[meteorite-list] Success! The Phoenix has landed safely.

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 16:37:47 -0500
Message-ID: <027c01c8bf78$bd8d1660$fd2ce146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, Rob, List

    Assuming I've identified rightly which rock you're
talking about, it appears to be a smoothed, egg-shaped
stone (like a river cobble) when you look at it at about
200% of image size.

    This image needs a little processing, well, a lot of
processing. Here it is after a little contrast stretching,
brightening, and just a pinch of the Unscharf Mask to
pop out a little more detail. Darren Garrison has donated
some webspace to post my processed image to:
http://webpages.charter.net/garrison6328/tmp/First_Pictures_Bright.Cont.Unscharf_lg313_phoenix.jpg

    In the raw image, the rock looks a lot like a pixel-defect
rectangle, but processed, it shows another side... or shape.
The camera is pointing almost due north and the Sun is
off to the left and slightly in front of the camera; shadows
are long as it's after five o'clock in the afternoon there.

    I find lots of other interesting features in here. In the
center foreground at the very bottom is a rock that looks
like it has "pushed" a deepening groove into the surface
until it was halted. The groove is really a depression,
because you can see the exaggerated length of the shadow
from the little rock sitting on the sunward end of the
depression as its shadow "falls into" the hole.

    On the horizon, just left of center, is something big
enough to stand out above the flats -- is it a big rock or
a pingo? (I keep waiting for Martian pingoes, because if
there's water or ice under there, you'd think there would be
features like the pingoes in our terrestrial Arctic permafrost.
Maybe it never gets warm enough?)

    You can see from the shading that the many bright
patches are slightly "domed" or heaved up. That's pretty
encouraging if you're looking for water in the soil. There's
lots of linear features running across the landscape, partly
an illusion from the shadows of the "polygons," but many
seem to be shallow grooves or "scratches." Aeolian?
Glacial? Fluvial?


Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob McCafferty" <rob_mccafferty at yahoo.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>;
<britishandirishmeteoritesociety at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2008 2:11 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Success! The Phoenix has landed safely.


It's always great to get new images of a never seen before place.
I wonder how long before they try to get a decent view of the object near
the horizon 2/3 of the way to the right.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/raw/SSI/SS000EFF896228773_10CA8R8M1.html

Even looks like its illuminated from the left like the nearby rocks. Other
images make it look like it may partly be an imaging/focusing artifact.
Possibly a large boulder. Almost like an erratic.
Rob McC

--- On Mon, 5/26/08, Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Success! The Phoenix has landed safely.
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Monday, May 26, 2008, 3:06 AM
> The BBC has posted a short video clip
> of the moment of the landing confirmation:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7411113.stm
>
>
> Sterling K. Webb
> --------------------------------------------------------
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Farmer"
> <meteoriteguy at yahoo.com>
> To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2008 7:18 PM
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Success! The Phoenix has landed
> safely.
>
>
> This is too cool, it seems to have gone perfectly, the
> lander is on the ground. Iis a good day for NASA and
> UofA.
> Michael Farmer
> ______________________________________________
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Received on Mon 26 May 2008 05:37:47 PM PDT