Spirit Looks Down Into Crater After Reaching Rim - and - A Deep Dish for Discovery

NASA - JPL ^ | 03-11-2004 | NASA/JPL

[Phil V.]

Spirit Looks Down Into Crater After Reaching Rim March 11, 2004

NASA's Spirit has begun looking down into a crater it has been approaching for several weeks, providing a view of what's below the surrounding surface.

Spirit has also been looking up, seeing stars and the first observation of Earth from the surface of another planet. Its twin, Opportunity, has shown scientists a "mother lode" of hematite now considered a target for close-up investigation.

"It's been an extremely exciting and productive week for both of the rovers," said Spirit Mission Manager Jennifer Trosper at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

Dr. Chris Leger, a rover driver at JPL, said, "The terrain has been getting trickier and trickier as we've gotten close to the crater. The slopes have been getting steeper and we have more rocks." Spirit has now traveled a total of 335 meters (1,099 feet).

Spirit's new position on the rim of the crater nicknamed "Bonneville" offers a vista in all directions, including the crater interior. The distance to the opposite rim is about the length of two football fields, nearly 10 times the diameter of Opportunity's landing-site crater halfway around the planet from Spirit.

Initial images from Spirit's navigation camera do not reveal any obvious layers in "Bonneville's" inner wall, but they do show tantalizing clues of rock features high on the far side, science-team member Dr. Matt Golombek of JPL said at a news briefing today. "This place where we've just arrived has opened up, and it's going to take us a few days to get our arms around it.”

Scientists anticipate soon learning more about the crater from Spirit's higher-resolution panoramic camera and the miniature thermal emission spectrometer, both of which can identify minerals from a distance. They will use that information for deciding whether to send Spirit down into the crater.

From the crater rim and during martian nighttime earlier today, Spirit took pictures of stars, including a portion of the constellation Orion. Shortly before dawn four martian days earlier, it photographed Earth as a speck of light in the morning twilight. The tests of rover capabilities for astronomical observations will be used in planning possible studies of Mars' atmospheric characteristics at night. Those studies might include estimating the amounts of dust and ice particles in the atmosphere from their effects on starlight, said Dr. Mark Lemmon, a science team member from Texas A&M University, College Station.

Opportunity has been looking up, too. It has photographed Mars' larger moon, Phobos, passing in front of the Sun twice in the past week, and Mars' smaller moon, Deimos, doing so once.

Opportunity's miniature thermal emission spectrometer has taken upward-looking readings of the atmospheric temperature at the same time as a similar instrument, the thermal emission spectrometer on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter, took downward-pointed readings while passing overhead. "They were actually looking directly along the same path," said science team member Dr. Michael Wolff of the Martinez, Ga., branch of the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. The combined readings give the first full temperature profile from the top of Mars' atmosphere to the surface.”

When pointed at the ground, Opportunity's miniature thermal emission spectrometer has checked the abundance of hematite in all directions from the rover's location inside its landing-site crater. This mineral, in its coarse-grained form, usually forms in a wet environment. Detection of hematite from orbit was the prime factor in selection of the Meridiani Planum region for Opportunity's landing site.

"The plains outside our crater are covered with hematite," said Dr. Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, Tempe, lead scientist for the instrument. "The rock outcrop we've been studying has some hematite. Parts of the floor of the crater, interestingly enough, have virtually none." The pattern fits a theory that the crater was dug by an impact that punched through a hematite-rich surface layer, he said. One goal for Opportunity's future work is to learn more about that surface layer to get more clues about the wet past environment indicated by sulfate minerals identified last week in the crater's outcrop.

Christensen said that before Opportunity drives out of the crater in about 10 days, scientists plan to investigate one area on the inner slope of the crater that he called "the mother lode of hematite."

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Images and additional information about the project are available from JPL at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov and from Cornell University at http://athena.cornell.edu.

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Guy Webster (818) 354-5011 JPL

Donald Savage (202) 358-1547 NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

2004-83 =====================================================

A Deep Dish for Discovery Mar 11, 2004

On the 66th martian day, or sol, of its mission, the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit finished a drive and sent back this navigation camera image mosaic revealing "Bonneville" crater in its entirety. Spirit has spent more than 60 sols, two thirds of the nominal mission, en route to the rim of the large crater dubbed "Bonneville." The rover stopped on occasion to examine rocks along the way, many of which probably found their resting places after being ejected from the nearly 200-meter-diameter (656-foot) crater.

The science team sent the rover to "Bonneville" to find out more about where the rocks they have examined so far originated. Reaching the rim of this deep dish has been a major priority since day one.

According to science team member Dr. John Grant of Washington D.C.'s National Air and Space Museum, the "Bonneville" crater could be a giant window into the ancient past of the Gusev landing site. He said, "The rocks that we see scattered around our landing site may be ejecta from inside "Bonneville," but we won't know that for sure until we actually investigate the crater. We can look at the rocks' form and chemistry, but we don't know how they fit into the big picture. If we can find their occurrence within the walls of "Bonneville" crater, we'll be one step closer to understanding the processes that shaped the entire Gusev area over time."

Most scientists agree that a fitting prize for this long drive would be to find an outcrop of bedrock material that was not transported, but formed in the crater. When a meteorite slams into the ground and creates a crater, it throws surface debris out to the sides, revealing the older, mostly buried material, a sort of natural "road cut." The real gem would be to find exposed layers of the ancient rock within the "cut" walls of the crater, which would give scientists a peek into how the area formed. "The Gusev landing site is at least partially covered in a layer of ejecta material," said Grant. "As Mars was repeatedly pelted with meteorites, the ejecta kept piling on top of other ejecta leaving a blanket of debris and little trace of what the original surface was. We want to see beneath all that impact debris, into what is really filling the Gusev crater. Hopefully "Bonneville" crater will give us a clue to what the material is at the top of that pile."

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

[Phil V.]

[Mulder]

What's the reflective object just under the horizon, about 1/3rd of a way from the left of the picture?

[Paleo Conservative]

[Brett66]

Naaah, it's probably a heat shield. :)

[Mulder]

Naaah, it's probably a heat shield. :)

Looks like a weather balloon to me.

[So Cal Rocket]

Swamp Gas

[Phil V.]

If you'd like to be on or off this MARS ping list please FRail me

===============================

Daily Updates - March 10, 2004

Opportunity Status for sol 45
Halfway Mark
posted Mar. 10, 4:15 pm PST

On sol 45, which ended at 12:50 p.m. PST on Wednesday, March 10, Opportunity awoke to ''Eclipse" by Pink Floyd in recognition . . . . blah . . . blah . . . blah . . .

The plan for sol 46, which will end at 1:30 p.m. PST on Thursday, March 11, is to use the science instruments on the end of the robotic arm on the area dubbed "Berry Bowl." =====================================

At this point it gets more intersting IMO . . . Another freeper directed me to this photo and asked my opiniion . . .

This was my reply . . .

see what you mean! I am eagerly anticipating more photos from this area that will hopefully yield another of the same area but shifted to allow a true 3-d. I tried to "tease" a 3-d from the ones available but I suspect that I've only created an illusion of depth here . . .

Notice in the upper left what appear to be "threads" between the two adjacent "berrys". . . . and of course the object of your interest (I assume) in the center.

Here is another example of what I theorize is related to what you have noticed . . . an indent in the rock that I noticed several days ago and surmized that at one time a "berry" was attached as I theorize was the case in the picture you brought to my attention . . .

. . . and . . .

Clearly (to me at least) the "berrys" cannot all be explained as the product of volcanic or meteor blast. Why the "stems"???

Thanks for bringing this to my attetion. I'll be looking for NASA/JPL to brush this area and photograph the results of "picking blueberrys". If they do not then they're missing the boat!!!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[ElkGroveDan]

We discussed this last night starting with post #18 http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1094276/posts?page=18#18

Near the bottom I even make the bet that it's the heat shield.

[abner]

What's the reflective object just under the horizon, about 1/3rd of a way from the left of the picture?

The Beagle.

[Cold Heat]

Volcanic does not necessarily mean molten rock.

We have little on earth to compare with this, but do have some similarities.

Volcanic activity in places like Yellowstone heat a mixture of water, sulfur and minerals and belch it skyward regularly.

Over time some very interesting structures are created. All of them different depending on the variables involved.

A lower grav and different mineral deposits would be more variables to add to the mix.

This is what I think we may be seeing here perhaps.............................?

[GeronL]

An anthill surrounded by berries??

[Charles Henrickson]

What's the reflective object just under the horizon, about 1/3rd of a way from the left of the picture?

Here, let's see . . . if . . . I . . . can . . . zoom in a bit. . . .

There. . . . .

Looks . . . looks like . . . Naah! It couldn't be!

[Cold Heat]

Something else, that I have noticed via the recent pics of the berries.

Many images show berries embedded into rock.

The berries may be freed over time as the rock deteriorates away.

Depending on what the material actually is that comprises the berries and the surrounding material, the slow dissolving by a slurry of water and minerals and then Martian wind could result in the thin connective leads on the berries as they are released from the containing substrate.

The water now is long gone, but the structures remain. Unaffected by perhaps as many as millions of years.

Definitely not rabbit turds.:-)

[Indie]

OMG. THEY ARE! Stems! Alluded to that in one of the very first pics when shadow could be seen under multiple berries where it appeared there was no support by the sand.

[martin_fierro]

[mhx]

I think they're Kix, actually.

[Iberian]

Some of these pixs look like my insides after a good Mexican lunch.
Nice pixs. Thanks for posting them.

[Nick Danger]

[geopyg]

I recently was looking through one of my trade journals and they were talking about methane hydrates. The structure of them (circular?) and the placement of them (between grains of sand) made me think of these photos from Mars. I did a google on methane hydrates nodules and came up with the following information. The stuff in CAPS are my highlights. Food for thought. Need to get back to work, but will look into what levels of methane are in Mar's atmoshpere.

Methane hydrate can form in rocks or sediments of any type given suitable pressures, temperatures, and supplies of water and methane (please see our discussion on Necessary Conditions for Methane Hydrate Formation). Although natural methane hydrate has been most commonly observed occurring as DISSEMINATED GRAINS, other forms are known, including massive layers of pure hydrate up to 4 meters thick, nodules that grow and displace surrounding sediments, veins filling small fractures, thin layers along bedding planes, and as a cement binding sedimentary grains together.

Similarly, hydrate is typically found with uniform distribution, showing clear, but subtle vertical trends of increasing or decreasing abundance. However, examples of heterogeneous distribution with zones of sparse or no hydrate interspersed with zones of high concentration are also common.

Although the factors that control the ultimate type, distribution, and amount of hydrate are still poorly understood, perhaps the primary controls are 1) the porosity and permeability and 2) the degree of lithification of the enclosing medium. The geologic environment in which the sediments/rock exist largely determines these aspects.

In the late 1960s, the global view of clathrate science began to change dramatically when "solid natural gas" or methane hydrate was observed as a naturally-occurring constituent of subsurface sediments in the giant gas fields of the Western Siberia basin.

Shortly thereafter, hydrate was also found in shallow, sub-permafrost sediments on the North Slope of Alaska. Soon, scientists, particularly those in the former Soviet Union, began to speculate that the low temperature/high pressure conditions necessary for hydrate formation should exist extensively around the globe, not only in permafrost regions, but also under deep oceans. The global hunt for methane hydrate was on.



FROM ANOTHER SITE:

Most natural gas hydrate is formed from biogenic methane, excreted by BACTERIA that eat organic matter that has been washed into (or died in) the ocean. This type of hydrate is concentrated where there is a rapid accumulation of organic detritus and also where there is a rapid accumulation of sediments (which protect detritus from oxidation).

Hydrates also form when faults permit natural gas (or other gases) to migrate from deeper inside the Earth's crust to the surface of the seabed at places with appropriate temperature and pressure levels.

These processes can also cause hydrates to form below permafrost, which acts as a cap to prevent further upward migration of gas into the atmoshere.