Posted on 10/18/2012 3:53:07 PM PDT by blam
NASA: We Still Don't Know What Those Shiny Particles On Mars Are, But They're Not From The Rover
Dina Spector
Oct. 18, 2012, 5:35 PM
NASA confirmed this afternoon that some bright particles found in a hole dug by the Curiosity's scooper are actually from Mars and not debris from the rover. This is the second round of shiny mysterious objects the rover has run into while scooping soil at Glenelg. The first was probably a piece of plastic or tape that fell off of the rover itself.
Adam Mann with WiredScience has more:
After last week’s plastic encounter, Curiosity’s science team worried the new particles might be man-made.
(snip)
Curiosity, which is 10 weeks into its two-year mission, has now collected three scoops of Martian soil. The third scoop is currently being analyzed by the rover's Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument to determine what minerals are in it.
Here are some pictures from the scooping mission:
Three bite marks left in the Martian ground by the scoop on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity are visible in this image taken by the rover's right Navigation Camera during the mission's 69th Martian day, or sol (Oct. 15, 2012). The third scoopful, collected on that sol, left the bite or pit farthest to the right. Each of the three bites is about 2 inches (5 centimeters) wide.
A sample of Martian soil that came from the third scoopful of material collected at the "Rocknest" patch of windblown dust and sand.
This image shows part of the small pit or bite created when NASA's Mars rover Curiosity collected its second scoop of Martian soil at a sandy patch called "Rocknest."
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Pure platinum.
Possibly a precious metal or perhaps something we don’t even have on Earth. That sand looks moist.. Clumpy.
Earth has a much more active atmosphere, and tectonic forces at work, so we rarely see a full meteor in situ.
Gold mining on Mars should be fairly basic ~ walk around and pick up flecks. This stuff won't even be eroded down to gold flour ~ but it won't be nuggets either since it won't have passed through a bacterial mat that would expell it in nodules.
OMG we have discovered the final resting place of an old Soviet lander that lost contact before it reached Mars???
Whaddaya mean Far-fetched??
I hope the Mars Rover does not get so distracted by the shiny object that it forgets to vote on Nov. 6.
White dust and rocks on Mars? It can clearly mean one thing....
...Mars had hookers and blow long before Earth did.
Dust on the lens?
Hey! Rake those out! Other people use this course, too!
That's because it's coated with a thin layer of light, sweet crude. Doesn't evaporate at the low pressure and temperature on the Martian surface.
Oops. Maybe I shouldn't have said that.
But of course....that shiny piece is unobtainium.
Gasp, Hollywood is right again.
How foolish of us to think they are all as stupid as they act.
Oil, platinum, gold and nickel...Boy O Boy!
Diamonds!
Oil, platinum, gold and nickel...Boy O Boy!
It was registered to vote in Chicago, and has already voted via absentee ballot twice.
After posting, I began to think this is an Obama ploy, because he wants to distract the remaining NASA employees from voting against him.
Parts of the baseball Albert Pujols hit in Houston in October 2005.
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