Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Archive for December, 2017

Opportunity Navigation Camera image at Sol 4924.
Credit: NASA/JPL

NASA’s Opportunity rover has been reconnoitering the Red Planet since landing on January 25, 2004 – and now has 28 miles on its odometer.

Now in Sol 4,926, the veteran robot is 4,836 Sols past “warranty.”

Winter exploration

At present, Opportunity is continuing its winter exploration of Perseverance Valley on the west rim of the Noachian-aged Endeavour Crater.

Opportunity Rear Hazcam image acquired on Sol 4923.
Credit: NASA/JPL

Opportunity has been carrying out science duties, including collecting a Microscopic Image (MI) mosaic of a surface target, and then placed its Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) for a multi-sol integration.

Valley photo shoots

While the APXS was integrating, Opportunity continued to collect extensive color panoramas of the surrounding terrain. These image data are part of a complete digital model the rover is assembling of the entire Perseverance Valley.

Opportunity Panoramic Camera image taken on Sol 4924.
Credit: NASA/JPL

With the in-situ (contact) science complete using the APXS, the rover drove on Sol 4922 (Nov. 27, 2017) about 46 feet (14 meters) to the next lily pad (energy favorable location) down the valley. Here Opportunity will continue the extensive image collection and take advantage of any surface targets under her feet.

Curiosity Front Hazcam Left B image taken on Sol 1892, December 2, 2017.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is closing out Sol 1892 duties.

Late last week, Mark Salvatore, a planetary geologist at the University of Michigan in Dearborn, reported the rover was preparing to hit the road for a next stop on Vera Rubin Ridge.

Curiosity Rear Hazcam Left B photo acquired on Sol 1892, December 2, 2017.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Unique patch of terrain

Curiosity’s Mastcam was slated to take a multispectral image of the region where the robot will be headed over the next few days, Salvatore said, “in an effort to fully characterize the spectral diversity of this location and to compare with orbital remote sensing data.”

Curiosity Mastcam Left image taken on Sol 1891, December 1, 2017.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The rover is slated to continue wheeling to the southeast, headed for a “unique patch” of terrain that appears interesting in high-resolution orbital data. “The hope is to reach this unit on this drive, as that will allow the science team to investigate this interesting region over the duration of the weekend’s plan,” Salvatore added.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Curiosity Navcam Right B photo acquired on Sol 1891, December 1, 2017.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Traverse map

Meanwhile, a new Curiosity traverse map has been issued.

The map shows the route driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity through the 1891 Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission on Mars (December 01, 2017).

Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol number of each drive. North is up. The scale bar is 1 kilometer (~0.62 mile).

From Sol 1889 to Sol 1891, Curiosity had driven a straight line distance of about 45.65 feet (13.91 meters), bringing the rover’s total odometry for the mission to 11.06 miles (17.81 kilometers).

The base image from the map is from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment Camera (HiRISE) in NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Curiosity ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager photo taken on Sol 1891, December 1, 2017.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL

Credit: Budweiser

Budweiser recently announced plans to send barley seeds to space, one of the key ingredients in beer. The company wants to determine if it’s possible to make and drink beer on Mars.

Barley samples are to be flown to the International Space Station later this month.

Credit: Budweiser

But a new poll indicates that Americans aren’t particularly anxious for a taste of Martian brew.

Survey findings

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds:

• Just 11% of American Adults say they are more likely to buy a beer that is brewed on Mars.
• Thirty-three percent (33%) say they’re less likely to buy a space beer.
• While 45% say the beer’s origin would have no impact on their beer-buying decision.
• Another 11% are not sure.

Credit: Budweiser

“Sampling” error?

The national survey of 1,000 American Adults was conducted on November 26-27, 2017 by Rasmussen Reports.

The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.