Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-20 13:43:45

Adrian, it's just that they have one JPL and one DSN and one basically communications team (as far as I can tell). I'm almost certain they have two teams working on both Spirit and Opportunity (though Steve Squyres is bound to lose his mind once he has to lead both teams- his sleep schedule is going to get hectic!). They just don't want to mess up EDL by people not paying attention in whatever way.

Rxke, that does sound exciting! I wish I didn't miss it. I bet the scientists were giddy to explain the experiments and results.

remcook, I don't think so! That would be excellent! But in all likelihood, they'll just double up the length of a given press conference. But I have no idea. Good question.

jetset · 2004-01-20 15:35:33

I'd like em to look at this 'thing' lying over the rock.

Rxke · 2004-01-21 00:55:02

Errr... Jetset, I only see a fuzy picture, not sure what you mean...

Anyway,... I fire up my computer after a good night worth of sleep, (it happens, once in a while, sleeping, i mean) only to discover there's no gazilion posts added in ths thread!
Honestly, I'm a bit amazed, here we are on Mars, finally some hard science facts coming in, and nobody seems to care? Or are you all waiting to come up with comments about Adirondack?

Hey, we found measurable quantities of Nickel, zinc, for the first time, also tentative proof for salts (brine?)
Then there's the olivine... The Argon in relative abundance...

I could hardly get asleep, wanting to look up what one can do with Nickel/Fe mixes etc... Or better read all about it in NMars...

Palomar · 2004-01-21 07:07:56

Errr... Jetset, I only see a fuzy picture, not sure what you mean...
Anyway,... I fire up my computer after a good night worth of sleep, (it happens, once in a while, sleeping, i mean) only to discover there's no gazilion posts added in ths thread!
Honestly, I'm a bit amazed, here we are on Mars, finally some hard science facts coming in, and nobody seems to care? Or are you all waiting to come up with comments about Adirondack?
Hey, we found measurable quantities of Nickel, zinc, for the first time, also tentative proof for salts (brine?)
Then there's the olivine... The Argon in relative abundance...
I could hardly get asleep, wanting to look up what one can do with Nickel/Fe mixes etc... Or better read all about it in NMars...

[http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s … _mars_dc_4]Martian Soil Poses Puzzles for NASA Scientists

*The topic matter is a bit out of my league (Rik, I hear you...it's not a matter of not caring; for my own part, it's unfamiliarity with this specific topic matter; I presume that may hold for others as well) currently; I'll re-read the article.

"'Mars is not going to give up its secrets easily. It is going to take a lot of time,' Steve Squyres, the mission's principal investigator, told a news briefing."

--Cindy

Byron · 2004-01-21 07:18:13

Quote from news article:

Squyres said it was still too early in the planned three-month mission to speculate on whether there was once life-sustaining water on Mars despite previous evidence of ice caps on the planet.

Excuse me?? Aren't there ice caps on Mars now? Leave it to dumb-smuck reporters to say stuff like this... Oh well.

Interesting they've found some olivine...I know this has been a topic of discussion on this boards in the past, although I can't exactly recall the significance of this substance. Does it indicate that there has been recent volcanic activity on Mars? Liquid water?

Anyone care to speculate a bit about the recent findings...?

B

Palomar · 2004-01-21 07:44:44

Quote from news article:
Squyres said it was still too early in the planned three-month mission to speculate on whether there was once life-sustaining water on Mars despite previous evidence of ice caps on the planet.
Excuse me?? Aren't there ice caps on Mars now? Leave it to dumb-smuck reporters to say stuff like this... Oh well.

*Yeah, I know. Dunderheads!! Reporters get all kinds of things screwed up...(as I'm sure we all know).

I was going to comment on that, then I received a priority report and had to leave off for a while...

--Cindy

::EDIT:: Information at today's Astropix feature (which is updated daily, so if I link to it today, tomorrow's feature will show up in the link tomorrow...) says the Adirondack rock is the size of a football (American football...). I thought that was an interesting bit of information (I checked back over yesterday's posts and don't see that related previously).

Palomar · 2004-01-21 08:32:11

[=http://www.space.com/astronotes/astronotes.html]Good news...then "oh brother"

*The good news first: If Opportunity has the great success Spirit enjoyed, especially as airbags go, scientists are hoping for future landings in more treacherous terrain.

"If both of these landers survive with airbag technology, then it blows the doors wide open for future Mars landing sites with far more interesting terrain..."

Now for the "oh brother": The president of Long John Silver's is hoping that will be the first franchise restaurant on Mars. It's the 2nd item from the top for today, January 21:

"'We have closely followed NASA's recent exploration of Mars and all of us are rooting you on to find ocean water on the red planet,' wrote Long John Silver's president Steve Davis in a letter to NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe. 'The free giant shrimp offer is our way of saying NASA's exploration of Mars and the discovery of ocean water would be 'one small step for man, one giant leap for seafood.'

In his letter, Davis also told O'Keefe of his interest for Long John Silver's to become the first seafood restaurant on Mars once humans are living there permanently."

*Sigh. Already getting into the act, huh? We discussed the possibility of creating populated seas or oceans a long time ago...based on those discussions, I think the cart's ahead of the horse just a bit here. :-\

That's what we need on Mars: Cholesterol and clogged arteries...right.

--Cindy

Byron · 2004-01-21 08:48:51

Yeah, I find that hard to believe about Long John Silver.... ??? Anything for free publicity, huh? But LJS has to be the *worst* place to eat at in the whole world...and they're going to export this tripe to Mars?!?

Gadangit...it's going be hard enough just to survive on Mars, and now we have to deal with horrible-tasting food too?...

It's a genuine bummer, huh?....hehe...

B

jetset · 2004-01-21 12:15:22

Ok I've highlighted it.
What do you lot make of it.?

Steve

Rxke · 2004-01-21 12:52:39

Nothing, it's too blurry...
Some shadows, some rocks... ???

Adrian · 2004-01-21 13:48:37

I strongly hope that this isn't going to devolve into an 'is that an artificial formation' argument, because you know where to take it...

To get back on topic - Rxke: I think everyone here is very interested in the briefings and I know that following this thread and reading reports by people like you probably represents the best and most up-to-date way of keeping up with the rovers. The reason why people aren't talking that much about the science is, I suspect, because they don't know what to make of it. There's a huge flood of information coming in every day about mineral compositions, soil structure, plans, images and more, and it's difficult to digest all of it properly.

To be honest, at this point I'm more interested in the neat stuff the rover is doing, like digging holes in the soil with its wheels I wonder if the mission scientists had seriously thought they'd be doing this beforehand.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-21 14:22:18

Not many of us are geologists either.

What I found disappointing is the olivine. That stuff keeps popping up everywhere. I question how common it is on Earth. I suspect not very due to the worldwide rains, but where it does exist on Earth, does it exist in cold Mars-like regions? It's a puzzle.

Nickel/zinc are good, but they were bound to be found, really. It seems that they're in similar quantities as on Earth. I wasn't surprised at all.

But just think, the size of lobsters on Mars is bound to be huge, so maybe if LJS does set up there, it'd actually become good eatin'.

clark · 2004-01-21 15:09:04

I found this somewhere:

Olivine is a mineral formed from silica tetrahedra with magnesium (Mg+2) ions, or some other metal ion like manganese, iron, or calcium, in octahedral positions.

Olivine is one of the most important of the minerals making up the Earth. Olivines are a major constituent of the ultrabasic rocks (peroditites) in the upper part of the Earth's Mantle. They are to Gabbro and Basalt what Feldspars are to Granite and Rhyolite.

The olivine minerals include:

Forsterite (Mg2SiO4) (see Peridot)
Tephroite (Mn2SiO4)
Fayalite (Fe2SiO4)
Monticellite (CaMgSiO4)

stevejhacker · 2004-01-21 15:12:17

I know this is probably a stupid question. Sorry for my naivete, but can someone tell me why both current probes (Spirit and Opportunity) shot for more or less equatorial Mars landing sites instead of polar ice cap regions? I know that scientists have said that the Spirit landing was right on the money in terms of location. I would just like to know why we didn't aim for the Mars polar ice cap regions which should have some very interesting "things" frozen there. I think it's largely frozen CO2(?), but isn't there the potential for frozen H2O as well??? Someone please enlighten me...
Thanks,
Steve Hacker
stevejhacker@yahoo.com

jetset · 2004-01-21 15:36:12

The pic is from my webspace, that's where I uploaded it to.

The origional pic is PIA05108 from here

[http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/new]http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/new

Its a 35MB TIFF
you obviously won't see it in this jpeg though.

[http://www.sph70.btinternet.co.uk/wholeimage1.jpg]http://www.sph70.btinternet.co.uk/wholeimage1.jpg

Hey Steve, I was wondering the same thing about the icecaps.. ???

Byron · 2004-01-21 15:39:30

Jetset, if that really is a peice that's not supposed to be there, then I think it would be a reasonable idea to assume that was a stray peice of material that fell off the lander as it came to rest.

Hard to tell for sure unless the rover goes right up to it (I don't think it will,though.)

B

jetset · 2004-01-21 15:53:29

Hard to tell for sure unless the rover goes right up to it (I don't think it will,though.)
B

Which is why it shouldn't just be assumed that it fell off the lander.

I wonder if they've even seen it.?

Steve

Adrian · 2004-01-21 17:52:13

Steve: I believe one of the main reasons the landing sites were chosen was because they were 'safe' - they didn't have any big boulders or other things that might endanger the probes and rovers as they were coming down. Perhaps the ice caps are more troublesome in that respect (as the Polar Lander demonstrated).

There could be interesting things at the ice caps, but there are interesting things in the current landing sites as well - possible evidence of past water flow, that sort of thing. The fact is, when there have only been three successful landing attempts in the past decade, there are inevitably going to be some very promising places on Mars that will be missed.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-21 17:53:13

Hehehe, the .jpg is a lot smaller, with very very little differences from the original .tiff, mind you. Should be the same link but with .jpg as an extention.

Okay, no it wasn't... here ya go: [http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA05108.jpg]http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA05108.jpg

Rxke · 2004-01-21 17:58:34

Download completed. (The TIFF, that is)

Conclusion: Rocks, sand, some dust and some more rocks. Oh, and shadows.

What else is there to see? Honestly...

Stu · 2004-01-21 23:49:24

Steve: I also think it's got a lot to do with the atmospheric conditions and pressure - there is simply more air at the chosen landing sites because they are effectively depressions, beneath the "surface level" of Mars if you like, so parachutes have more air to "grab at" and slow the landers down here than they would at the elevated poles.

Also, weather conditions at sites such as Gusev and Meridiani are more stable (no thermals rising or dust swirling about as the ice evaporates or sublimes). Add to that the fact that they have no uncharted crevasses, and features of interest (rocks) are exposed right there on the surface, so there's no need to snuffle about under circuit-chilling dry ice snow to find rocks to sniff with a Mossbauer, and you can see why they were chosen...

...but you can bet that there are geologists at JPL just aching to get to the poles and start digging about in those gateau-like sedimentary layers...

S

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#101 2004-01-20 13:43:45

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#102 2004-01-20 15:35:33

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#103 2004-01-21 00:55:02

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#104 2004-01-21 07:07:56

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#105 2004-01-21 07:18:13

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#106 2004-01-21 07:44:44

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#107 2004-01-21 08:32:11

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#108 2004-01-21 08:48:51

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#109 2004-01-21 12:15:22

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#110 2004-01-21 12:52:39

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#111 2004-01-21 13:48:37

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#112 2004-01-21 14:22:18

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#113 2004-01-21 15:09:04

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#114 2004-01-21 15:12:17

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#115 2004-01-21 15:36:12

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#116 2004-01-21 15:39:30

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#117 2004-01-21 15:53:29

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#118 2004-01-21 17:52:13

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#119 2004-01-21 17:53:13

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#120 2004-01-21 17:58:34

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

#121 2004-01-21 23:49:24

Re: Spirit & Opportunity 2 - Continued from original thread

Board footer