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The major science stories from Spirit
MoreInput
post Jan 25 2010, 09:55 PM
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Hello!
Sorry for taking this old thread up, but ... I am writing for the german wikipedia, and I am also looking for the scientific findings of the rovers. I am searching for some public accessible documents, which summarize the findings as a whole.

Some of the diverse questions which I have:
- What is the history of gusev? Was it filled with water?
- How the layering in the rocks of columbia hills or home plate was built?
- At which time does the dust devils show up? Why are they building only in gusev, and not in meridiani?
- Were the Columbia Hills vulcans? Or what kind of vulcanic activities were here?
- How was the layering of victoria built? Is there a cross section profile?
- What where the results of analysing the Cape Verde?
- What are the result of the athmospheric observations?
- What is the history of meridiani planum? Was the whole meridiani planum under water? Was the water flowing? And flowing to which position? Meridiani is flat.
- The layering has changed inside endurance crater, if we go deeper, due to ground water. Has this also happend in Victoria crater?
- Is water the only process to built the blueberries? Is there a map for the distribution of the blueberries?
- How old is Victoria or Endurance?
- Are there geological annotated maps about the structure and chemistry of Meridiani Planum and Gusev/Columbia Hills?

So many rocks, so many analyses ...

The videos of Steve Squyres are really cool! I whished I would have the PDF for this lectures ...

Thanks a lot...


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Guest_Oersted_*
post Jan 26 2010, 08:59 AM
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QUOTE (MoreInput @ Jan 25 2010, 10:55 PM) *
Hello!
Sorry for taking this old thread up, but ... I am writing for the german wikipedia, and I am also looking for the scientific findings of the rovers. I am searching for some public accessible documents, which summarize the findings as a whole.


How about the English-language Wikipedia page on that very subject?

"Scientific information from the Mars Exploration Rover mission"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_in...n_Rover_mission
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MoreInput
post Jan 26 2010, 07:30 PM
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Thanks a lot for this link. I already have seen it, but it is totally outdated. And also it references some "science mag" articles i can't access huh.gif


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djellison
post Jan 26 2010, 07:39 PM
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The Spirit Wiki article isn't great - but it's actually reasonably comprehensive and up to date.

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Guest_Oersted_*
post Jan 26 2010, 09:40 PM
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Maybe a job for some intrepid UMSF'er?
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MoreInput
post Feb 3 2010, 09:42 PM
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Ok, I think I have a good start point. As Emily stated in another thread, the abstract of the LPSC conferences are giving a good overview of what the scientist found out. They are really short, and mostly there is a short conclusion of what the findings do tell us.

I just downloaded 200 of them about the rovers and try to understand this stuff.

Also this statement of her may help: "Googling individual authors whose LPSC abstracts indicate they do a lot of work in this field may lead you to personal websites where they post PDF copies of their published papers", I will test it


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Ron Hobbs
post Jun 4 2010, 06:46 PM
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An article published yesterday in Science reports that the rock "Comanche" that Spirit visited in 2005 a lot of carbonate.

"This is one of the most significant findings by the rovers," said Steve Squyres.

"Magnesium iron carbonate makes up about one-fourth of the measured volume in Comanche. That is a tenfold higher concentration than any previously identified for carbonate in a Martian rock."

It is amazing it took them so long to get this. This mission continues to amaze.

I don't have access to the Science article; the JPL Release is here.
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Shaka
post Jun 4 2010, 09:21 PM
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Good old Comanche! I always suspected that rock was special. smile.gif
It was a question about the sparkly bits visible in its MIs that motivated my first post to UMSF - wayyy back when.
Now my followup question is whether those specular reflections may have come off crystals of magnesium iron carbonate! I have seen precious few such sparkles in MIs before or since Comanche.
I love the irony that such sought-after stuff was signaling its presence in such an eye-catching manner YEARS before it would be formally recognized.
Rock hound comments?


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nprev
post Jun 4 2010, 09:44 PM
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QUOTE (Ron Hobbs @ Jun 4 2010, 10:46 AM) *
It is amazing it took them so long to get this.


Not too surprising, though. The modus operandi from the beginning was data acquisition while the rovers are functional; detailed data reduction & analysis can obviously wait, gotta get the data while the gettin's good. Since Spirit's doing some extended downtime, the flood rate's down by half, so there's finally some time to go back & take a hard look at stuff from earlier in the mission.


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Ron Hobbs
post Jun 4 2010, 10:09 PM
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Even to my amateur eye, Comanche was one of the most intriguing outcrops either of the rovers came across. More than any other, it made me think of outcrops in the Southwest US. I remember thinking that I wished that they could have spent more time there.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that discoveries are coming out of observations made so long ago. I do tell students in my presentations that their children, and maybe even grandchildren, will be making discoveries from data now being collected.

Speaking of archival data, there is a lot in this forum. Here is a link to a long forgotten thread with pictures of this curious outcrop.

Comanche picture
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Bill Harris
post Jun 6 2010, 02:52 AM
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QUOTE
It was a question about the sparkly bits visible in its MIs that motivated my first post to UMSF - wayyy back when.
I remember that. smile.gif

Do a Search on the term "comanche" and you'll end up with a page of hits. I'm going to browse and refresh my recollections on that area...
--Bill

--PS
Spirit was there around Sol 697 if you need to dig.

--PPS
There was a dedicated Comanche thread in 2005, it is a good backgrounder on Comanche:

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1854

And a larger thread on the descent into the Inner Basin:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=1707


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CosmicRocker
post Jun 14 2010, 07:00 AM
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I guess the story here may be that carbonate minerals may be more common on Mars than our remote sensing tools have previously led us to believe. The ancient geochemistry of Mars is a bit more interesting than was initially assumed. I see the story evolving to where there is an historical geochemical dichotomy based on groundwater pH.


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Bill Harris
post Jun 18 2010, 04:10 PM
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Indeed. The formation of carbonates is so varied that they can be indicators of many processes. In my area, B'ham, AL, look at the carbonates present in the column: Starting out with the dolomitic/cherty Cambrian Knox Group, through the Red Mountain Formation and the petroliferous biogenic Bangor Limestone, up to the Cretaceous (and later) marls and chalks.

I think that carbonates have a weak-ish spectral signature (compared to hematite and phyllosilicates) and is masked by the pervasive "limonite dust" (not totally correct, that is what I have informally called it for years) that covers everything on Mars.

It will be interesting to see how this study develops.

--Bill


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marsbug
post Oct 28 2010, 10:40 PM
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Don't know how major this is, but if it's innapropriate here I'm sure the mod team will move it: Spirit finds evidence of subsurface water, JPL


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schaffman
post Oct 29 2010, 12:48 PM
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Arvidson et al. presented a two-page abstract on this at 2010 LPSC.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2010/pdf/1247.pdf.

Tom
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