Posted on 02/24/2004 4:52:19 PM PST by Phil V.
Daily Updates - February 24, 2004
Spirit Status for sol 51 Making Ground posted Feb. 24, 2 pm PST
To inspire a morning "run" on sol 51, which ended at 3:15 p.m. Tuesday, PST, Spirit woke up to Vangelis’ "Chariots of Fire." The rover deployed its arm, took microscopic images of the soil in front of it and then proceeded toward its target, "Middle Ground." Spirit drove 30 meters (98.4 feet), breaking its own record for a single-sol traverse. Along the way, Spirit paused to image rocks on both sides of the drive path with its panoramic camera.
The auto-navigational software that drove the last 12 meters (39.4 feet) of the traverse to the "Middle Ground" target warned Spirit that the slope into the hollow that houses it was too steep (according to parameters set by rover engineers). Spirit then paced along the rim, looking for a safe way down. Unable to locate a secure path into the crater before the sol ended, Spirit ended up facing slightly west of north instead of northeast, as called for by the plan. This orientation will reduce the amount of data the rover can return (due to interference between the UHF antenna and items on the rover equipment deck), but it will be corrected in the coming sols.
As of today, Spirit has moved 183.25 meters (601.21 feet) and is now roughly 135 meters (442.91 feet) from its landing site, Columbia Memorial Station.
The intent for the next several sols will be to drive Spirit into "Middle Ground" and take a full panorama of the surrounding area to identify scientifically interesting rocks.
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Opportunity Status for sol 30 A Beautiful Grind posted Feb. 24, 11:15 am PST
On sol 30, which ended at 2:56 a.m. Tuesday, February 24, Opportunity performed its first rock abrasion tool operation on a rock target known as 'McKittrick Middle Rat' at the El Capitan site inside the crater. The tool shaved the rock over a period of two hours, grinding into a total depth of about 4 millimeters (.16 inches).
The auspicious day began with the song 'Rock'n Me' by Steve Miller and some miniature thermal emission spectrometer sky surveys and sky stares to study the atmosphere. After completing these activities, Opportunity took a short siesta to recharge its batteries. The rover has been doing a lot of science work at night, and the season on Mars is changing to winter, so the rover has less energy to work with than it did earlier in the mission. The martian days are getting shorter and the sun angle is not allowing either rover to power up the solar panels as much as in the past.
Opportunity woke up from its nap at 11:30 Local Solar Time on Mars to run through the series of commands required to retract the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and close its doors; take several microscopic images of another nearby rock abrasion tool target called 'Guadalupe;' flip the wrist; take a microscopic image of "McKittrick Middle Rat;" and place the rock abrasion tool on its target to run at 13:00 Local Solar Time.
After the abrasion tool was retracted, a series of microscopic images of the scene were taken, and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer was successfully placed into the abrasion tool's hole late in the day.
Some additional panoramic camera, miniature thermal emission spectrometer readings, and hazard avoidance camera imagery was completed through the day.
The plan for sol 31, which will end at 3:36 a.m. Wednesday, February 25, is to continue getting long Moessbauer readings of the rock abrasion tool hole and to prepare the tool for more work again on sol 33 or 34.
That is (according to http://www.udel.edu/dgs/Education/stfossil.html) a squid/octopus/cuttlefish type mollusk? If that type mollusk is around, why not clams, too? Clams (bivalves) are less "advanced", right? (no eyes or "limbs", or mobility to speak of).
IMO (former professional photographer), it's just different lighting. Softer light, lower contrast, actually better real detail, but less observable contrast. Boost the contrast in your image editor, lay on a little unsharp mask, and you will likely see even better visible resolution than yesterday's pictures. (Sadly, I don't have an image editor available at the moment, damn, I hate it when I'm hobbled by a catastrophic hard drive failure.)
Anyway, it looks like there's another one of 'em visible in that shot (I'm speaking of the second photo you posted, BTW). If you look at the upper right quarter of the image, you'll see what looks vaguely like a right arrow, sitting atop an "up caret".
Something like this (roughly speaking):
______\
/
/\
/ \
Now, if you look at the top part of the "head" of the "arrow", you'll ssee what looks like another one of the "whatevers", a bit more curled, sort of like its "fingers" are almost in a circle.
I may have to eat my words, Don Joe...IF it bears out that we are indeed looking at fossil remains.
BTW...what is it with you and clams?
Join the club...there are a few of us nuts here.
Indeed...my brain's been buzzing all day with various hypotheses, not to mention thoughts of how the general public would react given the current political/religious environment.
Heck if I know. When I lived in NYC (decades ago, when a knish was a quarter and a huge slice of real pizza was .15c), I'd go down to the fish market and buy a sack of fresh softshell clams and take 'em home and then gorge myself after steaming them. Can't do that in the midwest. I used to find "river clams" every now and then, maybe ten years ago, but the taste wasn't anything like the real thing. Hardshell clams I can get sometimes, but I don't. They're small, and exhorbitantly priced. The way I worked out to cook 'em was to get big ones, then pressure cook them instead of steaming. Then, I'd take them out of the shells, "butterfly" slice them (or halve them if large enough), dip in egg, breadcrumbs, and deepfry. Mmmmm.... tender, delicious, and everyone loved 'em.
Dang, I'm hungry now.
Politically I can't say, I see chaos no matter what happens or doesn't happen on Mars (look at my posts in the Larry Craig thread for background). As far as "religious", I don't see a problem. I'm a fairly conventional "evangelical Christian", and I don't have a problem with either life "scattering" off this planet via impact, or, God creating it on other planets if he saw fit.
I had a feeling this was your connection with clams.. Well, if you ever open Chez DJ, and feature clams, I shall be your first customer. :^)
I agree completely...God can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants.
Just trying to clarify it, lest someone think that crystal clear, razor sharp picture pasted onto the red-toned somewhat blurry mars-shot if part of the mars picture. (And, lest I get bashed over the head by someone who might see it later, and not see what to me is obvious.)
Ah, there we go. Caveat, caveat, caveat, you're all informed now. (Apologies to the Firesign Theater, and now I'm off!)
Of course, the next step would be missions dedicated specifically to the search for any remaining life forms (surely something would have survived/adapted) and to the search/cataloging of fossilized remains of previous Martian life.
You wanta take a ride??? :-)
Maybe the critters are just accretion formations and not critters at all? Personally, I don't think so.
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