New Rover Spies Layered Rocks on Mars

AP ^ | 31 minutes ago | ANDREW BRIDGES

[BenLurkin]

A NASA (news - web sites) rover got its closest-ever look at bedrock on the surface of Mars on Tuesday, and scientists were eager to determine whether the layering could have been formed in water.

The Opportunity rover spied the fine-scaled layering just days after it landed in a small crater on the far side of the planet from its twin, Spirit. On Tuesday, NASA unveiled a high-resolution photograph of the horizontally striped and fractured slabs of bedrock.

"Look at the wonderful layer cake-structure in there," said Steve Squyres, the mission's main scientist, as he excitedly narrated a slow pan of the black-and-white image. "It's going to be fascinating beyond words to get up close and personal with this thing."

The find is a significant one: Each roughly half-inch thick layer represents an event in the geologic history of the Red Planet that Opportunity should be able to reconstruct with its complement of cameras and scientific instruments.

Scientists believe the layers were laid down billions of years ago, piling up either as ash spewed by successive volcanic eruptions or as sediments borne by wind or water.

Some scientists believe the 18-inch-high band of layered rocks is cross-bedded in part, suggesting a sedimentary origin that would require the presence of water.

If so, the rocks could provide tangible evidence that Mars once was a wetter place capable of sustaining life. Images taken from orbit already suggest vast amounts of water once flowed across the surface of the planet.

The slabs of bedrock rim a portion of the shallow depression near where the six-wheeled robot sits atop its lander.

The Opportunity rover was in good shape after its weekend landing but had developed a small, 15-watt power loss that worried NASA.

Engineers believe a heater in the shoulder of its robotic arm has been turning on unnecessarily when temperatures drop. Engineers continued to monitor the situation, unsure if it could harm the rover.

"We're very paranoid people," mission manager Jim Erickson said.

The Spirit rover, 6,600 miles around the planet, continued to recover from computer problems that last week brought its science work to a halt. Engineers received additional data they hope will help them understand the problem.

Opportunity should roll off its lander sometime in the next two weeks. This week it is scheduled to put to use its mini-thermal emissions spectrometer, an instrument that measures infrared radiation, to reveal what minerals the rocks contain.

Together, the pair of 384-pound rovers make up an $820 million mission to prospect for geologic evidence that Mars was once a wetter world capable of supporting life.

[gorio]

What's the real story?

[Salamander]

And there's always Ray Harryhausen.

I spent every Saturday watching some old "monster movie" or another on Creature Feature at 4 pm......:))

Then there were the original Outer Limits episodes.
Last week hubby was watching the one about the "strip of light" on the spaceship played and I left the room.
It creeped me out at 12 and 30 years later I still don't like to watch it...LOL!

[JoJo Gunn]

Oh yeah, I loved the Outer Limits.

I can't place what you're talking about.

The one that creeped me the most was Warren Oates with the big eyes. And the ants with human faces.

[Naspino]

This calls for the celebrating, the whooping, the hollering, and the drinking and stuff...

[cjshapi]

Quit tempting me. A woman can only take so much!

[UCANSEE2]

MSG RCD FRM MARS "Stay off our golf course, or we will do more than use the tanning lights at night, on your spacecraft."

[UCANSEE2]

MSG RCD FRM MARS "Stay off our golf course, or we will do more than use the tanning lights at night, on your spacecraft."

[tracer]

OK, when did GW know about these rocks?

And when did he layer them??

[Jonah Hex]

"Paging Dr. Forrester, Dr. Clayton Forrester..."

[InABunkerUnderSF]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040126/cgm024_1.html
BR> Profits and PE look good but the chart looks toppy - either that or it's building a base for a major breakout, I can never tell.

[InABunkerUnderSF]

Photo of the surface of Venus from Venera 13. It looks like sedimentary rock to me.

Looks like lava flows to me. In fact, Venera 14 looks like pillow lava.

The top Venera 14 picture shows one of the most frustrating moments in space exploration.

Notice that the X-ray mass spectrometer probe, at the end of the extended arm, came down right on top of the ejected camera lens cap. How do you say "aw shucks break out the vodka" in Russian? :-[

[FreedomCalls]

Notice that the X-ray mass spectrometer probe, at the end of the extended arm, came down right on top of the ejected camera lens cap.

I never knew that. So that's what the little curvy thing that lies much closer to the lander's skirt on the opposite side (the next picture shown above at number 52 -- it's the lens cap from the other camera. What incredible bad luck.

[InABunkerUnderSF]

If I'm not mistaken (and I may be) the cameras on the Venera probes were mounted inside the refrigerated shell of the probe to keep them cooler longer and pointed straight up at a mirror driven by an electric motor on top of the shell. If that's the case, the lens cap was probably a two piece, spring loaded affair that fit over the mirror outside the shell of the probe. The two halfs popped off in different directions on landing.

I remember reading about this many years ago, I think it was in James Oberg's book.