MSL at Rocknest, First scoop samples - sols 57-101 Options

[Eyesonmars]

Got it up to Gigapan, so the full 84,213 x 3,383px version is online here. Gotta admit, going full screen is pretty fun.

FYI: Works great on IPADs also. Even on a slow 1.25Mbps DSL connection at a local coffee shop.

[Stu]

Hmmm... looks a bit shiny beneath the dust...

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/ms...0000R0_DXXX.jpg

Meteorite, anyone? Just reminds me a lot of Heat Shield Rock and others Oppy saw out in Meridiani's Great Dune Sea...

[Free Mars]

Ed's pan makes Fark's Geek tab

[CosmicRocker]

... I do hope that they will take an opportunity to take a closer image of this rock group though.
It keeps popping out every time I look at images of this area.
Interesting curved features in an area with so many angular rocks. Must say something different about this area. ...

Good eye. That is a fascinating rock. That kind of geometry is somewhat unique, so I think you are correct in your suspicion that it says something about the rock's origin. I was thinking maybe a basaltic lava with pahoehoe structure, but the scale seems too small, unless the lava was very fluid.

[walfy]

Meteorite, anyone?

Sure looks like one! A different take on this anaglyph:


(The baseline shift is somewhere in this off-angle, kind of eyeballed it, made it much less headache inducing!)

[walfy]

Just one more for tonight. Another take on this wondrous structure:



(Also makes for a passable flicker GIF.)

[Zeke4ther]

That is truly amazing!

[jmknapp]

Sort of like bread dough.

[Hungry4info]

CheMin X-ray diffraction results. Feldspar, pyroxenes and olivine detected.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-341

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[atomoid]

Sort of like bread dough.

Bread eagerly eaten by a patient but persistently peckish Mars, deftly depositing dangling duricrust details. i like FredK's brutal x-eye version

[jmknapp]

To continue the food theme, in today's telecast they described the surface crust layer and showed how part of it had collapsed into the scoop bite mark. Someone watching the telecast with me exclaimed "crème brûlée!"

Reminded me of when the Huygens probe landed on Titan with its surface probe, the initial analogy was crème brûlée, although I think they changed that later.

Interesting that they said they're getting closer to being able to come up with a recipe for Mars sand--feldspar, olivine, pyroxine, plus some amorphous ingredients to be named later. Should beat Space Sand from Amazon.

[atomoid]

hmmm.. the 'closest thing to sand on Mars' i wonder if the 'real' sand on mars, if temp/pressure are roght could 'get wet'.. or may there be some resistance imparted by the chemistry?

back in the day, i remember daydreaming about pouring a glass of water out onto the soil of the Meridiani plains to actually 'see what happens' as it happens and then relegating myself to hoping they would someday integrate water and assorted reagents for the sample chamber to run soil chemistry tests without ruining it. i guess im getting a bit closer to that if DuneCraft gets a new recipe and I get around to installing a refigerated vacuum chamber at home.

[dvandorn]

So, there's a significant feldspar content in the ubiquitous Martian dust, eh? It will be interesting to see if we find source rock that is anorthositic, or source rock that is granitic.

Or both.



-the other Doug

[jmknapp]

Another interesting moment in the telecon was courtesy of the reporter Craig Couvault, who asked if they had discovered methane. There was a little buzz about methane on space.com a week ago but it didn't cite anything specific. Yesterday, Dr, Grotzinger just replied with something like, "we don't have anything to report on that yet, Craig--stay tuned."

[ronald]

Yeah I remember that part too with Craig leaving the line then with a giggle. I think Dr. Grotzinger replied " ... we've got no statement on that yet Craig - stay tuned."

But still nice images comming down - sol 72 MR+ML:


There is another new one in the "drive drive drive" thread.