New Mars Forums

Thanks for the in-depth analysis.
But maybe there is no need to worry about dealing out a cable after all. According to [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3548139.stm]the BBC article:

Not sure what submarine transmitters use, but sounds better than hastling with a cable for a probe that might roam and collect samples, image different subsurface terrain, then change its bouyancy and float/melt back up through the ice.

But are there good reasons to go back up?
...maybe to put the [http://www.thesamples.com]samples into analyzer equipment that couldnt be put in the probe and so would be housed in the lander at the surface? -but it seems to imply it would melt a new hole that would pop up somewhere very far out of reach of its lander. But then the lander should of course be a rover anyway, imagine the surface views!

- "lying" is the word you're looking for (another shining example of the english language not making sense...)

- unfortunately, the MERs cant mind-meld, but a pancam [http://www.70disco.com/startrek/horta.htm]picture of a Horta on the run would do just fine, yep. it would at least explain the origin of the "blueberries"

- i didnt see a wheel, but if youre talking about the same object (yeah now it looks liek a wheel to me, a little bit...) but thanks for challenge!

Just gotta cheack out the heatshield impact crater! How deep a mark do you think Spirit's heatshield gouged the soil when it impacted? Place your bets...
- the heatshield speed and angle of drop in thin air might have been a slow drop since its very lightweight and probably didnt flip out of control on its way down but likely fell in full face cone maximizing drag, wide area hit lots of big and small rocks, probably didnt punch too far into the soil before losing all its momentum (if it shattered any rock that will be something to see)
- so im guessing it disturbed the top inch or so of soil, not much tossing around of the soil, the big dark mark on the [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rover-i … ed_640.jpg]MGS image of the touchdown site is just due to the dust being blown away like the airbag bounce marks or wheel marks do with little disturbing of the soil which seems to be light colored on only the top millimeter or so... just being pessimistic...

Dont know what "corn circles" should be. are you refereing to [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/2N1322 … 1.JPG.html]images such as these? still not much more detail yet...

I've been waiting for the moment we spy the heatshield wreckage... yes, the bright spot is the reflection or image oversaturation of the EDL package's heatshield.

Remember, from [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rover-i … ed_640.jpg]looking at the MGS image, from [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rover-i … 23-04.html]the 1/23 press release, the heatshield looked like it had struck the north rim of Bonneville pretty hard.

From looking at [http://mer.rlproject.com/index.php?act= … ost&id=416]today's panorama, it should be in the same place as the reflection we see, since the rover is travelling in the right direction to put it at this proximity in the view and the other details in teh crater floor match up, so thats gotta be it! yeee-haa!
I made a [http://www.freewebs.com/atomoid/Bonneville3D.jpg]"quick & dirty" 3D anaglyph  of it to give a sense of perspective. sorry for the slow server (its free).

I hope they dont delay in going over and checking out the dammage to see if it gouged a big hole for us to investigate... Nice view of Bonneville, but im so bummed theres no bedrock showing, this is a dull run-of-the-mill crater indeed, at least it will be easy to drive around inside it. it must have been created before the Gusev sediments were laid down since its pretty well blanketed. spend a couple weeks here then head for the hills!

Does http://www.freewebs.com/atomoid/InsectF … 72M2M1.jpg image reveal a fossil or is it just another trick of light & shadow?
http://www.freewebs.com/atomoid/InsectF … 72M2M1.jpg

it seems to be a clear image of a six-legged insect-like object, kind of like a tick, with perfect symetry, no legs out of place, looking like an embossed fossil of an aphid or something with that sort of insectoidal shape straddling the spherule and flattened along its contour, its body and head straight facing up to the right and just below the largest bump that is visible on the spherule. If this exists and is a fossilized organism, then what could be the process to fossilize something liek this? im trying to imagine what a food chain on mars would be like. could the spherule be loose enough for a martian bug to crawl squeeze in the space to be part of a food chain feeding off the sulfur-eating bacteria thriving on the wet soil/spherule interface (maybe thats why some of the spherules have pocks and notches and dimples, theyve been partially consumed or eroded by biological action or secretions...) and then something happened and it got stuck and pressed to be fossilized flat like this? or maybe just the fossilized part is harder and hasnt eroded so it sticks up in relief, though only a fraction of a millimeter. Its clear that this is a very shallow embossing on the spherule and its only visible due to the incident light angle casting the shadow very clearly outlining the subtle form against the spherule. of course it could be merely coincidental arrangement of spherule textures...

I was used to thinking that Mars was just too harsh and resource-poor to allow multicellular life to evolve, and so we'd have no hope of finding anything but the fossilized excretions of single-cell microbes, but then again, evolutionary pressures might have pushed evolution along much faster than on Earth where life could have just slacked for billions of years in its comfort zone before doing anything more interesting...

The "dark spot inside the spherule" to me doesnt look at all liek it is inside it, it looks more like its on the outside see [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1306 … 1.JPG.html]this sharp image of it. My impression is that the "dark spot" is a pock mark like so many of the other spherules have (which in itself is a mystery since concretions are not supposed to have vessicles). curiously, this spherule, like so many others, has been shattered, what could have done that? bits of rock or other spherules tossed around by impacts? temperature differentials?

Regarding the pseudo pearl formation for a "bit of nucleus" to form the concretion around, there doesnt seem to be any obvious nucleus to the sphereules that are cut in half in the many other MI images. they look pretty homogenous, not even the layering you get with usual concretions we se on earth, like thay had precipitated around nothing very large or different than the substance they are composed of. However, they do have an apparent outer shell structure. as you can see in [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1302 … 1.JPG.html]this old image of a shattered spherule (the big shard in the bottom half) which might be merely a chemical interaction with the bedrock around it during moist times (the bedrock itself seems to be covered everywhere with a healthy "rind" as well, suggesting copious mineralization with the soils around it)

Thanks for that concretions article,,, for more about fossils check out this [http://aix1.uottawa.ca/~weinberg/mars/]this mars fossils website, it has lots of interesting notes about Meridiani "fossil" issues raised here

here's a [http://www.marsunearthed.com/Opportunit … y37_3D.htm]great new 3D anaglyph of the bedrock contaning a dark spherule. The spherule looks very dark much like the "wet" ones underground are. Most interesting to me are all the little caves and hollows (termite galleries). is there any explanation for this kind of formation, it cant be wind erosion can it? and if so, why such a pattern? it looks to me like evidence of microbial protective film secretions that the microbes would excrete in order to stabilize their environment. Perfaps this microbial mat junk that gets fossilized is more erodable than the bedrock and so these termite galleries form as it erodes, or perhaps what were seing here, if some hollows turn out to be tubes, rock boring clams and worms come to mind... or hydrogen sulfide dissolving of the bedrock exuded by the miscroorganisms or by merely geological means (think Lechuguilla cave (sp?))...
any concurring/dissenting takes on this?

if the dust has a charge like a static charge, didnt they give the panels an anti-static coating? and wouldnt it would be possible to apply a charge to the solar panels in some way to repel the dust?

The Viking landers both used RTGs (which are more expensive and beurocratically difficult than solar panels, but thats what NASA is for) and as a result, operated for many years, yeah SIX years!!, you dont have to worry about batteries with RTGs since they supply constant power, maybe some capacitors to get a high enough charge for some experiements but those dont have such problems, the problem was that the Vikings couldnt move so they were stuck in one spot with one vista and couldnt reach farther than their trencher would let them so there was nothing new to see after the initial mission ended, except for that they were able to get seasonal weather monitoring and pictures including water frost on the soil every winter:
The Viking 1 lander landed on the western slope of Chryse Planitia (the Plains of Gold) on July 20, 1976 and functioned until November 11, 1982.  The Viking 2 lander landed at Utopia Planitia on September 3, 1976 and functioned until April 11, 1980

I am hoping (okay... grovelling, pleading, and begging!), that they will make the 2009 rover mission a TWO rover mission (the absolutely necessary proven-in-practice redundancy factor just cant be dismissed, especially when it comes to our track record on landing things on Mars, so we got lucky in 2004, can we really bank on a future 100% success rate?), it really cant be that more expensive than sending one since most of the costs are in the engineering side, not the equipment (okay rocket boosters are expensive, but add it up... can NASA afford to lose an _entire_ launch window's worth of progress? remember how the loss of polar lander doomed its next of kin 2001 lander (to eventually be recycled in 2007 as Phoenix) since the designs were similar? so we actually lost TWO missions (two launch windows) as a result of one botched landing, so it makes me cringe that all they have planned so far for each of 2005, 2007 and 2009 missions is just 1 probe each launch window...)

IMHO we should send two mission every window, each year we could send a copy of the Mars-tested MER each window as a backup. We could outfit the arm with new experiments each time as called for by the latest discoveries to test theories or do life-seeking experiements, that way NASA would have some success-insurance on a proven platform rather than run the risk of losing a whole window to a chance botching with a new untested platform (well, increase the odds at least). These MERs seem like a great platform, lets reuse the design or spend a little more on outfitting one with new experiments and better yet an RTG to take it throught he winter. imho at least one surface mission should be sent every window, since its the human-scale images and evirons that get the public involved and help tip the politcal will to support space exploration. Also, the surface of Mars is so diverse that we could take a chance on landing one of the redundant rovers in some less-safe areas where we could get better science and vistas...

you can find some good info about the PanCam near the bottom of the [http://www.lyle.org/mars/]lyle.org website and [http://www.atsnn.com/NASAIsNotAlteringM … tory=30048]here too.
the camera and filter number used in the image can be found in the filename. for example on [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1316 … 1.JPG.html]this page youll notice it says "Microscope, Filter 2" in the caption and then see where "M2" exists 4th and 3rd to last digits in the filename "1M131649297EFF0544P2933M2M1.JPG"... likewise its L and R plus filter numbers for the Left/Right stereo pairs from the pancam. i used to tediously make the anaglyphs myself then i found that lyle.org has the whole process scripted and automated so they appear there even before they go on NASA's raw site. here are the [http://www.marsunearthed.com/OMIndex/Ma … sIndex.htm]best aligned and cropped anaglyphs.

Nice cogent essay, thanks for that, i'm paddling too, although in a kayak getting tossed around by all the musings of life or the lack of it. as such, all of us hopeful paddlers better put on our "life preservers" (sorry, couldnt resist)....i'm so glad the "sterile white Mars (with exploding CO2 reserves)" is dead, i really like Hoffman's devils-advocacy, he really makes you question your assumptions, but to us "life-hopefuls" that was really a depressing concept...
- The olivine: is it new? how is it formed? if its new, like the hematite, it might be mostly in the dust which gets blown around covering rocks and soils, masking the underlying composition of the surface from the orbital sensors (has this possibility been negated?).

If life did exist, i believe it would "try" very hard to become multicellular, but mars might not have been wet and stable long enough to allow such delicacies to evolve. But even with single cell nanomicrobes, it would tend to adapt to the energy source available, probably chemical (sulfur), since surface conditions were probably too harsh without a useful magnetic field. the most conducive conditions for life would be underground, so this bedrock with all its sulfur and layering should have been a real haven for microbes. they should have left some features altered: I think weve already seen evidence of microbial action just below the surface (in the past at least):
- The "termite gallery" appearance of the bedrock to me looks like evidence of microbial mats or globules or other protective secretion structures altering the erodability of areas of the layers. if the microbes come out of spore form to take advantage of changing conditions caused by climate shifts or meteor vulcanism driven heat. we'd could see episodic changes in the layer materials (termite galleries again?). - So the spherules are really are in fact concretions (eureka!), this shows that there was an excess of minerals in the bedrock as conditions changed which microbes would normally figure out a way to take advantage of.

As for current life, im thinking it might not be thriving, but dormant, or might be very slow in its metabolism and so doenst alter its environment as fast as natural erosional forces do, and any released gasses or chemical changes in the soil are rapidly dispersed by natural actions, therefore we might have a hard time sensing it. If it were really thriving im thinking wed be seeing a lot of methane or other chemical signatures in the atmosphere or soils...  However, it might be thriving in a few nice places (like Meridiani) and so as the MER trenching operations are disturbing billions of slow-living microbes, anything thay exude would be mixed around in the soil making their tell-tale signs far less obvious to the low-res microscope or spectrometers (why didnt they put a more useful higher-power scope on that thing anyway?).

If the spherules slightly erode (due to water saturation inside the rock), the dissolved minerals might tend to congregate in the same area and drift away forming a mineralized area that might be the "stalk", being harder than the layered bedrock it was composed from. therefore they wont weather quite as fast as the surrounding material, which weathers unevenly as well, perhaps the stalk is composed of the harder materials in the harder layer ruffle material. but thats quite a precarious and delicate stalk, even in the low Mars gravity, its surprising its so long... Some other (though not as stellar) stalked spherules have a pattern of rock around them that looks similarly odd such as this [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rover-i … en-med.jpg]spherule on a stand and [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 53M2M1.JPG]another stalk spherule which if you look to the lower left in [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/rover-i … ug-med.jpg]this other picture of it shows some attachment designs in the "socket" and below it, are some cracking patterns around the spherule in the crack.

Otherwise, [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1P1314 … 1.JPG.html]The Spherule and the Stalk might merely be a remnant of the layer and only looks tubular from this vantage point (although the shadow does strongly argue for tubularity), however, the stalk does follow the grain of the layer, suggesting it is merely a remnant of the layer, and not some part of the spherule, for example its "feeding tube" or what have you...

nonetheless, its really amazing find, theyd better take a closeup of that thing! too bad the [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/stereo … 6255-P.jpg]lyle.org 3D anaglyph doesnt show it in both eyes...

i see the "arrow"... its on the top pointing down onto the top-right BB.

one guess is its a small area marred by the RAT operation (its the same color as other parts of the rock), or perhaps is an angular plane in the rock (perhaps the interior of one of the "veins", which i assume are shrinkage cracks (but thats a whole nuther mystery) has been exposed by the RAT).

Its interesting how the tip of the arrow impinges upon the BB like a damaging blow, as if both the "arrow" and the impinged mark on the BB were evidence that the rock had been bashed by something, perhaps a RAT...

look at the [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 33M2M1.JPG]before and [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 59M2M1.JPG]after images and you can see how much of the surface was removed.

Look below and to the left of the top right BB, about two BBs length it looks like there is a socket for a "missing" BB... its roughly the same size as the other BBs but the hole is all filled with rock or rock powder now almost blending in with the rock forms around it (is it merely a coincidental rock shape that looks like a BB socket?)... what happened to the BB? where could it have gone ??? did it get shattered and crumbled to powder by the RAT? or was it "never there"?

also notice the lower extreme left of the [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 33M2M1.JPG]before image, there is a dark blemish just above the hole, looks like it could have been a last point of attachment for a BB that has long since dropped off... leaving this mark. there are other [http://www.lyle.org/mars/imagery/1M1307 … 1.JPG.html]sockets in other pictures like this. is that dark stain dissolved BB material?