Posted on 05/06/2004 1:57:56 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - NASA scientists said Thursday they may send the Opportunity rover on a one-way trip to the depths of a crater on Mars so the robot can finish out its days studying stacks of layered rock that may have formed long ago at the bottom of a salty extraterrestrial ocean.
The multiple layers of bedrock that line much of the inner slope of Endurance crater stand in cliffs 16 to 33 feet tall in places. They are seen in a sweeping color panorama that NASA released Thursday at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
"It's the most spectacular view we've seen of the Martian surface, for the scientific value of it but also for the sheer beauty of it," said Cornell University astronomer Steve Squyres, the mission's main scientist.
The bulk of the bedrock is deeper below the surface, and therefore older, than a far smaller outcrop a half-mile away that Opportunity previously revealed to have formed in a wet environment suitable for life.
Scientists know the older rocks now exposed at Endurance crater are different but cannot say yet what conditions were like when they originally formed.
"It's telling us a story about a different environment," Squyres said.
The now-dry region could have been permanently covered by a deep body of water, periodically flooded by a shallow swamp, capped in ice or even scattered with shifting dunes later turned to stone.
Sending Opportunity skidding even part of the way down into the crater, named for the ship that carried Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition to Antarctica, would enable the robotic geologist to study the rocks up close, determine their origin and learn if water played a role.
But the slope and dry soil inside the crater combined could make it slippery enough to prevent the six-wheeled Opportunity from rolling back out again.
Scientists on the $835 million mission said the potential scientific payoff could justify consigning the rover to a crater it could never escape. Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, are expected to last at least through September.
Otherwise, scientists would command the rover to "toe-dip" into the crater in one or two locations where it is safe to roll in and back out, Squyres said. They then would send the rover to investigate other sites on the surrounding plains it previously studied only briefly or missed altogether.
Opportunity arrived at Endurance crater, a gaping hole 430 feet across, following a six-week trek from its landing site at the far smaller Eagle crater.
Both craters have given scientists glimpses below the otherwise flat terrain at the Meridiani Planum site.
Opportunity will spend the next several weeks carefully circumnavigating Endurance along a counterclockwise route and photographing its interior from multiple angles.
"There are cliffs the rover could roll off and die if we're not careful," rover driver Brian Cooper said.
The crater is up to 66 feet deep, its bottom carpeted in a patchwork of dunes.
Even without entering Endurance, Opportunity may be able to analyze rocks cast outward from the crater's depths and onto its rim.
Halfway around Mars, Spirit was several weeks away from a cluster of hills that could represent a scientific bonanza in its own right.
Early analysis of the hills has revealed they are different from the volcanic plains inside Gusev Crater that Spirit is currently traversing.
The hills may have formed in an environment where water played a role, scientists said.
"We have some really fantastic things on the horizon for Spirit," said science team collaborator Amy Knudson, of Arizona State University.
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| Left Panoramic Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 121 of Spirit's mission to Gusev Crater at approximately 14:57:51 Mars local solar time, camera commanded to use Filter 7 (432 nm). NASA/JPL/Cornell View Full Image |
Looks like it has a few spots to check out .. should be fun.
Better double-ply that tinfoil there, big guy....
Norm, you are
Interesting, but what exactly are you talking about?
Gus Frederick, right, examines his camera as Greg Drayer, rear, looks on during a mission near the Mars Desert Research Station, Monday, April 19, 2004, northwest of Hanksville, Utah. While NASA (news - web sites) robots probe the Red Planet in discovery missions, researchers are simulating the Mars environment in a remote section of the Utah desert. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac)
This approximate true-color image taken by the panoramic camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity highlights a feature called 'Burns Cliff' within the impact crater known as 'Endurance.'(NASA (news - web sites)/JPL/Cornell)
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