you trained in crystallography and mineralogy to get a better early grip on the minerals and chemistry in this material, as it may yet not even be water ice. Please offer suggestions on the estimated content if you dare, prior to the instrument tests being run. My 'Lander Mystery Items' and 'Arts and Crafts' topics will have additional similar images of smaller items like this one, and, the 'slab' layered bright material highlight textures from the ongoing 'sol' dates as they are presented. I'll be displaying both JPG's and PNG's. PNG below.
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Whereas some find altered images offensive, even when they are informative, I;ll leave most of them off these other topics which other contributors have started. Horton is not being referenced by the explanation, as he is gracious and a very good technician of the originals, but there seems to be some resistance by some others in tolerancing attempts to be informational. I too am finding the obvious 'wash' of 'neurons' and 'blood cells' to be a serious offense to proper science on this blog, and hope that my images do not offend similarly.

I find very little of this material is appearing to have sublimated, the layering is not entirely horizontal, the textures are patterned, and 'pebbled', and the surface exposure to daylight seems to not be eroding the surface preferentially as yet beyond the long term stability of the debris covered sections.
Will we get a dose of adjustment in the concept of rapid sublimating ices in the permafrost, tundra type landscape in the circumpolar north of Mars?

Has the lander leg droplet splatter collection been reduced over the weeks time?

I'll make future entries/pictures here short and readable.

I want all to know that I performed a very careful auto spell check, and proof-read this entry above, and I know see upon posting that there are about ten alterations in the wording, spelling, and punctuation, which I did not perform in my typed entry which was issued from this typed posting page as I typed the contents. Something is underway along the path to publication at the point of posting or reassembly there at the blog- please report to me if you find any similar changes in your own posts. I had similar trouble at EBay and other locations, and found rings of crooks hacking their servers, and issuing real/time interference in the bidding at auctions. 50-70 attacks in a few hundred bidding attempts. There is a connection perhaps.
Please advise if this sounds familiar as I've been through a half dozen computers, to stop any source here. Thanks. Better firewall is in order, but it only affects the machinery here.
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Does this bright material resemble 'dirty ice', as NASA calls the polar bright caps?

This is an additional subject, here an enlarged section of Horton's RA scoop image in color, at 300% size of his original, cropped to show just the dirt 'clump' as it sits in the scoop.
Does this make a patterned object, inherent to itself, and is this a section of the dirt which was dug as it is organized/
This very much resembles the surface rocks embedded in the soil in the RAC photos of the scoop, in that the 'clump' has a series of very well ordered small spheroids' appearing along the bottom, and they may be inverted from proper orientation in the scooping process. The pattern is a little more orderly than the pitted upper side vesicles of some of the rocks, and might indicate a near surface volatilizing of liquids or gases as a thin flow were to be exposed to the low pressure atmosphere, or some under-ice confined glacial layered depth at a prior time, possibly.
Does that seem reasonable to others? Can the formation of 'berries' be seen here in a partial formation, or a surface volatile expression which is cast with late stage fill, perhaps?
Perhaps I just missed the boat on a secret about the small piece of material. Is anyone aware of a story attached to this item of mystery?
I looked at the scoop front end, and see no teeth of round impression producing shapes anywhere.
Would this be a very 'watery' type of flow? That has been suggested many times in prior years research, before the current mission landings, and prior to the discovery of the 'berries'.

Are these northern berry(spheroid) equivalents?
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Is this sedimentary, or a volcanic, even a 'mud volcano' type expression?

A link to a good view of both the rocks with upper surface patterns as possible vesiculated erupted flow, or, an under a under-the-ice-cap flow of pressurized volatile holding material. This eruption of gas/liquid vesicles would form at the contact with an older, cold, and less pressurized solid or atmospheric contact. The vesicles will always be at the lower pressure contact surface, or at the contact along another material. Sometimes the bubble formation is just this deep, sometimes it can extend some depth, inches or feet, into a flow mass.
If another formation process was developing these spheroids along a surface, it would tell a part of the history as we are digging.
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Notice the upper surface of a few of these rocks, with just the same depth of a single textural patterned surface. Can we turn a few of these and discover whether the vesicles are along both surfaces of a very thin flow or precipitation layer?
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RA scoop with textured rocks. Sol 9, I believe.
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Infrared view of disturbed soil near lander:

with a link to 3D view.

What I find interesting is there is not a hint of "yellow" as seen in the infrared of the scoop trench.

Of course, there is even less reason to believe infrared color by Horticolor than the visible spectrum color by Horticolor...

Color by Horticolor :

You must remember this,
A guess is just a guess,
a sky is just a sky.
The fundamental things apply
as time goes by.

We see the yellow Sun as a sodium vapor lamp, in balance, but we are balancing the highlights in our minds, routinely, here on Earth. The process of seeing the differences, is interesting while making Mars look more 'neutral' within the ranges of differing receivers they are using in the cameras, both landers and satellites.
HiRISE images when balanced can have a yellow highlight tint which is 'realistic', but noticeable, in some photos.

I suppose the pattern of the scoop clump I showed is perhaps some shapes on the equipment, perhaps.

Do you have a non-command-line program for the color registration process as yet? A GUI program for the lazy of mind, such as myself?

sol 13 L1..LC of ???:

Not a clue.

This is in the same direction as the problematic TEGA instrument -- but much closer to the center of the lander...

If this were and engineering image then why all the infrared filters?

Again the Mars guys mystify me.

Hmmm. Looks like a missing spring...

But this one is still there...

Say, exactly how many small springs were on the lander???

My guess is NASA will call reference the spring under the lander when they know exactly where it came from. ( There are too many Hoaglands out there looking for "artifacts")

the image in reply 75 had been redone:

I decided that I had the infrared color map backwards.

The logic is as follows: if a spectrum continues increasing or decreasing into the infrared then an infrared image would look similar to the visible spectrum -- if the order of the RGB map was the same order for both.

Visible RGB images have the highest wave number filter in the Red channel and the lowest in the Blue with the middle wave number filter in the Green channel -- so by analagy the infrared false color images should be structured the same way.

Apologies to the 3 or 4 people who already looked at the image.

Here is a 3D infrared of the dig area and here is an animation in the infrared of sol 9-11 changes.

There is a curious infrared "yellow" grain now in the first trench.

Advise me if this is the wrong topic to bring this to, as I can start a scoop contents topic, or take the subject elsewhere.
I 'll watch the lander details you are presenting, as several subjects seem to be slowing the use of the ovens.
This has a high distortion ratio to accuracy in smallest textures, as it is 400% enlargement of the scoop contents, from sol 12, I believe, and is altered to show the possible lander parts or 'artifacts' of a Martian flavor, if not from the lander equipment. Item on the left looks a little like a lander part, but how will we find out if they do not acknowledge the items challenged? How many 'hold-downs' were released explosively?
Did they secretly find these and stop to assess the contents? Have I enlarged inappropriately here? I see the danger of one image and pixellation.
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400% JPG above, altered, and hard to 'read'. 100% quality transfer, but a very poor image as we might expect, especially as this is shadow.
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Same in PNG at 90% quality transfer, still 400% size of the original, #3298, of sol12.

Horton, do you have the capacity to enlarge these with better reliability? Perhaps a three color stack, as in your smaller images?
Should I separate this subject to a topic?

sol 13 RAC 13:37-13:57 RGB-D sequence of ???:

Not a clue.

I have rotated the images 180 degrees in the belief that the sequence is under the lander, since the pointing direction is elevation -45.211 azimuth 211.397.

er, Dana, I regard any magnification over 2X as dangerous -- even with original 12 bit uncompressed data. 4X of 8 bit lossy JPG is folly.

If you must go there, download the full resolution TIFF versions of the images from the Nasa Photojournal site and work with those.

Here is an example mixing the official TIF images with some of my 2X JPG work. ( The first and last image were originally full resolution TIF images from the site )

Maybe someday they will post 16 bit TIF versions ( 48 bits color ) of their products.

Yeah - right.