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This is a HUGE crater. I'm thinking there could be some outcrops in it if they are as small/thin as the one Opportunity is examining now.

synthomus,
Looks like atamoid already posted the image with the heat shield and parachute locations. [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 0123a.html]Here is the press release that has a link to the large (4 mb) version of this image.

Phil,
I thought this was a pretty flat area and there would not be any change in elevation except the height of the crater rim. Is that the change in elevation you're refering to?

Chaosman,
Yes, I see what looks to be a spherule that has been fractured. It's directly below the intact "double" spherule (for lack of a better term). I too see what looks to be a core and other fine features. This is REALLY exciting. I'm surprised nobody is talking about seeing inside a spherule. It's something we've all been waiting to see.

Regarding the thread everybody has been talking about.
Craig Covault of Aviation Week asked about the thread at last Thursday's press conferences. He said there were 3 pictures with threads in them. Steve Squyers spoke in detail about this for about 3 minutes describing the size etc.. He thinks it could be airbag material. He said he would be more interested if they found these threads far away from the landing site where they would be less likely to find airbag material. You can watch the whole press conference at the link below or you can fast-forward 32 minutes in to the press conference if you're just interested in the threads.

[rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/e021904_nasa.rm]rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/e021904_nasa.rm

For everybody that missed Thursday's MER Press Breifing, like me, C-SPAN did not archive it. But they are re-running it on C-SPAN2 at 4:13AM EST (1:13AM PST, 9:13AM UTC). That's about three and a half hours from now.

EDIT
Hope everybody got to see it. The next news conference will be Tuesday, Feb 17, at 10:00AM PST (1:00PM EST, 6:00PM UTC).

I just had an awful thought. What if the Hematite is just a very thin layer on the top of the Meridiani area and it came from an eruption or impact of a small area and was just recently deposited? Then what we thought was possibly a large area of water may actually be a much smaller area. Ugh!

Actually, I'm probably wrong. But it's interesting to think about what it means if they are in the outcrop. If the outcrop was formed by water and these things formed in the water, then that would be REALLY exciting. [http://onesmlstp.tripod.com/]Here's the same image with the objects circled.

At least some of the spherical things seem to be imbedded in the outcrop and these things are falling out as the outcrop is eroded. That means these things were created as the outcrop was being formed. Here's a good picture.

You should check out the latest [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … _m015.html]microscopic imager images.

Yes, they are as intrigued as all of us. Here's a link to the press conference where they talked about them. You have to have real player installed for the link to work.

[rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/e020404_nasa.rm]rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/e020404_nasa.rm

These little spheroids are all over the place. Take a look.

You should take a look at the latest raw images at the Mars Rovers site because they have a bunch of new ones.

[http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/]http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/

If both Europe and America are doing misions to the Moon and Mars, why not do a joint mission?

Stu,
Thanks very much for the link. I'm so glad they released the hi-res panorama. The huge number of bounce marks is incredible. The lander/rover must have been balanced perfectly in the center of the airbags for it to roll around so much in the crater.

Arcos,
In the [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … -A10R1.jpg]12 mb pan cam image, Cake is about the same size as Adirondack and about 6 Adirondack length's away and at the 8 or 9 o'clock position from Adirondack. That doesn't describe it very well, but it's to the left of Adirondack in the large pan cam image.

Cindy,
I have to agree that the team at JPL is great. When they first announced the problems with Spirit I thought it would never be running again. I'm so glad it's fixed.

Marsnik,
The outcrop does look very layered and sedimentary to me. Not that I'm an expert though. Did you notice the dark rocks in the middle of the left most outcrop? They look like they may have been broken off the outcrop to me. They seem out of place.

Matt,
Excellent analysis of the crater and outcrop. I was thinking it looked like the crater impact shattered the bedrock leaving the outcrop to be weathered, but I'm no expert. 

Link,
I'm new here just  like you. Hope you find this site as exciting and informative as I have. I can't seem to find your "-S-" feature. Is it a mark on one of the rocks or do the rocks form an -S-?

Not sure if everybody caught this, but there won't be a news briefing on Tuesday. The next one will be Wednesday at 10:00am pacific.

Looks like they updated the [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … unity.html]raw images for Opportunity. I don't know about you guys & gals, but I'm having a hard time keeping up now that both rovers are working.

For everyone interested, here's a [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 11L2M1.JPG]hi-res image of the leaf/ piece of airbag /strange thing. Same image Stephen posted only bigger.

Thanks Stuart. I'm just so glad I found the New Mars web site. You wouldn't believe how many space related forums there are on the net that don't have anybody talking about Spirit and Opportunity.

Josh, Thanks for the info. I knew the Maestro site had a forum but I didn't know about the IRC channel. I'll have to check it out. Thanks.

Not sure if anybody else does this, but I look at these Mars images for hours on end. At Gusev crater, I can tell pretty much where everything is in relation to the whole scene (having a complete panorama helps). But at Meridiana, there are a several images that are just the soil with no distinguising marks so it's hard to get my bearing especially since we don't have a full hi-res panorama yet. I've been trying to figure out where Stphens leaf like object is in relation to the outcrop but I haven't had any luck. I also tried to make my own panorama from all the indiviual images but that's been difficult because of the lack of identifiable object in the scene. Does anybody have any idea where that leaf like thing is in relation to the outcrop?

Darn, I figured this might be the place where NASA people hang out. I think we need to tell them they should hang out here.

The hematite thing is great and it looks like a low temperature formation process possibly meaning water.

My favorite line from the press conference was when they were talking about the mechanical engineer that got to send the egress command and somebody said "One small click...". That was great.

They are going to replay the new conference and show the images at 5:30AM PST for anybody that missed it.

I saw an interview with Arther C Clark where he said it was the squares of the first 3 numbers, but he didn't sound too convincing.
1^2 = 1
2^2 = 4
3^2  = 9

I always thought it approximated (very roughly) a humanoid form.