THEMIS Image of the Day, May 2, 2018. At the bottom of this VIS image of Daedalia Planum is the the uppermost rim of an impact crater. The unnamed crater has been almost completely filled by lava flows originating from Arsia Mons.
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
For the 15th year in a row, Opportunity and the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) mission drove into the spotlight during an afternoon session at the 49th Lunar & Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), held in The Woodlands, Texas, in March. Known by its acronym, LPSC is where this niche of the space community regularly communes and where this MER-class robot field geologist is treated with reverence worthy of a veteran. (…)
Opportunity is now halfway down Perseverance and Mars is still talking. Beyond the sometimes-slippery slopes of the gravelly terrain on which Opportunity is roving, the team’s challenge lies in the fact that Perseverance is the only geological feature of its kind at Endeavour. There is nothing anywhere else in the rim that looks anything like it.
The valley’s “singularity” is “an outstanding characteristic,” [MER science team member Rob] Sullivan said. That’s the good news, right? The bad news? “This poses important challenges to all candidate origins, including water,” he said.
So uniqueness is making the task of uncovering the story of Perseverance one of if not the greatest Martian mysteries that Opportunity and the MER science team have undertaken. Nevertheless, in tight, on-point presentations, the six lecturers of MER research at LPSC this year reviewed some solid geologic studies,laid out a number of key findings that reveal an evolution in the team’s thinking– and proved once again that there’s nothing quite like a good Martian mystery… [Much more at link]
Sol 2038, May 1, 2018. From its position on Vera Rubin Ridge, Curiosity is well positioned to use the Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) to profile a section of Red Cliff, an outcrop not far away that shows thin-bedded sedimentary layers.
Below is part of the Navcam composite from Sol 3026, with the RMI-imaged area indicated. Click either image to enlarge it.
Sol 2038 raw images (from all cameras), and Curiosity’s latest location.
Sol 5072, May 1, 2018. Parked at a pitted rock named Allende, Opportunity put the Microscopic Imager to work making a 2×2 composite view of the target.
At right is the Hazcam view to the south with the rover arm poised above Allende. (See also here.) Click either image to enlarge it.
Opportunity raw images, its latest mission status, location map, and atmospheric opacity, known as tau.
MarCO or “Mars Cube One” is an experimental mission that will accompany InSight to Mars. It consists of two identical spacecraft, each 36.6 by 24.3 by 11.8 centimeters in size. If successful, they will relay real-time telemetry from InSight to Earth during the landing. MarCO costs $18.5 million. (…)
The MarCO satellites will perform bent-pipe relay of InSight’s transmissions during landing: they will receive UHF transmissions from the lander, decode them, and send the decoded data on to Earth. If successful, they will provide mission controllers and Mars fans around the world with live information on the status of the spacecraft during landing. Meanwhile, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will record all of the transmissions from the lander without decoding them, saving them for later transmission. If something goes wrong on landing day, it will be the data recordings from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that help NASA figure out what went wrong. If everything goes right, we’ll learn about it first through MarCO. [More at link]
This image shows bedrock layers of diverse colors and composition. [More at link]
Sol 2038, April 30, 2018, update by MSL scientist Rachel Kronyak: A successful drive in the weekend plan set Curiosity up nicely for a full sol of contact and remote science. The main priority during planning today was to image the outcrop we’ve called “Red Cliff,” a beautiful vertical cliff face seen in the mid-field of the Navcam image above.
We’ll use both the ChemCam RMI and Mastcam to image Red Cliff, which will give us a really nice, well-rounded dataset in order to fully characterize the features and sedimentary structures present in the outcrop. Aside from imaging, we’ll assess some local bedrock targets. With ChemCam LIBS, we’ll analyze targets “Paulsen Lake,” “Negaunee,” and “Nashwauk.” With MAHLI and APXS, we’ll perform… [More at link]
THEMIS Image of the Day, May 1, 2018. This VIS image runs from northern Juventae Chasma to just short of the southern canyon wall. Illustrating the variety of landforms within the chasma, this image contains the rough canyon floor at the northern extent of the chasma, layered materials in the center of the image and dunes located in the southern, deepest section of the chasma.
More THEMIS Images of the Day by geological topic.
