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 30 2006, 12:54 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Admin Posts: 468 Joined: 11-February 04 From: USA Member No.: 21 |
The latest update from Steve Squyres revealed some of what Spirit found at Arad:
QUOTE At Gusev, Arad turned out to be worth the stop. It's extraordinarily high in ferric sulfate salts, and it now holds the record for the saltiest place ever discovered on Mars. Interestingly, though, it doesn't seem to have the phosphates that Paso Robles did. We're still pondering on this one. Breaking the 'saltiest soil' record couldn't have been easy, the recent JGR APXS paper identified Paso Robles as being 49% by weight ferric sulfates. It would seem that the phosphates are going to pose a much bigger challenge to our understanding. Paso Robles had more sulfates and more P than any other place yet sampled by Spirit. It didn't seem like it would be too far of a stretch to think that both components had been transported together. But if Arad shows only the sulfates, and none of the phosphates, then the theories of transport get a whole lot more complicated. Also still lingering is the issue of concentration. Why are these patches so specially localized? Why haven't these areas been mixed in? Spirit has now seen two very dense patches of salt that don't appear to have been stirred into the surrounding soil. |
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