The Great Meridiani Debate Options

[Guest_paulanderson_*]

Acidic water or volcanoes / impacts? The debate is on! I kind of like this actually, for my birthday today (39 now, getting old)....

Updates regarding this today from Nature, CU and Space.com:

The Waters Ran Shallow
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/...e051222-10.html

Mars Region Probably Less Watery In Past Than Thought, Says Study
http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2005/470.html

New Studies Question Mars Water Assumptions
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/051221_mars_dry.html

Regardless though of whether they are correct or not regarding the acidic sulphate deposits in these scenarios, the earlier clays are still another matter...!

The Space.com article includes comments from Squyres (who it says was not contacted prior to the article being published):

"Squyres said a deeper understanding of the situation came when Opportunity examined Endurance Crater, where observations were made of 25 vertical feet of rock outcrops. Those results were published just a month ago, after the two Nature papers had been submitted. Knauth, McCollom and Hynek "hadn't seen that stuff when they wrote their papers," Squyres said. The nature of the layering and grain sizes deeper inside Endurance Crater "is absolutely incompatible with a volcanic or impact origin," Squyres said. It is "completely compatible" with the idea of windblown material, and the upper meter or so "shows evidence for deposition of water. The chemistry varies with depth in a way that requires that subsurface liquid water interacted with the rocks after they were deposited." Squyres emphasized that his team has always thought the water was mostly underground, occasionally creating small surface lakes that evaporated quickly. Squyres also stressed that nobody has done anything other than good science with the data available. "It's always good to have alternative hypotheses," he said. "In the end, the best ideas win. It forces everybody to go back and sharpen their arguments. All of this is a good thing."

[CosmicRocker]

Yep. We have got to see more of the section. There's no debate there. But this is a really interesting place. It's too bad Opportunity has been immobilized for so long. There are targets all around it that would fill in some of the details.

There seems to be quite a fight brewing in this Great Meridiani Debate. It's quite interesting to watch. My best guess at this point is that they are arguing about a location for a sample return mission. Anyone have any other ideas?

[Guest_BillyMER_*]

Yep. We have got to see more of the section. There's no debate there. But this is a really interesting place. It's too bad Opportunity has been immobilized for so long. There are targets all around it that would fill in some of the details.

There seems to be quite a fight brewing in this Great Meridiani Debate. It's quite interesting to watch. My best guess at this point is that they are arguing about a location for a sample return mission. Anyone have any other ideas?

I been wondering for some time now if we could see a sample return collector rover enter say endurance crater,that exact crater.We know what's there. If you send the sample return rover to some other part of the planet or some other part of Meridiani Planum you don't know exactly what you would find. Would you want to take the risk of sending it to location that your not definitely sure of because you haven't been there on the ground and may not get the sample your after. Of course we don't know what MSL is going to find that you might want to bring back to Earth.that could change this equation.
That would be strange to see a return sample rover entering Victoria crater and seeing a broken down oppy or a oppy that has taken a suicide plunge into the crater.

Could a scenario like this take place ? In 6-10 years could we obtain this degree of accuracy in a landing site ?