On to Vostok - Page 4

Tacitus · #91 (**permalink**) 07-March-2005, 10:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ToSeek

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tacitus

Is there anything to show that the etched terrain will be any more visually stimulating that the plain Op. is already on? I've been trying to find a good hires orbital close-up of the etched terrain the rover will be crossing - can someone provide a link?

Two cPROTO images of the area from MGS - this is about as good as it gets

The first one shows just the edge of Victoria in the lower left corner. The second one has Endurance in the upper right corner.

Thanks - that's great. I had found the first image you posted, but not these two.

I guess it remains to be seen (seeked?) how much the etching translates to interesting topographical terrain. After all, what if the etching is just a result of less dirt overlying the flat bedrock?

Tacitus · #92 (**permalink**) 07-March-2005, 10:03 PM

Well, I see from the more southerly photo that the terrain does appear to get more interesting - but we're not even half-way to that stuff yet!

01101001 · #93 (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 08:33 AM

Are we there yet?

R.A.F. · #94 (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 12:31 PM

I was thinking that it couldn't possibly be Vostok...too eroded. I took another look at the "road map" and now I'm not so sure.

Alpha_Tauri · #95 (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 01101001

Are we there yet?

Yes, but it doesn't look too spectacular - yet. Just some more of the light evaporitic unit exposed around the rim.

Roll on the etched terrain :wink:

Alpha_Tauri · #96 (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonClarke

I used to post at Mark Cary's board quite a bit. Unfortunately, as pointed out, the signal to noise ratio is staggeringly high. .... So I pulled the pin.
Jon

Ditto.

The sad part is that there were some very worthwhile discussions on the Geology section until it got taken over by Yahoos.

"Pray bring to your mind how often I desired you to consider, when you insisted on the motive of public good, that the YAHOOS were a species of animals utterly incapable of amendment by precept or example" - Jonathon Swift

lyford · #97 (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alpha_Tauri

Quote:

Originally Posted by 01101001

Are we there yet?

Yes, but it doesn't look too spectacular - yet. Just some more of the light evaporitic unit exposed around the rim.

Roll on the etched terrain :wink:

I hope the etched terrain isn't as flat as Vostok - its shading looks superficially similiar in the orbital pix.... Does anyone have info on the topography of the etched area? I couldn't locate any through a quick search of my usual suspects... Steep? Flat? Scary?

My amateur guess is that it's exposed outcrop, terraced slightly, with cool aeolian erosion features...

ToSeek · #98 (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 06:36 PM

The flatter the etched terrain is, the better the odds of Opportunity's making it to Victoria!

lyford · #99 (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 09:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ToSeek

The flatter the etched terrain is, the better the odds of Opportunity's making it to Victoria!

I agree, but I wouldn't mind seeing a little vertical variety, if only for aesthetic reasons... Kinda like (but not as extreme as...) Vasquez Rocks, home of Kirk and the Gorn and many others....

Here's a ground view:

and a 1 meter res sat photo:

Possible? Or dreaming? Or both?

JonClarke · #**100** (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lyford

[My amateur guess is that it's exposed outcrop, terraced slightly, with cool aeolian erosion features...

I think is this quite likely, and will be quite smooth to boot, at least as the large to medium scale. ther might be some very interesting small scale etching textures. What I will look forward to is whether the reason it is bare of haematite is because there is no haematite in the substrate or because the haematite granules have been swept clear by strong aeolian action.

Cheers

Jon

lyford · #**101** (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonClarke

What I will look forward to is whether the reason it is bare of haematite is because there is no haematite in the substrate or because the haematite granules have been swept clear by strong aeolian action.

Yes, I was thinking this as well - whether all the blueberries were blown in from this area - an analysis of the ripple features determined the wind direction to be either from the northwest or southeast. Southeast would work...

Quote:

On a larger scale, they charted the geographic alignment of sand dunes in images from the rover's panoramic cameras. In close-up images, they measured the direction of wind tails - the flaring out of bedrock material protected in the wind shadow behind a spherule protruding from a rock surface, similar to the wake of seawater that forms behind a moving boat. From such directional clues, they determined that the predominant winds blew from either the northwest or southeast.

ToSeek · #**102** (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 10:40 PM

Looking back at Endurance and the heat shield

Nicolas · #**103** (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 11:04 PM

Edit: is the heatshield the white dot in the distance, and that small outcrop the edge of endurance?

lyford · #**104** (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 11:08 PM

Hey - is that Vostok already BEHIND us????????

Ps - that dot should be the heat shield, and Endurance behind it...

BigJim · #**105** (**permalink**) 08-March-2005, 11:20 PM

Everybody seems disappointed with Vostok... I think it looks pretty cool. We haven't seen any craters yet from the ground eroded nearly as much as Vostok. I'd like to see Opportunity drive into the center and take a panorama from there.

ToSeek · #**106** (**permalink**) 09-March-2005, 01:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nicolas

Edit: is the heatshield the white dot in the distance, and that small outcrop the edge of endurance?

That's what I'm thinking. It's in the right direction, so far as I can tell.

ToSeek · #**107** (**permalink**) 09-March-2005, 03:15 PM

We have arrived!

ToSeek · #**108** (**permalink**) 09-March-2005, 05:53 PM

Mars rover goes its own way despite concerns

Quote:

The Mars rover Opportunity reached the rim of a small crater called Vostok, early on Wednesday morning, having completed a series of record-breaking autonomous drives over the last month. Of the 3400-plus metres it has covered since landing in January 2004, it "sprinted" across more than 1000 m in the last month alone.

For the engineering team, the most significant part of this speedy trek was a three sol - Martian day - drive by the rover under its own control, using newly-upgraded mobility software which improves its ability to make autonomous decisions when navigating around obstacles.

The rover drove for 390 metres, of which only the first 105 m were pre-planned. The rest of the journey - averaging almost 100 m per sol - were controlled by the rover's newly upgraded brain, allowing it to pick its own path around the obstacles it encountered.