Mer-B, Sol 389 Pit image with fine dust and layer deposit.

Color composite of a pit, probably an severely eroded crater taken on Opportunity day 389. A large amount of fine red dust has accumulated over the darker rim. Some debris deposit layers are visible in the upper dark portion of the rim.

Here is an enlargment of the upper left of the pan. (You need red/blue 3D glasses to view all of these images) Notice the specular nature of the view. This image is through the blue-violet filter of the camera and shows of the beautiful blue reflections from the billions of polished and fractured silver grey hematite marbles that cover the plain. 

Pit/Crater close up

This is a close of of the pit on the far left of the pan taken on Sol 379. It would be interesting to see closer to the pit to see if we could understand what causes these. Presumably there is a hard surface in the center of the pit an the dust is blown away while the round hematite marbles ("blueberries") are able to roll to the edge. This doesn't explain why the patch is bare unless there are wind gusts of sufficient velocity and frequency to roll the marbles back onto the plain. If we could calculate the average marble mass we could speculate on the size and frequency of these gusts. Of course there may be a different mechanism to clean these spots. 

Opportunity continues her treck from the crashed heat shield and meteor investigation. This is a 3D anaglyph taken on Mer-B-Sol 379. It shows almost 180 deg at a right angle to opportunitys track. As she travels accross the Meridiani Planum plain she is passing other interesting features. In this image there is a small pit n the left and a small crater on the upper left. 

It's About Content

Any media, papers, mags, web-sites, blogs the important part is CONTENT. So politicians are demanding "BLOGS" see this fox article; http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,148526,00.html

What these guys don't understand is that if you have nothing to say nobody is going to listen.

It seems obvious to me, obviously it's not an idea that these bureaucrats understand.

Name that new State Contest !

Eastern Washington State legislatures introduced a bill to split Washington State into two states, Eastern and Western Washington. The easternites want out perceiving correctly that the "I5 Corridor" i.e. the urban part of the state, is consuming the lion’s share of tax money and imposing laws and taxes that hurt the rural part of the state. Ken Schram asked yesterday (in his editorial on Komo4 Seattle) what we would name the new state.

The Need To Secede

I'm thinking out of the box here but nothing says that it’s Eastern Washington that has to change their name. It makes more sense for Western Washington to change our name to Seattle. There is some precedence for this, consider for example New York, New York. We can be Seattle, Seattle. Just think of the simplicity; Tacoma, Seattle; Olympia, Seattle; Everett, Seattle; Bellingham, Seattle; West-Seattle, Seattle; etc. etc. Of course Seatac, Seattle is trebly redundant but they will just have to deal with it since they picked their stupid city name in the first place.

Eastern Washington can keep the name Washington. Seattleites don't particularly like the state name anyway.

Greenlake Seattle has been a pretty busy park these last couple of months. Even though the temperatures are somewhat brisk 40-50F, the sun has brought everyone out to the park. Here is a sample taken two days ago. 

This kind of gives an idea of the scope of the rally. I estimated about a thousand there, the news later gave a number of 700. It was interesting that the whole marrige debate here was brought by religious people. Speaking were a Rabbi, a Muslem Cleric, a Baptist minister, and a Unitarian minister. There were others as well but I just couldn't keep track as my fingers were frezzing off in the icy shadow of the capitol dome. 

Olympia Marrige Rally

There was a rally today in Olympia WA opposing a constitutional amendment regarding marriage. Several good speakers speaking from religious perspectives I'd not fully considered.

I was down there with Ruth Bennett (Libertarian Party Gubernatorial candidate) while she testified on a Senate bill regarding minor party exclusion from the voter primary process.

Nickel Iron Meteor at Heat shield

Here is a context almost color picture of the heat shield and right behind it on the left is the nickel iron meteor posted about below.

The hill on the right is the rim of the crater that Opportunity explored last month.

Nope, still Winter.

Nope it is still February. This is Shilshole beach and marina north Seattle Wa. Last month.

Spring yet?

Is it spring yet? ;) This image is from a Wa. state ferry last April. My bike is the white Buell in front.

Ice Firebolt

My Buell, Hurricane ridge April 2004, Port Angeles Wa.

Ice Bikes

Duc 996 and Buell Firebolt. On top of Hurricane Ridge, Port Angeles Wa. April 2004

Seattle Ferry bikes on deck

A different pan of bikes on the front of a Seattle ferry going to Bremerton. April 2004.

Hmmmm ...

Today we got some useful work accomplished; we introduced a bill, to create a commission, to nominate a committee, to look at the problem.

Mer-B Sol 356, Nickel Iron Meteor

Close up area of microscope insert with IR and Violet color variations overlays.

Mer-B Sol 356, Nickel Iron Meteor

This image has an overlay of data from the IR and Violet filters. The violet areas in the photo are where there were large UV changes on the meteor and the orange-red segments are places that have higer differaces of infra-red light. These differeances help highlight the inclusions in the meteor of what may be olivien.

The meteor is a unique find. It is the one rock of which we have versions of on earth and we have samples of this same rock in labs all over the world. This may indeed prove to be a rosetta stone of sorts since it provides a check and calibration source for the spectromer and camera filters.

Mer-B Sol 356, Nickel Iron Meteor

Here is a higher resolution version of the microscope image overlaid on the pancamera color image. The resulting color/microscope image is remarkable.

Notice the two white areas on the rock segment. It's possible tht these are salt encrustations.

Mer-b Sol 356, Nickel Iron Metor, Microscope Image Insert

This is two microscope images of the meteor overlaid on the pancam color image. The resolution incread plus the color data is very interesting.

Mer-B Sol 356, Nickel Iron Meteor

It's interesting that JPL/NASA posted pictures of the heat shield and omitted the nickel-iron meteor nearby. Here is my collection of filter combiniations and a color overlay of the microscope images overlaid on the Pancam color images.