Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS
I hope the agencies that govern the space fairing nations continue to fund exploration to further our understanding of our solar system and beyond
paulhammond5155
joined 1 year ago
Pick a rock, any rock ๐
9-tile end-of-drive R-NavCam.
Site 61.2782
No details of the official distance yet, but it's just a few meters, I'll post the drive details and updated map asap
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Data is extracted from JPL's JSON files that are updated after each drive
The drive on 1320 is highlighted with a yellow path.
The small white circles are waypoints
The rover's tracks in this image show us its complex journey exploring this section of its climb out of the crater. This end-of-drive post-drive tiled NavCam was acquired after a drive on November 6, 2024 (Sol 1320) of ~29 meters / ~95 ft to the north, arriving on the oposite side of a small ridge the rover explored several sols ago. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Next stop Pico Turquino?
Pico Turquino: Is the next science waypoint identified by the team. IIRC it is believed to contain fractured rocks that were once possibly altered by hot springs
Raw data supplied by JPL after every drive on their JSON pages
End-of-drive L-NavCam looking West towards Pico Turquino (image center)
Data extracted from JPL's JSON pages. The data is updated by JPL shortly after each drive
2-tile NavCam - NASA/JPL-Caltech
What have they done with Ken
I heard reports of persistent banging on a locked storage room door at JPL, but strangely no one could find the key ;)
Can mean a lot of things, sometimes they could be metamorphic rocks. Basically they are interesting because this rover has not conducted any contact science on a white rock since arriving in Jezero crater. Only once they've completed an investigation will we know what type it is
His video titles are often clickbait, but on the whole I enjoy his content.
ICYMI - They just drove downslope to a field full of small white (light toned) rocks :)
I've not had the pleasure of visiting any of those analog locations, but I have thoroughly enjoyed visiting a few of the remote deserts in the middle East in my working years. Granted I was there for work, but did get to explore / enjoy the places during downtime :) I'm with you regarding the need to be sure of the environment before we put boots on the Martian surface, but that could have been done years ago, even decades ago. The 60's was an amazing time to witness what was being achieved. Hopefully there will be a similar period in the future. Time will tell.
Are we really passing up all those tasty-textured boulders on the hill??
It's certainly looking that way. I've wanted boots on the ground since the Apollo missions were completed. Certainly not going to happen in what's left before they nail down my pine lid. That's for the younger one's to experience...
It looks like it has been polished by eons of wind blown dust particles
Nicely done, I preferred the older JPL mission traverse maps as used on the early years of the MSL mission, as each waypoint and some of the larger features were labeled. I can only assume that the new style interactive maps can not cope with that level of detail.
Look close - You'll see one of the rear wheels perched on a rock.
They will likely not perform any arm work in this state.
Apologies for the stitching errors (upper right of the slope) MS-ICE didn't do a great job this time, and I missed it before sharing
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I wish they would release this sort of update more frequently :)