Post Block Island Meteor Studies (The Western Route), The 6th Leg in our Zig Zag Journey to Endeavour Crater Options

[glennwsmith]

Tesheiner and Centsworth_II, thanks for the enhancements of the latest MI work -- and my God, what an incredible sight it is! It brings to mind so many things I don't even now where to start, so I will just throw out a couple of breathless thoughts.

First -- and I am not sure if it is even permissible to allude to this......




ADMIN ..... so why post it? Please don't intentionally and knowingly add to the administrative workload.

[centsworth_II]

...Centsworth_II, thanks...

Just to be clear, I posted the work of talented image worker Hortonheardawho.

[centsworth_II]

First -- and I am not sure if it is even permissible to allude to this......

ADMIN ..... so why post it? Please don't intentionally and knowingly add to the administrative workload.

You should have just said, "it's like being there..."

I think you actually said its better than being there, but I don't think you'd get a lot of agreement on that.

[CosmicRocker]

Yesterday, a full set of right-filter images of Marquette came down. I made a right-filter, false color composite to see if this rock mineralogically resembled typical Meridiani sediments. This is the same false color image from right filter ratios that we've seen used in the past to emphasize the hematite concretions in these rocks. These RGB composites use R=R1/R2, G=R1, and B=R5/R7. An example from early in the mission is available here.

I won't speculate as to the mineralogy of Marquette, but it has a very different color and appearance in this image compared to typical Meridiani sediments. Remember, this is made from raw imagery which can only be used qualitatively. You can compare its yellow color to the blue color of the bedrock beneath it. The purplish hues are artifacts of the shadows. This image also shows that most of the cobbles lying around here display the same colors as Marquette, and therefore are probably fragments of the same original body.

[Tesheiner]

From today's batch of pancams: http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportu...cam/2009-11-16/


Wilderness, Voight, and Hessel Bays.

[tdemko]

The texture and fabric of Marquette in the MI's looks like a micro-vesicular extrusive igneous rock, with some vesicles filled with lighter-colored minerals. That may include a pre-impact origin as a lava flow (basalt), dome (intermediate/andesite), or pre-existing impact melt. Like me in Texas, it ain't from around here...

[HughFromAlice]

Fairly quick hand stitched, processed and colourized panorama of NavCams from Sol 2066 (Mon 16th Nov - today) - time flies when you are having fun - that kept me up later than I realized!

[Bill Harris]

The texture and fabric of Marquette in the MI's looks like...

My first impression, too. Looks like a piece of basaltic "basement" ejecta. Easy to spot with the R721 images. From the looks, this rock has had an interesting history. There should be some more MI handlens images today.

--Bill

[jamescanvin]

A couple more mosaics from a while ago as I continue to catchup:

Nautilus Crater


Falcon Crater

[Tesheiner]

With all the activity and expectations (knock on wood!) on Spirit today, the information about her sister at the other side of the planet was left a little bit behind. Just checked the tracking web to know about the imaging plan and found that the RAT will be used tomorrow, sol 2068.

[Guest_PhilCo126_*]

Did NASA-JPL give an estimate of the size of "Mackinac" meteorite ?

[Tesheiner]

Ready to brush / grind this rock?

[djellison]

That's a good pre-grind position. Time for some rock-chomping, not done any for a while

[climber]

Interesting! We kind of debated the value of grinding and gave a No Go. Is JPL still reading us?
OK, they'll may be "only" brush; but I wonder whether they choose to "attack" Marquette because of very big interest or because they consider "interesting enough" to use the tools since it's supposed to work (I know, we had a fault last time) instead of saving it for Endeavour with no garenty to get to there. This is the same debate as whether or not trying to move Marquette considered a few days ago by Deimos with very interesting rationales.

[djellison]

I'd have gone for it because we need down time for the FR wheel - it's presenting itself very well for IDD work given the limitations of the IDD since its trouble - and it's fairly unique, perhaps deep ejecta from a nearby crater.