Closer view of springs inside Endurance crater.

Rxke · 2004-11-07 03:33:58

...but 99% of astronauts when asked, say they'd only go if they were able to come back.
My take is, if they would say otherwise, theyd be grounded by the psychologists... I'm fairly certain a significant percentage now would like to stay, if given the opportunity. (Easy to want if you're still on Earth, but fairly certain, a lot would change their mind, once on Mars for more than a month... )

C M Edwards · 2004-11-08 11:13:06

Much closer recent pictures from Opportunity's panoramic camera show that some of the channels don't end in those shadowy recesses (but most do). Also, they don't have much ridging or piling of fans or deltas at their base, indicating that the dust there is probably loose and not crusted or frozen. So, if water created those channels, they're probably not currently active. I'd like to get a good look in those fissures, though.

If Opportunity only had a flashlight! :realllymad:

Does the rover have power to take pictures when the sun is at a shallow enough angle to shine into those cracks? It would involve operation on battery power alone, sucking up run-time from the next day, but might be well worth the effort.

PS: Rxke is right. "Do you care if you come back alive?" is a typical no-brainer psych-test question. I'm just surprised that they claim there's a 1% that answered "no" and was still accepted to the astronaut corps.

SpaceNut · 2004-11-08 11:53:49

I myself would rather ask the question back, why would I want to come back? Are there any reasons for why I must come back?
If the people of old had said that when we took our trips across the ocean, you are coming back? We would have look at them as if they knew the Earth was flat back then as if it were rhetorical or silly.
Or how about those first settlers of the wild west, were they asked to come back, hell no would have been there answer.
To even ask the question is disturbing to those that wish to be astronauts as if you are predestined to die in space.

edit
Now back to our normally scheduled channel.

I agree to reflect light or to wait until light shines into a crack would be of benefit but can the rover achieve the needed angle to view into one is the question.

REB · 2004-11-08 13:22:27

Opportunitys]http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20040615a/11-SM-01-Endurance-A160R1_br2.jpg]Opportunity's locatgion in this picture would be torwards the left. This picture was taken somewhere above burns cliff.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 2.jpg]This one was taken on the other side of the crater. Notice how steep it looks under Burns Cliff. When looking at Opportunity's current pictures, http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … .HTML]like this one, it is hard to tell what the angle of the slope is.

C M Edwards · 2004-11-09 10:01:39

More observations from Opportunity.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … pportunity Image from Sol 279

One side of this fissure imaged on Sol 279 appears to have collapsed recently. The damage appears to be due to thermal weathering, possibly frost or water damage, not wind weathering.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … pportunity Image from Sol 280

This fissure may have started as a fracture (note its symmetry). However, it's slope is no longer symmetric on either side. It has clearly been weathered since its formation. This may have been undercutting by wind, but it looks like the fissure was weathered by a fluid flowing through the fissure at right angles to the wind weathering across the rock surfaces, not across it.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … ML]Another Opportunity Image from Sol 280

This is a cool looking inclusion in the rock face.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … 1.HTML]Yet Another Opportunity Image from Sol 280

This looks like more of those ridgelike inclusions from minerals deposited in cracks during formation of the rock.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … HTML]Still Another Opportunity Image from Sol 280

Does anyone know what they call those symmetric ridges formed by repeated freezing of water in the soil?

ERRORIST · 2004-11-09 11:09:49

Are these photos from the burns cliff area? I noticed the bright rock seemed to have more blueberries in it than the surrounding rock. I bet the sulfer content is greater and the blueberries are actually microbes eating them like here on Earth except these are much larger. If theses are channels cut by flowing water in the past then it would be a good place for these microbes to get a hold on life with the high sulfer content.

C M Edwards · 2004-11-09 16:51:25

These photos are from the path taken to Burns Cliff, and I assume that some of the more recent are from the outskirts of that area. They appear to be of similar formations, though not as steep.

I hadn't noticed that that inclusion had enough additional blueberries to say anything about its composition, but the fact that it has blueberries at all is intriguing because it's clearly of a different composition than the surrounding rock.

It's apparently harder than the surrounding rock. It rises above the surrounding rock face, and doesn't show signs of layering. Wind erosion isn't forming ridges or other features on its upper surface, just wearing it away evenly. My guess: It's probably a salt, calcite, or something else chemically precipitated from water, and probably does have a high water content compared to the surrounding rock. I've no idea if it would be enough for bacteria to live on, though.

SpaceNut · 2004-11-10 11:50:10

Did the rovers check out the form of salt or calcification that the light colored rock suggests or did they just by pass it all together as to not rock the boat on the water theories.

ERRORIST · 2004-11-10 13:38:55

I think they have aready rocked the boat on the water theories. From what I have read the rovers are getting wheel slippage as they try to go up Burns cliff.

C M Edwards · 2004-11-12 12:59:14

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom … pportunity is Turning Back

Opportunity can't complete its transit of Burns Cliff. We'll have to be content with what it found on the outskirts of the formation. :bars:

Maryjane · 2004-11-13 20:49:52

There are several types of channels and many on Mars seem to obviously have been carved by water but the ones in Burns Cliff apears to be more from sifting sand from above. There was deluges of water at one time on the surface of Mars and in liquid forms there are signs of it all over the surface. This probably meant a thicker atmosphere as well as warmer temps. But these signs are very ancient but still I would think if there was abundant water on the surface there had to be a water table which to me the thinner air would nto evaporate and sublimate all of what was underground

Here is a link to another pic of Burns Cliff

http://www3.sympatico.ca/cynthia.groulx … rancec.jpg

ERRORIST · 2004-11-13 20:57:45

It could be that snow has melted and the run off caused these channels. I think you can see some up near the top also. Didn't the rover detect snow in the atmosphere awhile back?

Paula · 2004-11-13 21:20:37

From what I have read in various newspapers NASA has confirmed that there once was a fair amount of water on Mars. As to snow, I have no idea.

IMHO Spirit and Opportunity are $820,000,000 well-spent.

Maryjane · 2004-11-15 02:38:28

Here is a good indication of lots of water sometimes in Mars's past

Tiu Vallis

Tiu Vallis appears to have started from an area of collapsed terrain (a region known as Hydaspis Chaos), moved northward through a fairly narrow channel, and then spread out and eroded a large area to the north and west. A more detailed view of the source shows the chaotic terrain, the initial channels, and various eroded features:

Source of Tiu Vallis Erosional features in the outflow channels often form around obstacles such as craters, such as these at the mouth of Ares Vallis: Picture didn't come up, have to try somthing else
___

Maryjane · 2004-11-15 04:10:57

No pic but I have a link showing similar characteristics.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cynthia.groulx … dvaley.jpg

SpaceNut · 2004-11-15 11:14:05

Water from a Stone or at least how it may be trapped at present time. This also could answer the where did it go question in that it is locked away in a salt configuration. But will it be to sensitive to the changes that a sample might see as we try to bring one back.

Magnesium Sulfate is found in many mineral waters, and in sea water. It is also known as Epsom Salt.

Maryjane · 2004-11-15 23:27:27

I guess I'll stick to this thread for now. the only one I know how to find. I still can't figure out how to get to the old posts I submited. Some one sent me a PM and I couldn't find the individuals name so I couldn't PM back. Thank you anyway but to submit a search I would need to remember where I submited the post.

C M Edwards · 2004-11-16 16:40:34

Opportunity is still examining what it can of the cliff. It has not turned back yet.

ERRORIST · 2004-11-17 10:54:14

I wonder if they would have planned a climb up the side of Burns Cliff if they knew they would get 100% wheel slip at that point or did the slip occur sooner than thought? It could mean mud is there if it happened sooner. Further evidence of gullies that were formed by flowing water.Perhaps?

C M Edwards · 2004-11-18 08:58:47

Errorist, the angle was pretty steep - Opportunity is just an oversized RC car, after all. However, I do suspect that there may be an unstable interface between two layers of dust, which would cause slippage at a shallower angle than expected. Check out this photo.

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … M1.HTML]An Opportunity image from Sol 289

In the upper right corner of the image you can see examples of the fine, low albedo dust that the fills the channels on Burns cliff, and in the lower left corner you can see the coarser, high albedo dust (almost gravel) that fills the crater below the cliff. Toward, the middle, you can see the interface between the two. The finer dust is clearly blown down across the coarser. That strip is darker on top, and its border is relatively straight - no delta-like fanning out.

Just judging by their color, I'd say that the fine dust is being blown down from the plain above, while the coarser dust (closer in albedo to the rocks in Burns Cliff) originated inside the crater, probably in the cliff face.

As to how the coarser dust originated, it's interesting to note that the lighter colored dust does show a delta-like pattern in this and other photos. I believe it was broken up by thermal weathering. Further, I think that process was once accelerated by water flowing down the cliff face.

Have a look at this:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/ … ML]Another Opportunity image from Sol 289

The channel toward the middle left of the image terminates in one of those hidden recesses, but not into a broken layer of rock. The layer above it is relatively intact, without severed cracking.

IMHO, this is not a weathered out shock pattern from the original impact. This was caused by a trickle of water vapor or liquid water emerging through a hole in the rock beneath that intact rock layer.

Given the amount of fine dust covering the rest of the crater, and given the amount of lighter colored dust visible by the cliff base, I'd say that the lighter dust is being replenished faster than it can be covered up. Wind weathering alone probably wouldn't do that.

Also, earlier photos did suggest that the fine dust in the channels is a slightly different color than that covering the rest of the crater. There may still be enough hydrological activity at the cliff face to alter it chemically.

There was water here, recently, and there's still enough trapped in the rock to dramatically affect ongoing weathering processes.

ERRORIST · 2004-11-18 12:44:14

Great photo it looks like areas in the mountains that don't have running water all the time but during periods of rain it it does flow. Perhaps it does snow and these are run off channels when it melts or it could still seep from the ground from time to time.

C M Edwards · 2004-11-18 15:33:29

My bet is it used to be an artesian spring. It's an idea that makes those higher outcrops several dozen kilometers to the south-southeast of the rover's position very tantalizing. The whole plain could be riddled with old aquifers.

I don't think the spring is currently flowing, because we'd see the vapor from even a trickle if it were steady. The well is dry. However, ice sublimes to vacuum very slowly at those temperatures, and might persist for years, even decades. If any chance presents itself, Opportunity should stick its rock abrasion tool into one of those channels to clear the dust away and see if there's ice underneath.

We should also re-examine those dunes at the crater center. Are there any examples of rocks or debris resting on top of them?

Hmm...

ERRORIST · 2004-11-18 15:47:09

I think the rover is going to another impact site that is about 6 times as large as this one is. I forget the craters name. It could be what is left from a an old dried up artesian well and the aquafer is at a lower present day elevation. The deeper you go the more chance of running into one I suspect.

Shaun Barrett · 2004-11-18 19:36:03

Thanks for reviving my interest in the possibility of water at the Opportunity site, CM.
Your analysis of the ground at Burns Cliff is what we should be getting from the NASA geologists, but aren't! :hm:

I agree we should be looking a bit more carefully at those sand dunes at the bottom of the crater but I suppose the chances of getting bogged down are just too great. It's so frustrating when an astronaut could simply stride over to it and dig a hole!
I still have a nagging 'conspiracy theory' notion that NASA's intention is purely to look for signs of water from many millions or billions of years ago, which is fine. But I can't help but think they don't particularly want to find evidence of recent water activity; i.e. from years or even months ago, say. Not yet. Too many established reputations rest on a bone-dry, sterile, unchanging martian surface, so we may have to wait a few years until other ideas are allowed to be aired. I'm confident it will happen but not for a while - not until some more of the tenured older scientists retire.
I suspect Dr. Chris McKay will be one of the first of the 'new paradigm' scientists to talk openly about a different Mars, when the present restraints are eased.

ERRORIST · 2004-11-18 20:48:16

If it were me I would go and dig a trench in one of those channels with the wheel of the rover. They did it before and they can do it again. I'd run the trecnh up or down the channel. I think it could get a few inches below the surface.Who knows whats there. It would be a good experiment and it may find some mud or even ice as you said.

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#26 2004-11-07 03:33:58

Re: Closer view of springs inside Endurance crater.

#27 2004-11-08 11:13:06

Re: Closer view of springs inside Endurance crater.

#28 2004-11-08 11:53:49

Re: Closer view of springs inside Endurance crater.

#29 2004-11-08 13:22:27

Re: Closer view of springs inside Endurance crater.

#30 2004-11-09 10:01:39

Re: Closer view of springs inside Endurance crater.

#31 2004-11-09 11:09:49

Re: Closer view of springs inside Endurance crater.

#32 2004-11-09 16:51:25

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#33 2004-11-10 11:50:10

Re: Closer view of springs inside Endurance crater.

#34 2004-11-10 13:38:55

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#35 2004-11-12 12:59:14

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#36 2004-11-13 20:49:52

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#37 2004-11-13 20:57:45

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#38 2004-11-13 21:20:37

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#39 2004-11-15 02:38:28

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#40 2004-11-15 04:10:57

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#41 2004-11-15 11:14:05

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#42 2004-11-15 23:27:27

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#43 2004-11-16 16:40:34

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#44 2004-11-17 10:54:14

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#45 2004-11-18 08:58:47

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#46 2004-11-18 12:44:14

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#47 2004-11-18 15:33:29

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#48 2004-11-18 15:47:09

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#49 2004-11-18 19:36:03

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#50 2004-11-18 20:48:16

Re: Closer view of springs inside Endurance crater.

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