Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Phosphorus and clays.

re: Phosphorus and clays.
Robert Clark — (archived)

The mini-TES viewport is the same as the Pancam. According to this page the Pancam is 1.3 meters above ground level and its resolution is 0.286 milliradians/pixel:

Pancams:
Panoramic Cameras aboard the Mars Exploration Rovers.
http://www.planetary.org/mars/mer-inst-pancam.html

That means it should be able to resolve something .286/1000 * 1.3 m = .37 millimeters across.
The RATTed area in the image on this page is supposed to be 5 cm across:

A Rock Like None Before, Brush.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20041230a.html

On my monitor when I click on the link for the Browse Image, the magnified view of the RATTed area appears about 10 cm across on my screen and I measure some of larger dark inclusions on my screen as 4 mm across. This means the actual size of the larger inclusions should be about 2 millimeters across.
This should be well within the resolving power of the Pancam.
For the mini-TES though the resolving power is at best 8 milliradians, which means at 1.3 m it can resolve 8/1000 * 1.3 m = 10.4 mm, to large for the inclusions.
Is there any way for the RAT arm to scrape off a portion of a rock and hold it close to the camera?

Bob Clark

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