On the plains of Jezero, the secrets of Mars' past await us! Follow for the latest news, updates, pretty pics, and community discussion on NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's most ambitious mission to Mars!
'Pico Torquino' is ~200 meters WSW, it's one of the science waypoints identified by JPL in the crater rim campaign.
Image credits: HRSC: ESA/DLR/FU-BERLIN, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO CTX: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS HiRISE: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Are we really passing up all those tasty-textured boulders on the hill??
Come on, rover team! If you won't give Percy the pleasure, send me! I'll core those rocks for free. We really need astrogeologist boots on the ground...
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...
I'm afraid I can't upvote this sentiment, Paul. I feel like we need to get you to, I don't know, the Atacama? Utah, Kazakhstan, Western Australia? Nunavut, or the Dry Valleys? OK, all those places are a bit much on the oxygen and the humidity, and you wouldn't be tasting the grit and dust in your mouth, but surely they could provide some respite to weary Martians? Dear planetary science community: remember the Paul Hammonds of this world as you work! We're not mathematicians or pure theorists - planets fully engage the senses, and some people have been waiting a long time!
(TBH, I really go back and forth on the wisdom of sending astronauts ASAP, as certain incautious parties advocate. We should have done one sample return mission already - the easiest and arguably most relevant to astronaut safety was unwisely cancelled by NASA and has never been revisited, for reasons I can't understand - and I long to get those cores from the Jezero basin back. I'd really give up a lot to have them, and I often think it'd be irresponsible to send people before we've assessed the toxicity of the regolith and dust. Still, the 1960s show me how important it is to have urgency, too. I'm assuming it was incredible fun to watch the entire lunar program evolve out of nothing, and even the Voyagers launched when they did to hit a deadline. I can't imagine where this science would be without Apollo or Voyager!)
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.