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Spirit was subjected to more adverse conditions than Opportunity.  It has driven further and been in use longer.  It's to be expected that it would have parts wear out. 

The word from JPL is that this failure won't stop the rover.  I believe them.  Spirit also has fewer power system problems than Opportunity, making it more likely to survive into the stormy Martian winter.  It may be overly optimistic, but I expect to see another ten months of images from Spirit. 
Opportunity, on the other hand, is much more vulnerable to reduced solar power.  It had better get out on that big parking lot at Meridiani and start driving soon, because its last "deep sleep" is coming.

I think I posted in the right spot.

Given a choice between starting a new thread to devote 60 or so posts to an important topic not yet covered or burying those same 60 posts among the approximately 2000 to 2500 in the Opportunity & Spirit *Iteration x* threads, I chose to put the information where I can find it.

Ordinarily, trying to keep on-topic aids clarity.  But once you get past a certain amount of data, "on-topic" just becomes an excuse to throw more on the crap catcher.  I'm sure that this whole topic was well discussed in the other threads you mentioned.  Finding that topical discussion and piecing it together into a coherent whole in less than a week, I'm not so sure about.   

Same goes for every other topic in those other threads.  It needs to be broken up into managable pieces.

(Yes, I know I should just quit bitching and index the NewMars forum... *grumble* *grumble*  :hm:  Only way to solve the problem, but it's the work of months... Might be worth it though...)

I sense another thread coming on!

Possibly, but it could be something else entirely.  The scale is too large and the resolution too low to tell.  There could also be artifacts from the algorithm used to create the relief.

Does a similar topographic relief map exist of the areas viewed by the rovers?  How does it compare to this?  That comparison could rule out certain artifacts of the algorithm and confirm that this is really on the planet and not just on the map.

Aquifers can be pressurized here on Earth.  A sudden drop below the boiling point by being vented to the Martian air would create a good bit of pressure.  So, an outlet higher in the crater wall, while a little odd, does not surprise me. 

Thermal imaging of the rocks in Burns cliff suggests that it is an outcropping of basaltic-origin rock in the crater.  However, the rover's infrared spectrometer can't distinguish between igneous, metamorphic, or sedimentary rock, just rough chemical & crystalline composition.  Judging by the layering, I'd guess that Burns Cliff is an outcropping of basaltic sandstone.  They should try the infrared spectrometer up close, allowing them to further differentiate the rock layers and get a better idea of what's under the dust in those channels.

Sandstone can be quite permeable, and probably underlies the entire Meridiani area.

The dunes in the crater center are apparently not shot through with ice.  (Darn!)  They can be ignored if necessary.  However, I should point out that the most likely reason for their odd albedo is that they are composed of sand from the erosion of the crater wall.

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.

Actually, there is yet another case pending in which a family whose DNA was sequenced had a patent filed on one of their genes by the researchers. 

Rather like having some stranger own a little piece of you...

US patent law forbids patenting a natural phenomenon.  If you discover some neat new physical effect, or find something lying around (like a gene), you can't patent that just because you found it first - especially if you don't actually have a way to use the thing you discovered.  However, if you find a new gene and think up a new and "nonobvious" use for it, like inserting it into the wheat genome to kill insects, you can patent that.

As for forcing farmers to destroy their crops if contaminated by GM foods, that's a justified interpretation of the law.  Contaminated crops should be required to be destroyed for reasons of environmental protection and preserving economic viability of farmland.  Farmers are forced to destroy contaminated crops all the time; contamination with GM genes should legally be no different than contamination with diesel oil or radioactive strontium.  However, the farmer destroying the crops usually gets to sue the pants off of the persons responsible for introducing the contaminant. 

IMHO, this isn't a patent issue.  It's a pollution issue.  This lawsuit was filed by the wrong party.

Don't laugh too hard.  Solar thermal power systems like some of the ones mentioned here still represent the majority of power from solar powerplants on commercial utility grids.  (That's even with some utilities now purchasing power from individual households with their own solar panels and trace inverters.) 

Solar thermal systems were the first solar powerplants to top 30% efficiency in the field, decades before the first photovoltaic cell reached that mark in the laboratory.  Why they don't get more press time is beyond me.

PS - Cindy, the salt stores heat, which is used to keep the engines running at night.  A solar thermal plant with a large enough reservoir can provide power at night.

Yes, the wavelength should increase as the light lost energy, causing a "redshift".

Individual photons don't radiate.  They can spontaneously form new particles out of their own energy content (e.g., one photon becoming two new photons of half the energy), or they can lose it to space-time effects (e.g., the cosmological redshift).  In each case, the only really observable change would be the frequency/wavelength.

Because "half-energy" spectral lines are not a common thing in discrete spectra, it's safe to say that photons rarely spontaneously form new particles.  That sort of thing requires fantastic energies that most photons will never have. 

Gravitational redshifts are more common.  For example, the light from our own sun is slightly red-shifted by the time it reaches us.  It loses energy coming out of the sun's gravity well.  The effect is infinitesimal, though.  Sunlight - like most visible starlight - has pretty much the same spectrum when it reaches you as it did coming out of the star that made it.

As someone with amateur science as a hobby, I don't believe that direct contribution by anyone on this forum is an impossibility (though I might double check some. :;):  ).  I think there is a great deal of research that we, personally, can do to aid our favorite space exploration efforts. 

There is a whole list of research just begging to be done.  Some of it can be done on a small scale, with small budgets, by us. 

Here are some examples of experiments and research projects, possible for the average Mars Society member without a trip to FMARS or MRDS.  I'm sure you can think of more if you try.

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The Ergonomics of Messy Houses
    No, it’s not an oxymoron.  Much has been written about how to organize, design and plan an ergonomically elegant habitat for the crew.  Unfortunately, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.  Also, people in crowded environments need to interface with other people using the same facilities, and often discover along the way that what’s most efficient for one user isn’t best for four.  We know what we want the Hab to do, but what can we expect the crew to do with it?  There are pages and pages of analog reasearch station reports and photos to look through for information, not to mention our own “organized” houses and “ergonomic” offices.

Simulating the Geology of Burns Cliff
    Since the Opportunity rover was forced to turn back from this feature, we’re stuck with terrestrial analogs to try to figure out how the Burns Cliff feature in Endurance Crater got that way.  Some of the individual features suggest weathering by water after the crater’s formation.  Any single one of these features could have been caused by a combination of wind and thermal weathering alone; however, I have my doubts as to whether they all could have given some apparent discrepancies.  For example, in many cases the apparent direction of fluid flow (air or water) across the surface varies by 90 degrees along the same feature.  Can wind do that, and if so, does that say anything about the local climate?  Could falling dust wear out those channels without filling the crater?  Is that shattered upper layer due to the original impact fracture or was it created later?

Qualitative Grounded Theory Analysis of Mars-related Forums and Blogs (any topic).
    What are space advocates consistently trying to say?  Is there a consensus on anything, or all we all just spinning our wheels and promoting pet projects as many claim?  This is more advocating a method of study rather than something to look for.  However, since I don’t know of anyone who ever applied that method to this case, who knows what on Earth you’ll find?

Behavior of Solutes in Liquid CO2
    There’s been some talk of using liquid CO2 instead of water for things like clothes washing, manufacturing processes, etc.  How does it really compare for those purposes?  Can the necessary solutes really dissolve in liquid CO2 at the required temperatures and pressures?

Small Engine Propane or LNG Conversion
    This is how many people are proposing to run a mars rover - using an internal combustion engine just like a typical terrestrial off-road vehicle.  LNG and propane have been proposed as fuels for such a vehicle, since they’re something we can make using in situ resources.  What’s really involved and how easy is it to do? 

Small Engine Vacuum Conversion
    Same rationale and questions as LNG conversion, only more complicated because this would actually require a vacuum chamber large enough to run the engine.  Perhaps a model car engine would be the best subject.

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Most of these projects could be accomplished for less than US $100, and all could be done for less than US $1000.  (That rough estimate is for materials.  The time and skills should be your own.  If you’re considering paying your team of professional mechanics $5000 to install an industry standard, HiLo brand propane conversion kit in your jeep, you may be in danger of straying from the pure path, here. :;): ) They’re all time consuming, and may or may not be suitable for a single semester class project.  But dress the results up right, and they’d all look good presented at a future Mars Society convention.

I've suspected as much.  It would explain both the eroded channels in the cliff face and the broken upper layers without requiring either separate events and or oddities of momentum transfer during an impact. 

Unfortunately, there is no conclusive evidence in any single Opportunity photo that can absolutely rule out "dry" (no water) processes at work.  There are a whole bunch of single features that could have been carved by surface water flowing over a cliff face.  The big question right now is: When you put them all together, do you arrive at a formation that could only have been created by water on an unsumerged rock face? 

It's the difference between "could have been" and "could only have been".   

Heres]http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/10140254.htm?1c]Here's the real Associated Press Story on Falwell

But I have a nagging suspicion about that Yahoo! link, too....
???

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.