Mars rovers see water-linked mineral (Geothite), frost and clouds

Monterey Herald ^ | 12/13/04 | AP - Pasadena

[NormsRevenge]

PASADENA, Calif. - The Mars rover Spirit found a mineral linked to water during its exploration of the Red Planet, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Monday.

Scientists identified the mineral goethite in bedrock studied in the West Spur area of the Columbia Hills.

Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, were sent to Mars to look for geologic evidence of a watery past. Both rovers, especially Opportunity, have found such evidence in their nearly year-long treks over the martian surface, but the goethite find is particularly important, a mission scientist said in a JPL statement.

"Goethite, like the jarosite that Opportunity found on the other side of Mars, is strong evidence for water activity," said Goestar Klingelhoefer of the University of Mainz, Germany, lead scientist for the Mossbauer spectrometer on each rover. The instruments are designed to analyze iron minerals.

Goethite forms only in the presence of water, although it may be in liquid, ice or gaseous form.

The Columbia Hills bedrock was previously found to have hematite, a mineral that usually, but not always, forms in the presence of water.

Klingelhoefer's findings were being presented this week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Spirit will continue to study the hills to determine whether water there only remained underground or ever pooled on the surface.

On the other side of the planet, Opportunity has recently seen frost and clouds marking seasonal changes, according to science team member Michael Wolff of the Brookfield, Wis., branch of the Boulder, Colo.-based Space Science Institute.

"We're seeing some spectacular clouds," Wolff said. "They are a dramatic reminder that you have weather on Mars."

Frost has also been seen on the rover during some mornings, according to Wolff.

Opportunity is concluding its survey of deep Endurance Crater. Close looks at lower rock layers in a part of the crater wall called Burns Cliff shows strong indication that the material was last transported by wind rather than water, as happened with some layers higher up, said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the principal investigator for the rover's instruments.

"The combination suggests that this was not a deep-water environment but more of a salt flat, alternately wet and dry," Squyres said.

ON THE NET

JPL: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

[NormsRevenge]

Clouds over 'Endurance' on Sol 291

Clouds appear in the martian sky above "Endurance Crater" in this mosaic of frames taken by the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity during the morning of the rover's 291st sol (Nov. 17, 2004).

The view spans an arc from the east on the left to the southwest on the right.

Opportunity has observed differences in cloudiness from one sol to the next, a reminder that Mars, like Earth, has daily weather as well as longer-term seasonal changes.

The images that are combined to produce this view have been processed to remove geometrical distortion associated with the camera's 45-degree field of view.

In addition, special image processing has been applied to the original images to enhance the clouds and make them visible across the entire mosaic.

Glare from the Sun washed out the clouds on the left in the original images; this glare was removed. The rim of Endurance has been processed separately and merged back with the sky to better show the context.

[NormsRevenge]

'Burns Cliff' Color Panorama

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity captured this view of "Burns Cliff" after driving right to the base of this southeastern portion of the inner wall of "Endurance Crater." The view combines frames taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera between the rover's 287th and 294th martian days (Nov. 13 to 20, 2004). This is a composite of 46 different images, each acquired in seven different Pancam filters.

It is an approximately true-color rendering generated from the panoramic camera's 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 430-nanometer filters.

The mosaic spans more than 180 degrees side to side. Because of this wide-angle view, the cliff walls appear to bulge out toward the camera.

In reality the walls form a gently curving, continuous surface.

[NormsRevenge]

Water-Signature Mineral Found by Spirit

This spectrum, taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's Moessbauer spectrometer, shows the presence of an iron-bearing mineral called goethite in a rock called "Clovis" in the "Columbia Hills" of Mars.

Goethite contains water in the form of hydroxyl as a part of its structure.

By identifying this mineral, the examination of Clovis produced strong evidence for past water activity in the area that Spirit is exploring.

[rs79bm]

What is to say that life exists there but in a form we do not even know or understand. Afterall, we are searching for life with instruments that we programmed based on knowledge of life on earth, not life on another planet.

[texson66]

Enlarged, that cloud on the left looks like one big hairy eyeball!

[Strategerist]

Actually there are no instruments on either Rover designed to look for life at all. It's purely devoted to looking for water.

[rs79bm]

Which is fine, but how do we know precisely that water is an intergral part of life on another planet.

[Redcloak]

A good question when one considers the fact that Tholians haven't a single drop of water in their bodies.


(But then again, Tholians are imaginary. Perhaps they aren't the best example of a "dry" species.)