Spirit & Opportunity *3* - ...continued from previous threads

Rxke · 2004-02-20 16:56:32

[=http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/opportunity_threads_040220.html]Space.com has the pic. in their article... That's a mighty long fiber, and it's lying on the surface... Hmm...

atomoid · 2004-02-20 19:37:34

I looked over just about all of the Opportunity raw micrographs and found only [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 53M2M1.JPG]one image of these "threads", which is the same as the one used in the [http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=h_threads_marsopp_02.jpg?=Tiny%20%20thread-like%20%20objects%20have%20been%20spotted%20in%20several%20MicroscopicImager%20photos%20taken%20by%20the%20Opportunity%20Mars%20rover.%20What%20they%20are%20is%20apuzzle,%20although%20they%20may%20be%20fibers%20tossed%20into%20the%20area%20via%20spacecraftlanding%20bags.]Space.com article.

Note that this picture was taken on SOL 19. The rover was taking a micrograph of [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 11L0M1.JPG]this area at that time.
[http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 22L0M1.JPG]This image shows the same area from a few feet back revealing a big airbag mark the rover was parked next to when it took the picture of the thread.
[http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 11R0M1.JPG]This rear view shows the rover's position relative to the lander on SOL 19.
heres a new [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 12R0M1.JPG]picture of the area where the rover took the micrograph

The "thread" in the micrograph looks like a hair. Human hairs are about 50 microns in diameter.
The airbags are made from [http://www.vectranfiber.com/index1.html]Vectran fibers, which are about half that size, 23 microns in diameter.
im not sure how to deduce the size of the "thread" from the micrograph, anyone?

Is it that likely for an airbag fibre to come out of its weave?
The thread looks to be on the surface, but also appears it could be embedded in the soil. If they were a product of crystal growth or created by some lifeform, there should be more of them sticking in the walls of the trench or in other micrographs of the surface. So maybe Mars is where Donald Trump's hair went, or maybe this is all an elaborate hoax and someone on the set let a production person's human hair get into the photgraph by mistake, i guess they arent using a clean room for the studio!

Rxke · 2004-02-21 01:54:11

Hmmm... I thought i read the resolution of the microscome was only 30 microeters/pixel, so this 'fibre' would be invisible?

GraemeSkinner · 2004-02-21 02:29:10

The "thread" in the micrograph looks like a hair. Human hairs are about 50 microns in diameter.
The airbags are made from [http://www.vectranfiber.com/index1.html]Vectran fibers, which are about half that size, 23 microns in diameter.
im not sure how to deduce the size of the "thread" from the micrograph, anyone?

The thread to me looks like something in the optical path rather than something thats on the surface. Though if that was the case it should appear on all the images taken. Its a few year since I studied optics, but I'll try and calculate a rough size of the thread (it could end up as a guesstimate).

Rxke · 2004-02-21 03:54:06

Meanwhile, Spirit's [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … A047R1.jpg]trench (356k) shows the same bright stuff...

Looks like the underground has some nice surprizes for us...
I hope they'l revisit the hole made by Opportunity, to see if it changes colour, or reacts with the atmosphere...

GraemeSkinner · 2004-02-21 04:24:04

Meanwhile, Spirit's [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … A047R1.jpg]trench (356k) shows the same bright stuff...

I've had a look at the trench a couple of times now, the only obvious 'thread like' part I noticed was in the left hand third of the trench under either a rock or clump of soil. The contrast level in the image is such that it could either be something in the soil or the result of the images harsh contrast level.
If you look to the left of the white 'thread' a shadow line continues, this to me anyway suggests that its a mark left by the wheel. These marks continue throughout the trench to a lesser degree.
A high resolution image, with better contrast levels would be a lot easier to tell what it is though. All the same, these are nice images, and plenty of them to keep me busy for a while now.

Rxke · 2004-02-21 06:55:43

You're probably right about the contrast, that was my first tought, too... But after a while, I thought: light on Mars is more diffused than on Earth, so it is not the reflection of 'shiny' compacted surface... i think...

Would be quite weird to discover Mars is actually white, with only a very thin reddish colour!

Shaun Barrett · 2004-02-21 07:22:53

There's already a whole torn chunk of airbag lying on the surface in one picture. Evidently the bags were dealt some damaging blows during landing.
I don't think it's unreasonable to imagine a few individual fibres could detach from the frayed edge of a tear in the material and fall to the ground separately.

If this thread were biological in origin, wouldn't we have seen many more of them in the photos by now?
I guess we'll just have to wait for more evidence.
???

Stu · 2004-02-21 07:59:38

Been away a while, missed some bits and pieces so playing "catch-up" as it were...

Fascinated by the "shiny beads" and these mysterious "threads" too, but I have to admit I'm becoming rather addicted to the 3D images on "Mars Unearthed"...

[http://www.marsunearthed.com/OMIndex/Ma … sIndex.htm]http://www.marsunearthed.com/OMIndex/Ma … sIndex.htm

I think this is one of the best I've ever seen...

[http://www.marsunearthed.com/Spirit/Spi … lyph47.htm]http://www.marsunearthed.com/Spirit....h47.htm

Josh... what do you make of the layering in this boulder cluster? Wouldn't you just love to be there with a geology hammer, chipping away, and peering into the cracks with a hand lens..?

atomoid · 2004-02-21 15:51:34

I have to admit I'm becoming rather addicted to the 3D images on "Mars Unearthed"... I think this is one of the best I've ever seen... what do you make of the layering in this boulder cluster?
-------------
There's already a whole torn chunk of airbag lying on the surface in one picture.

golly gee whiz, thatsa [http://www.marsunearthed.com/Spirit/Spi … lyph47.htm]one of the most beautiful exposures Spirit has taken yet!
The layering on tis boulder doesnt seem to be sedimentary in nature, more like fracturing from the meteor impact (my guess anyway).

Thats a great site, incredibly well-made images, i hadnt seen it before. I'd been using [http://www.lyle.org/mars/]http://www.lyle.org/mars/ to view all the automated anaglyphs and color reconstructions. the lyle.org has nice thumbnails but it isnt laid out quite as easy to use and they dont crop off the distracting overlap on their anaglyphs. thanks!

there's a facinating little pinnacle sticking up out of the soil near the bottom of [http://www.marsunearthed.com/Opportunit … y23_3D.htm]Opportunity's anaglyph 23 casting its own shadow that would be difficult to discern without anaglyphic perspective

- Regarding the "torn chunk of airbag lying on the surface" if its the "claw" thing in the color opportunity panorama (which happens to be the image i used for my member avatar at left here) my thoughts were it was peice of shrapnel from one of the pyrotechnics that released the rover from the lander. it looks like whats left after a firecracker explodes but by chance doesnt obliterate its paper casing but just splits it into a big peice of shrapnel. i hadnt considered it to be part of the airbag, it doesnt look like it has any frayed edges, just cleanly ripped edges. and it looks more like paper than a fabric...

GraemeSkinner · 2004-02-21 16:40:58

There's already a whole torn chunk of airbag lying on the surface in one picture. Evidently the bags were dealt some damaging blows during landing.
I don't think it's unreasonable to imagine a few individual fibres could detach from the frayed edge of a tear in the material and fall to the ground separately.

It seems like poor science to me if it is thread from the airbag that its contaminating the very thing the rovers have been sent to explore. We'll have to wait and see if they show up in further images to get a better look.

Rxke · 2004-02-21 16:52:52

... the "torn chunk of airbag lying on the surface" if its the "claw" thing in the color opportunity panorama (which happens to be the image i used for my member avatar at left here)

Ah? I thought it was one of those notoriously fierce long-eared Martian rabbits... :;):

Seriously, though... This airbag tecnique... It sounds so easy, but judging from the debris, that must've been quite a spectacle, coming down... Imagine what the *initial* bouncemark must look like... I guess at that spot, they'd find a lot more of those fibers...
The ones we see now are the later, gentle rebounces, just before coming to a stop, most kinetic energy being spent already...
Incredible they had three consecutive successes, with this innovative approach. Hats off to the guys an' gals that designed those bags!

atomoid · 2004-02-21 18:31:15

Imagine what the *initial* bouncemark must look like...
Incredible they had three consecutive successes, with this innovative approach. Hats off to the guys an' gals that designed those bags!

yeah, i hope they visit the 1st bouncemark for one of the rovers, even more so, i hope they visit the backshell impact site of spirit, its on the edge of the crater theyre going to "benneville" there should be some fresh deep stuff revealed there...

too bad the 4th airbag (beagle2) didnt make it, well have to see if they figure out what went wrong and if their airbag scheme was at fault or not (i wonder why Malin hasnt snapped a picture of the beagle2 landing site with the MGS MOC yet like theyve done for both of the MERs, it would help quite a bit in the process, I hope its not some stupid beaurocracy thing (NASA cant spend their money on "EUs problem" or something like that)...

Shaun Barrett · 2004-02-21 20:03:09

Atomoid, that's a very interesting and plausible explanation for the 'rabbit's ears' object. I'm inclined to think it may make more sense than the "torn chunk of airbag" hypothesis.
But then, we're left with less likelihood that the 'thread' is from the airbag, aren't we? And if it's not from the airbag, what is it? ???

That "Opportunity's anaglyph 23" you linked for us is an excellent picture! Thank you.
Something which caught my attention was at the top of that shot. It looks like some of those lighter coloured spherules are clinging to the almost vertical side of a rock face. They don't look like they've dropped out of the sky or been formed as part of a layering process, they look like they've 'deliberately' adhered to the side of the rock - like oysters or barnacles.
I'm beginning to wonder about those little 'blueberries'. ???

GraemeSkinner · 2004-02-22 02:33:30

That "Opportunity's anaglyph 23" you linked for us is an excellent picture! Thank you.
Something which caught my attention was at the top of that shot. It looks like some of those lighter coloured spherules are clinging to the almost vertical side of a rock face. They don't look like they've dropped out of the sky or been formed as part of a layering process, they look like they've 'deliberately' adhered to the side of the rock - like oysters or barnacles.
I'm beginning to wonder about those little 'blueberries'. ???

Your blueberries appear in a few images, but one of the images that anaglyph23 may have been taken from (theres a couple on the Nasa site that it could have come from) but [http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/galler … 88L7M1.JPG]on this one you can see a whole host of 'blueberries' in the top right. But across the image they appear to be on both the horizontal and vertical faces.
My first thought was that they were crater ejecta and that they adhered to the rock whilst hot, but I'm unsure about this at the moment (i've not been awake and conscious long!)
Not being a geologist (having only brushed the surface of that subject at uni) could the spherical items be a harder mineral or other material that has not erroded at the same rate as the rock surrounding it?
The easiest answer is if I just pop up and have a look.

atomoid · 2004-02-22 03:50:54

Something which caught my attention was at the top of that shot. It looks like some of those lighter coloured spherules are clinging to the almost vertical side of a rock face. They don't look like they've dropped out of the sky or been formed as part of a layering process, they look like they've 'deliberately' adhered to the side of the rock - like oysters or barnacles.
My first thought was that they were crater ejecta
could the spherical items be a harder mineral or other material that has not erroded at the same rate as the rock surrounding it?

i almost fell ou tof my chair seeing [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 33M2M1.JPG]this new micrograph image. the double spherule (blueberry) seems likely to be a concretion. i dont know if tectites can form as doubles like this... any geologists in the house?

if they are "tectites" (meteor crater ejecta droplets that harden into spherules as they travel through the air) they could have dropped in while the layers were being foemed, or could have least punched down deep as an episode after as the layers formed.

otherwise if they are concretions (layered condensates of minerals, like sandstone nodules or
[http://www.utahphotowild.com/small/pages/small4.htm]MOKI marbles), then they formed after the bedrock was laid down so when the conditions were wet the minerals in the soil would disolve and form these.

the BB-sized spherules certainly seem to be mixed all the way through the bedrock, the bedrock is slowly being eroded, revealing the spherules as the rock dwindles, the spherules dropping off and accumulating in the soil and concentrating them at the surface as a desert pavement as the sand and dust gets blown away leaving lots of spherules behind.

there is a "rind" or some sort of mineral coating covering both the spherules in the bedrock as well as the [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 3M2M1.HTML]bird-track cracks picture which also suggests they are concretions.

and about those bird tracks... theyer looking even more like termite galleries than the last pictures of Snout, they look a bit like fossilized remnants of worm-holes or rock boring creatures of some sort?

chaosman · 2004-02-22 04:21:06

Hi,
I you look at
[http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 33M2M1.JPG]http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery....2M1.JPG
you will notice one spherule (under the double one) that shows two intersections.

If I look closely I see:

1. Some kind of a core
2. Some kind of fine veins between the core and the outer sections
3. Some kind of "cellular structure"

It looks very much similar to a plant intersection to me.

Is this just wishful thinking ? Are my eyes playing tricks to me ?
Anybody else with the same impressions ?

chaosman
stmafe

GraemeSkinner · 2004-02-22 04:21:27

there is a "rind" or some sort of mineral coating covering both the spherules in the bedrock as well as the [http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 3M2M1.HTML]bird-track cracks picture which also suggests they are concretions.
and about those bird tracks... theyer looking even more like termite galleries than the last pictures of Snout, they look a bit like fossilized remnants of worm-holes or rock boring creatures of some sort?

I'm not sure about the termite galleries, to me it looks like a softer material has eroded away leaving the holes behind. Not a very technical description *sorry*! If they had been made by rock eating termite (I typed termite eating rock three times my head is really not working today) I'd have thought you would see more holes at differing angles rather than them all being virtually inline with the surface, unless the smaller surface pockmarks are the result of termites and have since been filled.
It would be nice to have samples back on Earth for a more detailed look, however good the rovers are, its still not the same as a hand on approach - until they send a rover up with virtually every bit of lab equipment on that can be controlled by remote - now that would be some payload to deliver.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-02-22 06:55:36

Did we find similar spherules resulting from impact ejecta on the Moon?
If these martian spherules are indeed the result of impacts, shouldn't we have found large numbers of them strewn across the lunar surface too?
(And I don't mean glassy tektites; these martian oddities are too spherical and of a different texture.)

I certainly hope Steve Squyres and the team come up with an explanation for these objects during the course of these MER missions. I don't want to have to wait until 2009 with a big question mark hanging over them; I think I'd go crazy! ( ... All right ... crazier!! )

Stu · 2004-02-22 10:42:28

V funny pic

[http://www.mariposa.com.au/blog/archives/000176.html]http://www.mariposa.com.au/blog/archives/000176.html

dicktice · 2004-02-22 12:10:32

Before assuming the "thread" in front of that stone came from bag fabric, I would have thought a similar examination of the torn edge of a bag be made for thread-appearance comparison. Why hasn't that been done--or at least been discussed--for goodness sake?

GraemeSkinner · 2004-02-22 14:13:14

Before assuming the "thread" in front of that stone came from bag fabric, I would have thought a similar examination of the torn edge of a bag be made for thread-appearance comparison. Why hasn't that been done--or at least been discussed--for goodness sake?

Have NASA posted any pictures on their site of the torn fabric edge? If so does anyone have a url for it.

SohoBoy · 2004-02-22 17:02:56

[=http://www.lyle.org/mars/bysol/2-049.html]More useless microphotos

Why is the the microphoto camera used by Spirit and Opportunity such a useless piece of junk?

Far too many of the images it produces are out of focus and thus useless. When stuff is in focus it would seem to be more by luck than judgement

One would have thought that with a budget of $400 million per lander NASA could have afforded a reliable camera. I have a ?300 digital camera made by Canon that can do better than that in macro mode. I've seen some cameras that can focus right down to the dust on the front lens element, so what's the problem?

Autofocusing systems which scan back and forth across the full mechanical focus range electronically hunting for the image of maximum contrast work just fine. What is Spirit and Opportunitys camera using? Whoever designed it should be fired. Next time NASA should contract out the cameras to a company such as Canon, Nikon or Pentax which knows what it's doing. Such poor performance would never be accepted in the domestic market.

Yours in frustration, and somewhat fed up of looking at grey fuzz. What a waste of time.

Josh Cryer · 2004-02-22 18:31:46

Too.much.info.to.soak.in.

Anyone know if there exist a video/animation basically displaying Spirits recent drive of several hundred meters?

Shaun Barrett · 2004-02-22 21:31:57

Hi Josh!
I'm not sure this is really what you want, and it's not quite up to date, but it is a map of Spirit's meanderings to the end of Sol 46.
It's at Space.com but just [http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/imag … 40220.html]CLICK HERE.

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