Possible Ice II

I still pretty much doubt those ice specks.

They must release the tiffs, if the conclusion about ice were trusted.

The compared pictures have different contrast.

Not that it matters, but where are the other crumps of ice?

e s

Dx, is it confirmed that there is paint on the lander legs?

Bob Clark

Robert Clark>>

I have been searching for any data on this issue, but nothing yet. I will email Patrick Woida for any info on the legs and place it here.

yt
dx

sol 39 Frost?:

I noticed this when I finally got around to the sol 39 July 4 3D of the deck.

Anyone else see it?

Is that an optical illusion from sunlight or is that ice?
What time of day is this...early morning or evening?

rpage, sorry it took so long to reply...

OK, I looked up some stuff for the "frost" picture:

The azimuth pointing for the R1 exposure in picture was 275.322 ( a little north of West). The local time for the R1 exposure was 10:30:13 and the sun was at 94.2293 -- a little south of East. The RA, RB and RC exposures used to color the R1 picture were taken a few minutes earlier: from 10:27:21 to 10:29:15.

What this all means is that the soil had been in the shadow of the MECA instrument for maybe 1/2 hour -- but it looks like it was may have been in the TEGA shadow for hours before that.

The geometry is only half the battle.

How quickly would soil sitting on the lander deck cool? How far away is a convenient source of water vapor? ( Oh, yeah. Right. Just a few meters away under the lander. )

But why freeze on just the soil and not the deck? ( Maye it is a tad warmer? )

I noticed that some parts of the wires in shadow also appear brighter too.

This is one of those times when some actual radiometrically calibrated, lossless, full 12 bit images would come in handy.

Er, NASA / JPL / UA Phoenix guys, any help on this one?

sol 41 RAC view of "white stuff" on deck:

er, what?!

I hope there is a companion 3D image posted later tonight. Right now I gott'a get some sleep.

sol 41 - 30 3D of soil on deck:

Sigh. Not frost. The white areas are the deck. This is an interesting example of a foreground / background illusion.

This is why I insist that if it isn't in 3D is isn't "real".

Once you sort out the highlight / shadows there are some interesting small white "beads on a string" amid the dark soil -- but what I was seeing as the white "figures" in reply 47 was in fact the white background...

Move on, move on. Nothing to see here...

And finally, beating this poor horse to death, here is a sol 41 animation of the lighting changes to the deck. Now I can go work on some of the other sol 41 stuff.

I just read the latest "update" and am more mystified than ever. It seems the team doesn't know how to get a sample of the ice into the scoop. Well, I guess they never practiced that activity during pre flight testing. There is lots of ice available here on earth and they could have lowered the temperature of the ice to match that expected on Mars. This is a disgrace. And what about the other instruments? It would appear they are not being used at all.

I read the update as well, and it seems they are surprised that scooping the -80c ice, and delivering it to the instruments is not real easy.

em>"It's like trying to pick up dust with a dustpan, but without a broom," said Richard Volpe, an engineer from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., on Phoenix's Robotic Arm team.

Was this operation not tested? Than they should have realised they needed a broom.

this is incredibly slow process that is described in the update.

Well, I must have already had used to the slow motion thinking about MER data

sol 44 super 3D of icy soil in scoop?:

I think the little datk spots are where the ice has sublimated in the scoop.

@ #53 Hort, that is very plausible, I really hope they figure out how to deliver those samples to the TEGA. I'm a bit pessimistic, after the earlier TEGA sample delivery adventures. But I hope they will manage!

sol 8-44 animation of changes uder Phoenix:

For those of you who doubted, notice the changes -- including the almost complete disappearance of one chunk.

Er, say, what's that circular feature that is emerging in the largest exposed block?

horton>>>

..er...fossil?

yt
dx
lol

animation of sol 6, 31, 44 changes in the shadows under the lander:

Definitely not lighting.

Although most of the changes happened between 8 and 31, there were additional changes between 31 and 44.

Some blobs got bigger, some smaller, some changed shape.

Is "real".

And finally,

a sol 21-44 super 3D animation comparison of changes to the ice under the lander:

Those dark cracks in the ice are interesting.

The 3D comparison is only an "eyeball" alignment in StereoPhoto Maker. If anyone is interested I will an imagej turboreg registration.

horton>>>

Let me guess your 58. The image on the left is the latest with the ice hole expanding due to sublimation, therefore more dirt is exposed and the right one snapped at first landing contact?

Dark cracks = exposed dark dirty ice cracks!

yt
dx

I know that comparisons to earth phenomena is not the best thing, but I have seen so called "sun cups" around 14,000 feet in the sierras. I was told they formed that way due to melting and sublimation of the ice at that high altitude. Perhaps there is a similar effect on Mars.