Spirit making progress

[burmese]

Spirit is continuing to struggle on up the side of Husband Hill on it's way towards 'Larrys Lookout'. Here is a nice pic looking back over it's right shoulder (to the SW). In the upper right you can see Spirits tracks way back at the 1st small ridge it explored when it got to the hills. Wish they would mention the rovers' current elevation!

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...GPP1915L0M1.JPG

[antoniseb]

It's pretty cool seeing the tracks trailing off into the distance.

[jimmy]

beautiful, thanks for the link burmese.

[antoniseb]

As the Spirit Rover gets to the crest of Larry's lookout on the shoulder of Husband Hill [See image from navcam] it looks pretty clear that his hill is a huge pile of sand and loose rocks. How did it get here? Is this a glacial deposit?

[antoniseb]

Spirit appears to be at a ridge of bedrock near Larry's Lookout near the crest of Husband Hill.
Spirit Front NavCam Sol 381

It will be interesting to see if this is a place that will show significant water history. I'm guessing that Husband hill, and the rest of this complex is some kind of glacial morraine.

[ChromeStar]

Those little rovers have really out done them selves! - how long has it been now since they landed on mars?

[antoniseb]

Originally posted by ChromeStar@Jan 29 2005, 02:41 PM
how long has it been now since they landed on mars?

A little over a year.

[j0seph]

yes, nice pic man

[antoniseb]

I've noticed that the Mars Spirit Rover has seen a lot of largish rocks [say one to three feet across] with smoothly convex surfaces.

Sol 386 Spirit Navcam

Can one of you geologists tell me likely scenarios for these things to form?

Note that none of them are complete spheroids, they all look like fragments of bullets.

Are they potentally rounded by glaciers? Were they giant molton globs that solidifed on the way down? Are there similar rocks on Earth?

[sky5000]

"Spirit making Progress"

or is Progress in good Spirits?

:-)

[antoniseb]

Here is a nice full color panorama from Spirit.
The image is very large, and will take a long time to download.
Spirit Panorama [38 megabytes]

[antoniseb]

Spirit is near the top, and is seeing something that looks to my untrained eye as sedimentary rock jutting out of the hilltop.
Sol 398 Panoramic Camera

[burmese]

Someone needs to ask the NASA geologists whether they think the hills developed in place or are merely a worn down pile of debris.

[antoniseb]

Originally posted by burmese@Feb 18 2005, 02:16 PM
Someone needs to ask the NASA geologists whether they think the hills developed in place or are merely a worn down pile of debris.

I agree. My take is that they formed long after the crater, and my layman's guess is that they are a glacial deposit.

[JESMKS]

I've looked at a lot of the raw pictures taken by Spirit. I believe the hill is composed of thin layers of basalt interbedded with various types of pyroclastic sediments. The rocks with the curved surfaces appear to be basalt. Basalt is composed chiefly of palagonite, a volcanic glass. With the rapid cooling that must have occurred, the basalt tended to shrink and develope a conchoidal fracture system that is common to glass. In time, possibly frost heave and gravity dispersed the boulders and other rock fragments down the slope.
Jack

[antoniseb]

Originally posted by JESMKS@Feb 18 2005, 08:11 PM
I believe the hill is composed of thin layers of basalt interbedded with various types of pyroclastic sediments.

Thanks Jack.
I appreciate getting an informed opinion about this. How did the basalt layers get to be on top of volcanic ash? Is that from the general mixing effect of the hills being pushed up from some water [liquid or ice] based process, or are these hill made of large hunks of rock from the excavation of the big crater [or something else]?

[JESMKS]

It would be a big help if we had a topo map of the hills or a 3D picture to aid in interpreting their origin. I don't know if the hills are the result of a major impact that uplifted the crater rim. They may also have been formed by faulting and uplift.
On Earth, basalt generally issues from fissures. It is a high temperature, very fluid lava, that is generally free of entrapped gas and generally occurs as lava flows that spread over wide areas. Pyroclastic strata are generally formed by explosive eruptions of magma having a high gas content. Having basalt interbedded with pyroclastic material might indicate separate sources, the basalt issuing from fissures and spreading as thin lava flows. The pyroclastic strata may come from some distant volcanic source. Over time, a sequence of basalt and interbedded pyroclastic materials could result. Subsequent deformation could have created the hills and exposed the rock sequence on the hillside. It will be interesting what NASA comes up with as to the geologic history of the area.
Jack

[antoniseb]

Spirit is at the top taking panorama shots of all it can see.
A cratered plain

Here is a shot showing the plain below the hill with lots of small craters filled with light colored [for this filter] sand.

Sometime soon there will be a great color panorama shot coming.

[antoniseb]

Spirit sent back a series of images of this anular eclipse of the sun by Deimos.

[burmese]

Spirit is starting to move on...still waiting on the color panorama. From recent comments by Steve Squyers, they clearly intend to get to the south flank of Husband Hill when the sun is in a favorable position.

[antoniseb]

For some reason, there have been no image downloads from Spirit in ten days.

[imported_alan]

Someone must be back from vacation: 1184 new images posted

[burmese]

Both rovers went 10 days with no new images. Trying now to figure out how far each has traveled in the interving time.

[burmese]

Spirit seems to be making an oblique approach to the top of Husband Hill.

Opportunity is now coming into view of the etched terrain. The horizon view to the southwest is quite choppy and some patches of exposed rock are starting to poke through the hemitite dunes.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...unity_p417.html

[antoniseb]

Thanks burmese,

If you do get a fix on where Opportunity is, I'd be interested in knowing. As you say, the recent images from Spirit seem to show it a few meters from the top of the hill.

[antoniseb]

Did Spirit make it to the top?
Panoramic Camera Yesterday

This could be a good time to take a big panorama shot. I hope they don't waste the bandwidth to make it 3-D.

[imported_alan]

Spirit is about here

[burmese]

If Spirit has gone that far then it's time for another track map. Last solid fix I had it was still working it's way up the overlook ridge.

[antoniseb]

Here's a nice image from Spirit near the top of the hill.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/pre...-A454R1_br2.jpg

[burmese]

Yeah, although in the last day or so it has backtracked some from that position, apparently to circle the crest of Husband hill looking for a better approach.