Rovers Roll Toward New Sites on Mars

Yahoo! News ^ | 3/6/04 | Robert Jablon - AP

[NormsRevenge]

LOS ANGELES -

The Mars rovers moved toward new rocks to drill on Saturday, a day after the Spirit rover found geological evidence that the dusty Red Planet had a wet past.

The Opportunity rover prepared for another drilling job as Spirit — positioned halfway around the planet — rolled slowly toward the rim of a crater called "Bonneville."

The six-wheeled Spirit moved 94 feet northeast toward the crater after snapping the final photographs that scientists will use to assemble a full-circle, full-color panorama of the region dubbed "Middle Ground."

Meanwhile, Opportunity used its tool-laden robotic arm to inspect a rock called "Wave Ripple" and took 50 microscopic images. It then drove to a new target at the south end of the outcropping that it has been examining for weeks. Its wheels slipped in the soil and it had to move along a slight slope, but the job was accomplished.

Opportunity planned to use its rock abrasion tool to grind away on a feature called "Flat Rock" over the weekend.

NASA (news - web sites)'s $280 million rover mission was designed to seek geological clues on whether ancient Mars had enough water to potentially have supported life, and both rovers have now found evidence of past water activity on the planet.

NASA announced Friday that the Spirit rover's instruments found signs that water may have altered a volcanic rock in a region called Gusev crater. The crater is halfway around the planet from where Opportunity earlier uncovered evidence that its landing site was once drenched.

The amount of water suggested by the data is far less than what Opportunity found at its site.

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On the Net:

Jet Propulsion Laboratory: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

[NormsRevenge]

This three dimensional model shows a region of the outcrop near the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's landing site dubbed 'Last Chance' and released by NASA (news - web sites) March 5, 2004. The model was created with images taken by the rover's panoramic camera. The layered rocks were recently the subject of an extensive series of microscopic images. MEDIUM RESOLUTION IMAGE FROM SOURCE REUTERS/NASA/JPL/Cornell/Ames/Handout EDITORIAL USE ONLY

[taxesareforever]

The Plains of New Mexico.

[writer33]

"The Plains of New Mexico."

That means their is Oil and Natural Gas there. Where's Halliburton when you need 'em.

[BenLurkin]

"MARS or NEVADA- Gallery Quiz"

http://www.rgj.com/multimedia/galleries/html/2004/01/310/index.php

[Phil V.]

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

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Here's a microscopic panorama glyph of 'Last Chance' .

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And here's an interesting microscopic picture of the more horizontal (I believe) portion of "last chance". Notice the fracture that appears to have been partially filled in with additional liquid born minerals. Assuming that the rocks were exposed by meteor impact and the fractures were related to impact then the "mending" of the fracture followed some time later.

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[Phil V.]

BTW . . . any guess as to why only 59 of the 128 microscopic images have been posted?

[Miss Marple]

This volcanic rock is from the other site, isn't it? (I mean that this is from the site that did not have the little fossil=like things, right?)

And which site are the non-posted pictures from?

[thedugal]

It takes time to photoshop out the fossils.

[hershey]

Amazing! I'm sitting here, stunned.

[Phil V.]

All of the pictures so far on this thread are from the Opportunity rover - the rover whose site was the focus of abundant water discussions.

[Phil V.]

"And which site are the non-posted pictures from?"

Opportunity Status for sol 39
An Armada of Arm Moves
posted Mar. 4, 11 am PST

On sol 39, which ends at 8:52 a.m. PST on Thursday, March 4, Opportunity awoke to "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival in honor of the eclipse caused by the martian moon Deimos.

The science and engineering team built a whopping 490 commands to accomplish the most complex robotic arm operations on Mars yet. Opportunity took three mosaics on the area dubbed "Last Chance," using the microscopic imager, creating 128 images in over 200 arm moves

[blam]

Thanks, keep'em coming.

[skinkinthegrass]

Thanks...I need to find "a better set of view googles"...blue/red are fine,but... :))

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[NormsRevenge]

maybe the other files were trash or missing lots of data.. you see some that have missing chunks.. still excellent stuff either way.

or they found a fossil of a fish or a demRat or something. ;-)

[null and void]

BTW . . . any guess as to why only 59 of the 128 microscopic images have been posted?

The fossiles are just too clear in the other 69 photos?...

[null and void]

Grape mimes rum in the sane flannel...

[Green Knight]

Anyone else amused by the fact that the European press made a big deal about the Beagle and how it was going to make all these astonishing discoveries, but once the thing touched down they never heard one peep out of it? *snicker*

[MaryFromMichigan]

I was not amused. I think it was our loss as well.
At this early stage of exploration, all information is valuable.

[RightWhale]

No. It wasn't a tragic loss, nothing so dramatic, but the data it was capable of providing will have to wait until another flight, which in itself delays various design decisions that need to be made sooner rather than later since the entire direction of the exploration of Mars is in question and large resources are being made available now.