MSL at Rocknest, First scoop samples - sols 57-101 |
MSL at Rocknest, First scoop samples - sols 57-101 |
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#101
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![]() Administrator ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 ![]() |
Curiosity has put more than 400 meters on the odometer and tosol (sol 56) she bumped up to a sand drift that we now know (via Twitter) is named Rocknest and will be the site of the first sample grab. In last week's press briefing, John Grotzinger warned that we will be here for "what seems like a very long time," 2-3 weeks. They will have to run several samples through the SA-SPaH (Sample Acquisition, Processing and Handling subsystem, pronounced "Saw-spa") and in particular CHIMRA (Collection and Handling for In situ Martian Rock Analysis, pronounced "chimera") in order to "clean" it of any remaining Earthly contamination with good Mars dirt before they deliver the first sample to SAM or Chemin. So this seems like a good place to start a new thread.
As usual, discuss stuff that happened through sol 56 in the previous thread. -------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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#102
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![]() Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 ![]() |
Is there any way to tell if Little Shiny was present before they started vibrating the scooped sample? I can imagine little bits of kapton tape or similar things breaking off during the vibration cycle, but if this was there prior to the scoop vibration, maybe it's just a native bleb of melted metal or glass? There's no reason to believe you couldn't get such little blebs in the Martian soil -- there are likely a lot of sources of source material, and certainly enough impacts to generate little melted blebs every once in a while.
-the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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