[X] My Assistant

[azstrummer]

Oh man, first they make us wait 6 days after announcing problems with Spirit for any pictures and news and now, seeing the pictures, it appears Spirit is just buzzing around in circles at the base of the hills. I truly understand that there's some different rocks than they've seen on the mission before but my guess is that they'll find them going up the hill as well. I think we truly deserve that panorama shot we've all been waiting for. Anyone out there know how to hack into sending the rover commands?

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

(1) That really weird-looking layered rock is all over the damn place at the foot of the Columbia Hills, and it is DEFINITELY outcrop material:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...26P2596L2M1.JPG

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...26P2596L2M1.JPG

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...08P2598R1M1.JPG

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...CAP2265L1M1.JPG

...and it was announced at the last press conference that Spirit -- gimpy wheel or no -- will immediately begin trying to climb up the Hills slope to reach that large rounded outcrop of it that's turned up in earlier photos. They also said that the isolated fragments of sedimentary rock seen now had definitely come from the Hills. I find it impossible to believe that Spirit hasn't found what it was looking for at Gusev.


(2) Spirit's Microscopic Imager photos of the "Pot of Gold" rock of it are showing something extremely interesting: it's surely water-modified, but not at all in the same way as the acid-modified Blueberry-infested rocks at Meridiani. Instead of isolated spherules, we're seeing vaguely round nodules at the end of "fingers" of hardened material that are not clearly different in composition but have resisted wind erosion more than the material surrounding them:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/mi...04P2936M2M1.JPG

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/mi...04P2936M2M1.JPG

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/mi...04P2936M2M1.JPG

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/mi...04P2936M2M1.JPG

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/mi...04P2936M2M1.JPG

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/mi...04P2956M2M1.JPG

Could we be looking at basalt sandstone that has been modified by NON-acidified water, rather than by the acidic solution that has radically changed the sandstone at Meridiani?

(3) Note also the magnificent view Spirit is now getting, from the Hills slope, of a distant hill ridge with Gusev's rim still further beyond it:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/pa...00P2375L7M1.JPG