Spirit's New Adventures, The Mission Beyond 1000 Sols |
Spirit's New Adventures, The Mission Beyond 1000 Sols |
Nov 6 2006, 11:39 PM
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Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 3108 Joined: 21-December 05 From: Canberra, Australia Member No.: 615 |
With Spirit starting to get on the move again (even though it's a very small first step), I think that it's high time we got a new topic going and re-invigorate the Spirit thread.
OK. Spirit's moving again after 6 months at Low Ridge. Here's an animation of the turn (enhanced Front Haz Cam). A big cheer for our little girl at Gusev. Let's support her with lots of discussion on UMSF. Astro0 |
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Nov 28 2006, 12:58 AM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1229 Joined: 24-December 05 From: The blue one in between the yellow and red ones. Member No.: 618 |
Kowabunga! If those are blueberries, Sunny, you've got a major scoop, and should sit right down and write a paper!
Personally I'm sceptical. They're much smaller than Meridiani concretions and are held together with a minimum of matrix (sulfates?). I think blueberries need a resonable amount of matrix volume around each one to allow room for growth. Also the RAT brush has revealed them as very smooth, shiny and dark. They look more like obsidian than gray hematite - Dam' I wonder if they could be glass spherules from some lava fountain? Nah! Then we would see some irregular droplet or dumbell shapes as well as spheres. Only massive reworking would get them all so round and uniform in size. Still, they look interesting to me and probably should get a full IDD analysis. Pity we can't grind into them. -------------------- My Grandpa goes to Mars every day and all I get are these lousy T-shirts!
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Nov 28 2006, 04:21 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 311 Joined: 31-August 05 From: Florida & Texas, USA Member No.: 482 |
Also the RAT brush has revealed them as very smooth, shiny and dark. They look more like obsidian than gray hematite - Dam' I wonder if they could be glass spherules from some lava fountain? Nah! Then we would see some irregular droplet or dumbell shapes as well as spheres. Only massive reworking would get them all so round and uniform in size. I also thought they might be obsidian beads, especially considering the idea that homeplate is a relic from explosive volcanism. But it's strange they'd be so concentrated in one layer, and as you mentioned, shouldn't flying through the air shape them more like drops? Could thin martian air not provide enough friction to make them look like earth's analogues? Good stuff! |
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