Spirit & Opportunity

Rxke · 2004-01-06 12:28:38

man man man man!!!
PEBBLES big ones!!!! small ones...

that means water, wooooooooowwww; Mars did have long wet periods!

Edit... Sandblasted instead of pebbles? But some are toally rounded...

Palomar · 2004-01-06 12:37:46

*I just caught a "Postcards from Mars" segment on FOX news. Unfortunately I didn't catch the name of the science commentator being interviewed.

Pretty garnet sand strewn with ochre and burnt-umber colored rocks. ::sigh::

--Cindy

Rxke · 2004-01-06 12:40:45

They got a big thumbs up from Bush! Great, really great....

About the pic... look down, right... the strange behaviour of the surface... in front of that you see some little rocks gotten pressed down (by the airbags) through what looks like a harder upper layer... impressive...

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-06 12:41:05

I just compared this image to the Pathfinder "Presidential Panorama." And all I can say is... wow. The detail is far far greater than anything I have ever seen from Mars.

Mars. Guys. MARS.

edit: and to think, this image is compressed 24 times, and it's in .jpg format. JPEG ruins true colors by doing chroma subsampling on the pixels, since humans are deficient at seeing blue light. Granted, Mars doesn't have much blue light, so that is theoretically a good thing, but can you imagine the uncompressed version of this image? Hopefully towards the end of the run they will in fact do such an image.

Stu · 2004-01-06 12:44:14

man man man man!!!
PEBBLES big ones!!!! small ones...
that means water, wooooooooowwww; Mars did have long wet periods!
Edit... Sandblasted instead of pebbles? But some are toally rounded...

Whoah there boy...! :-)

I think a lot of those small "pebbles" littering the field of view will have been blown out from beneath Mars' surface in the impacts that formed the craters nearby (we call them "impact ejecta") and later fell back to the ground. Their round shapes can be explained by sandblasting - take a walk thru Death Valley or the Atacama desert in Chile and you'd see rocks with exactly the same forms and structures. And remember, recent MOC images have shown that Gusev is an adventure playground for dust devils, so these rocks will have been blasted again and again and again. You can even see, over there on the right hand side of the image, a round rock that appears to be balancing... this could be explained by winds, perhaps in a dust devil, excavating the dirt from around and beneath it, leaving the rock exposed and standing on its rocky tippy-toes...

Take a look at the rocks in the "Rock Garden" close to where Pathfinder landed, youll see they are much more angular and jagged, show much less erosion. And we know THEY were affected by large amounts of water which thundered over the plain in floods. I think the rocks shown on this first colour image are fascinating... I have an outlandish theory I'm going to post in a moment tho, once I've plucked up the courage... ;-)

S

Rxke · 2004-01-06 12:53:51

Yes, stu, I'm overreacting, making a fool of myself (i *do* realise that)

Of course, you as a true Red will never want to admit there was a long wet past (just kidding, doing the Ann-Sax thing, hee hee)

I'm not a geologist hardly ever went to a desert, except for a hike in Turkey... So I'm just fooling around.

But... those... pictures....

Mars is beautiful.
Mars is beautiful
it is it is...

Stu · 2004-01-06 13:06:57

Yes, stu, I'm overreacting, making a fool of myself (i *do* realise that)
Of course, you as a true Red will never want to admit there was a long wet past (just kidding, doing the Ann-Sax thing, hee hee)
I'm not a geologist hardly ever went to a desert, except for a hike in Turkey... So I'm just fooling around.

You are absolutely NOT making a fool of yourself! I'm just putting a theory forwards here, I'm no more qualified than you :-) Just going on what I've picked up from people in the meteorite community and my own, limited, field work. You are NOT over-reacting - I'm sat here shaking, just wanting to jump into the screen and run around that landscape picking up EVERYTHING I can get to! :-) So you fool around all you like... I might be about to REALLY embarrass myself in a couple of paragraphs time anyway...

(And hey, I may be a Red... with growing green tendancies, but that's a different story... but I fully accept a "warm wet" past for Mars. I need it to have had one, actually, for life to have developed there, so I'm fine with a long wet past :-) )

Okay, here I go, a couple of theories...

You see that big dark rock at bottom right, with the pits? The one I referred to as possibly showing volcanic processes? Well, it's ringing an altogether different bell with me. I think it looks an awful lot like a meteorite. Why? Well, it is a very different colour from nearby rocks, it has a very different surface texture, and I've looked hard across the rest of the image and can't find any other rocks which show the "pits" it does. Volcanic rocks have lots of smaller, rounder holes, or vessicles... some meteorites exhibit these same features too, but they're called "regmaglypts" (or "thumbprints") and they're caused by ablation (melting away) of less dense material from the surface of the meteorite as it heats up during its fiery passage through the atmosphere. I've seen, and held, many stony meteorites, and, well, this just looks like one to me. Another hint - it's partly buried, so has been there some time... Like I said, I may be waaaay out here, but boy, I hope they go and take a closer look.

Another theory... that "bizarre material" over at bottom right.... maybe the impact of the lander sent compression shock waves down into the ground here, briefly melting subsurface ices trapped in the soil, and when the bags retracted they dragged the resulting "dirty soil" with them. As the soil moved, like thick mud (which is exactly what it looks like to me... anyone else?) the water trapped in it gradually evaporated away and it solidified again, gradually getting stiffer and stiffer until it effectively "set".

Sorry for rambling, my brain's buzzing here... :-)

S

Rxke · 2004-01-06 13:16:42

Yes, makes sense, about compression- heat of impact. Ever felt the chassis of a car right after a crash, they're hot...

'bout the meteorite, hope you're right, would be interesting.

This mission will be a milestone. We're just rambling here, but they have some amazing potential in terms of scientific hardware in place.
Boy.... Just imagine what a real life scientist could do there.

BTW I have a very good reason *against sending scientists to Mars: Any scientist worth his salt would immediatly die out of sheer excitement, that i'm sure

Stu · 2004-01-06 13:18:30

BTW I have a very good reason *against sending scientists to Mars: Any scientist worth his salt would immediatly die out of sheer excitement, that i'm sure

Well, I'd take the risk

Stu · 2004-01-06 13:24:50

You see that big dark rock at bottom right, with the pits? The one I referred to as possibly showing volcanic processes? Well, it's ringing an altogether different bell with me. I think it looks an awful lot like a meteorite. Why? Well, it is a very different colour from nearby rocks, it has a very different surface texture, and I've looked hard across the rest of the image and can't find any other rocks which show the "pits" it does.

Actually, having looked closer (and more calmly!) there's another pitted rock of similar colour on the left hand side of the image, so maybe my meteorite idea is a non-starter... ( unless Spirit landed in a "strewn-field", an area which was strewn with pieces of a large meteorite which fragmented above it..? Naah, too much to ask for!)

Silly to speculate I know, but fun too... :-)

Rxke · 2004-01-06 13:28:12

Add to MarsDirect payload requirements: one metric tonne of sedatives...

Just imagine... Standing there, Ground control screaming in your comm for those first words... You clicking it off...

Taking your time to let it all seep in... You're there. You're there at last. And it's indescribable...

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-06 13:30:57

Quite, Stu! I was thinking very much the same thing. But remember, as the scientist said, the water quantity near the surface of the planet is much lower; it increases the deeper you go. So would it be possible for enough water to create mud to exist at a depth that would be affected by such an impact? I don't know!

And interesting thing about gasses is that when they're compressed, they get hotter. And all those bounces on the surface of Mars effectively made the temperature in the bags increase by some number, how much I couldn't phanthom, but I would suspect by some significant degree (we're talking a several hundred pound vehicle). Each bounce was an absorbtion of energy from the drop, and each bounce increased the temperature of the bags proportional to that energy.

Stu · 2004-01-06 13:35:29

The more I look at that brown gloopy terrain on the lower right the more convinced I am it's mud - or was mud, briefly. If you look closely you can see some rocks pressed *into* it, they are actually embedded in it now, and material has blossomed out from under them, pooling around them, just as it would do if you were pressing your thumb into cake mix. In other places the material seems to have covered rocks.

(Vulcan eyebrow raises slightly...) Fascinating...

S

Palomar · 2004-01-06 13:39:43

Yes, stu, I'm overreacting, making a fool of myself (i *do* realise that)
...
You are absolutely NOT making a fool of yourself!

*I seldom answer this way, but:

YEAH.

Geez Rik, don't start sounding apologetic about being excited. God knows no sports fan ever apologized for his or her enthusiasm.

We pro-science folk have just as much right to jubilation as any sports fan bellering their lungs out in the stands (over people chasing a mere ball and dressed in pajama-like outfits...sheesh, give me a break). :laugh:

--Cindy

Stu · 2004-01-06 13:44:18

God knows no sports fan ever apologized for his or her enthusiasm.

Don't know about that... *I* did get rather carried away the night England beat Germany at football (that's *our* football, "soccer" in the US) 5-0 ;-)

S

Bill White · 2004-01-06 13:56:06

The more I look at that brown gloopy terrain on the lower right the more convinced I am it's mud - or was mud, briefly. If you look closely you can see some rocks pressed *into* it, they are actually embedded in it now, and material has blossomed out from under them, pooling around them, just as it would do if you were pressing your thumb into cake mix. In other places the material seems to have covered rocks.
(Vulcan eyebrow raises slightly...) Fascinating...
S

FRom Reuters:

One of the most intriguing features noticed by scientists was a darkened patch of the martian surface at the edge of the lander, where the soil had been scraped by Spirit's air bags, leaving a crinkled pattern with a mud-like cohesive appearance.
"It looks like mud but it can't be mud," said Steven Squyres, the principal investigator for the team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It's very cohesive. It holds together well."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArt....4082168

= = =

=IF= there is/was mud in this crater THEN there will be signs of life =IF= Mars has ever had any life to be found, IMHO.

Rxke · 2004-01-06 14:22:02

heh, where did you see me saying 'sorry'? i just stated i was well aware of my making a fool of myself, but did not really care...

YIIIIIIIIIII-HHHHHHHHHHHHah!

( i *love* to be excited about things like this!)

You know what i also like about that picture? Those 'veiled' outcroppings above the horizon... There's still so much to discover....

(I hope Opportunity misbehaves and ends up (-safely-)near a vulcano or a canyon...) (naw, jes kidding)

Stu · 2004-01-06 14:33:08

Wow... just noticed Spirit is carrying a Columbia crew tribute. I had no idea...

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera … umbia2.jpg

Nice thought guys.

S

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-06 14:40:30

Stu, I came here to post the exact same image. That's really touching, it really is. Man... I love that. Is this not the greatest mission ever to land on Mars? The emotions, the people involved, the technology, it's all just so great... 2004 is really starting off to be a great year.

Palomar · 2004-01-06 15:06:39

*I'm finally able to download that BIG photo Josh linked us to. I had a difficult time earlier...(the pic in my signature line just doesn't quite "cut it"...but it was the best I could do in the interim)...

Mmmmmm, I love that gorgeous butterscotch sky!

This is so fantastic. It's like looking at the cover of a sci-fi novel...but this is for real. Yes, so much better than any pics previously returned. It's as awesome as the first Viking photo I ever saw (same intensity of feeling, the "rush" of excitement).

--Cindy

Palomar · 2004-01-06 15:39:35

*I probably shouldn't even bring this up, but I can't help wondering what the tabloids -- especially the more outrageous ones -- are going to with the new pics of Mars. I can see the front pages already:

"Saddam's WMDs -- On Mars?!" (the faint and distant hill to the extreme right of the pic Josh shared with is the "hideout" for the WMDs)

"Sleepy Hollow -- Really A Fossilized Marsian Dinosaur Footprint!"

"Diana and Dodi's Honeymoon Retreat -- The Real Truth Behind 'The Face on Mars'??"

"ELVIS IS ALIVE! Spirit PanCam Captures Blurred Image of 'The King's' Sequin-Studded Cape As He Runs From Camera!"

I can just see it now...

--Cindy

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-06 15:46:50

I love the warning on the front page of the offical site, primarily because it means that people are geniunely interested in Mars! It says: Due to high demand, our larger image is temporarily unavailable.

That's just fantastic.

So I'm not sure if you saw the huge one or not Cindy. Best to have saved to your hard drive and viewed with another program. I personally use XnView.

What I find interesting is how dark the image is. The sky is relatively 'cloudy' or dusty (as testified, I'd say, by the solar panels and their charge), so we can expect some dimming, but it's still pretty darkish. So what I did with my version is pumped up the brightness and contrast a bit to make it more appealing. Cheap, I know, but the objects are easier for me to see. And personally, my eyes are sensitive to light, so I think that that's how Mars would look to me. Sunny days tend to make me need a hat or sunglasses, especially in the wintertime when I spend many days indoors and am acclimated to indoor lighting.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-06 15:48:58

Hah, Cindy, regarding Elvis. I showed a friend of mine the large Pancam color image and he made a remark that he wished something interesting was found, like a fosssil or something, and I said "In that field of rocks, there are bound to be a few elvises or two."

Rxke · 2004-01-06 15:58:41

Reminds me of a cartoon i saw about Polar lander.. It had it's antenna cable cut off by... Elvis standing in front of it, all dressed in that famous white suit, with a pair of pliars, sweat on his forehead, thinking 'phew! That was close....'

Stu · 2004-01-06 16:00:00

It says: Due to high demand, our larger image is temporarily unavailable.
That's just fantastic.

Yeah... unless you're trying to download it because you didn't have time earlier... :-(

I *so* want to download that huge 40Mb version... hopefully when I get up in the morning and the rest of the world is asleep and offline!

Hasn't this been a heck of a day guys? And made even better by the way that we all shared it here on NewMars?

Stu

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