New Bright Stuff, Paso Robles 2 |
New Bright Stuff, Paso Robles 2 |
Jan 13 2006, 06:16 AM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 578 Joined: 5-November 04 From: Denmark Member No.: 107 |
Looks like the new bright stuff churned up by Spirit has gotten the attention from the PI on Mount Itacha
Spirit Front Hazcam Latest Steve update QUOTE So what is this new stuff (which we have named Arad)? The same kind of salt? Something different? Similar concentration or even saltier? It was too tempting a target to pass up, and we're going to spend the weekend doing IDD work on it before moving on.
-------------------- "I want to make as many people as possible feel like they are part of this adventure. We are going to give everybody a sense of what exploring the surface of another world is really like"
- Steven Squyres |
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Jan 15 2006, 08:09 AM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2228 Joined: 1-December 04 From: Marble Falls, Texas, USA Member No.: 116 |
It's just gorgeous, isn't it? I don't remember previous sightings being so colorful, but perhaps I have forgotten, or we didn't look as closely, earlier. Can anyone dig up some old images, or newly processed, old images?
I've been trying to imagine a sequence from the physical evidence here, and one which makes sense chemically from the color evidence. It's probably crazy to try, though. This soil is so churned up. I know we can't fully trust the colors, but the typical problems with the over-exposures on the blue end seem to be minor in these recent sets. It sometimes appears that these "full filter sets" are a bit better behaved. I'm going to go _way_ out on a limb here and suggest that the yellow stuff is reminiscent of native sulfur, the shades of gray and exaggerated blue suggest reduced iron species in the particles, and the "rusty" orange-brown stuff resembles rock fragments containing oxidized iron ions. The white stuff has already been identified by SS as largely sulfates of iron. Oh great. Apparently ferric sulfate can also be yellow. Nevermind...back to the drawingboard... Thank goodness someone will get the lowdown from the Moessbauer and APXS eventually. -------------------- ...Tom
I'm not a Space Fan, I'm a Space Exploration Enthusiast. |
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