Posted on 08/09/2005 1:18:11 PM PDT by LibWhacker
NASA's twin Mars rovers continue to turn up intriguing new rock formations after a combined total of nearly 1120 Martian days on the planet.
After discovering relatively little, other than basaltic lava flows, during its first six months on the Red Planet, Spirit continues to make up for lost time as it ascends Husband Hill - unearthing clues to violence in the planet's youth.
Meanwhile, Opportunity is also experiencing a reversal of fortune on the other side of Mars. After trudging over desolate stretches of sand for about five months, it has finally reached an island of bedrock that appears unlike anything yet seen in the mission.
Spirit landed in the lava plains of Gusev Crater, getting off to a slow start in its mission. But since it began clambering up to higher ground in the Columbia Hills in July 2004, it has seen granular rocks with a mix of grain sizes. And recently it has seen the most extreme case of this from a spot about 20 metres below the summit of Husband Hill, which rises about 80 metres above the floor of Gusev Crater.
Plum pudding
About a week ago, Spirit paused to study an outcrop called Voltaire. The outcrop is made of large, often angular "pebbles" that appear to have a different composition than the finer-grained material in which they are embedded.
The rovers' chief scientist, Steve Squyres at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, US, says the "plum pudding" composition hints at an explosive event such as a volcanic eruption or impact.
That view is strengthened by another rock that Spirit has been scrutinising for the last few days. Called Assemblee, it appears to be made of "cruddy glass" that may have been melted by such an event.
"The diversity of rock types is staggering," Squyres told New Scientist. He believes impacts may be to blame, pointing out that Spirit has previously uncovered rocks with high concentrations of nickel - an element found in many meteorites. The impacts would blast away different layers of the surface and jumble them together as they crashed down again. "You're basically throwing it into a blender," he says.
Early influences
But colleague Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, US, says there may be more to the story. "I think the crust is too complicated to have been produced by one process or one event," he says, adding that volcanic eruptions, impacts, wind and water all may have played a role. "These granular rocks were broken up, transported, put in place and cemented."
He says the Columbia Hills are even older than the approximately 3 billion-year-old volcanic plains that make up Gusev's floor and therefore contain clues about the events that shaped early Mars.
As Spirit continues towards the summit of Husband Hill and then proceeds down its southern slope, team members will compare the rocks to others they have studied. "If we see an even greater variety of rocks than we’ve observed so far, it will argue against one or two big events," Arvidson says.
Out to sea
On the other side of the planet, Opportunity is beginning to do some serious science of its own after a long stint of somewhat fruitless roaming. "Opportunity was the glamour rover for the first six months of the mission, but for the last five months, it has been trudging across a bleak plain of sand," says Squyres. "We felt like sailors who have been out to sea for months."
But within the last couple of days, the rover finally reached a little spot of bedrock - one of several scattered around the area. And it may prove worth the wait.
The rover used its rock abrasion tool to scrape the rock and found "blueberries” - broadly similar to those found in other places on Mars - that appear to have formed in the presence of water. But these have different size distributions and are not as spherical as those seen previously, suggesting the composition of the rock is different, says Squyres.
After studying this outcrop further, the team may send Opportunity farther south on Wednesday, towards an old, shallow crater called Erebus.
On Wednesday, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is also set to blast off to Mars. It will begin its work in November 2006, scanning the surface from a relatively low altitude of about 305 kilometres.
So was the dry dirt in WATERWORLD.
Not to mention the cost of hydro.
Those tracks look like the tires are going over mud instead of sand. Weird.
That is step two. Step one is property rights in some form.
Whoa! There's no way those are natural formations!
You must have no conception of what it takes to just reach Mars intact, much less pull off a mission far beyond all that could be hoped for. I watched a recent special on Discovery Channel about this. There was far more to this feat than I had ever imagined.
BTW, we had better OWN space! If we do not, the Chicoms will. That's a fact!
LLS
Actually, I have a very good conception of what it takes.
I was simply making a comment about the bald statistics for Mars missions: the success rate really is only about 60%. You can look it up.
The Hubble is not a manned vehicle. Granted, the launch & upkeep were made possible by the shuttle. Question- can the average man on the street name a single astronaut from the shuttle that landed this morning? The excitement generated by Mercury, Gemini and Apollo has faded into virtual ignorance and apathy about what we're doing.
They look real. I found the patches here.
Why, if the FedGov won't grant private property rights?
I really didn't mean for the opening of my post to be so smarmy. I was discussing my amazement at what it takes to achieve Mars orbit. Sorry if I offended.
The success rate is very good considering how hard it is to do. We are becoming more proficient with each mission.
LLS
If the Chicoms own the high ground, you will not have ANY rights!
LLS
No doubt. However, we as private citizens have no property rights to land in outer space as it is.
Do a little research before you continue to make a fool of yourself.
REad the book 'the chip', about the design and building of the first computer chip, and how it took off.
The plain truth is that if not for hte space race, and the government pouring massive amounts of money into it - the chip industry would have labored MUCH longer than it did. We would likely be ten or more years behind where we are in the field of computers. And every field that relies on them - including medicine, defense - well, practically everything - would still be sputtering along at late 80's speed.
But hey, if you want to keep posting stupid things for everyone to see, don't worry. The space program made it possible for you to do it.
Seems so, but we should immediately begin a $100 billion manned program, just to make sure.
The space race did contribute to high tech development...of course.....
But so did the Cold War, Hollywood, medicine and the toy industry.
I contend that the high tech revolution would have arrived just as soon without manned space vehicles.
Once the horizons were extended for personal use of computer technology, the force of the marketplace took over.
Now it's government science that has to catch up and beg for new gadgets.
Wow. Did anyone else know that there were rocks, sand and ancient lava flows on mars?
Next thing you know we are going to be told there are ancient canals that could have once held water!
My God how much did this financial abortion cost us?
If they find a dead body with a Lincoln Log in it's temple....I didn't do it, but I need that piece back to finish my replica of Abraham Lincoln's boyhood cabin.
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