[X] My Assistant

[chaosman]

Look at new Opportunity Pancam image:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...34P2536L6M1.JPG

Middle-Left you can see:

A Martian Marble sitting on a "Stem".
It's very clear by the shadow the thing is casting.

Wow !

[djellison]

Not totally unexpected feature - especially with the main erosion being wind. The ball will have cast a 'wind shadow' where erosion couldnt take place, which has left it where it is.

Facinating little feature though - like a tiny version of some of the huge erosion feature you sometimes see in the rocky deserts of the US

Doug

[Shimon]

I can see several similar "marbles with stems" in this picture.
Gentlemen, these are life forms.

[chaosman]

Yeah,

wind blown erosion is an option.

Biology another.

I would then expect the stem to be wider closer to the marble for wind blown action. (wind shadow should be more efficent there)


A microscopic image of the junction between marble and stem would help.


I wonder if some NASA guys sometimes visit the web...

If I were NASA I would spend a couple of days just taking MI images of sites that just "look interesting". (kind of sightseeing)

Sometimes you get the best results when you don't even expect them...

But I bet every single step they do has be be justified in terms of "hard science".

And that excludes past or present macroscopic life. :-(

Well, the water story they came up with was great nevertheless.

Rocks formed in large body of water...WOW !!!

[djellison]

You seem to think that they'd avoid any chance of finding life. Believe me, nothing would interest the scientists more - and nothing would guarentee funding of missions in the future better than that.

I'd rather they got on with the mission in hand, and not waste time - astonishing valuable as it is - on inspecting statistically probable odd features.

And they didnt ' come up with a story '

They presented findings from scientific investigation.

Doug

[chaosman]

Sorry for my misleading statement "came up with a story". I'm not a native english speaker and didn't want to play the data down.

In fact I'm very impressed by the data.

What is your opinion about it ?

What does it mean for the blueberries ?

I heard that meteoritic impact and vulcanic eruption are much less likely now.

Are we left with the concretions or fossils/lifeforms hypothesis ?

[chaosman]

"You seem to think that they'd avoid any chance of finding life. Believe me, nothing would interest the scientists more - and nothing would guarentee funding of missions in the future better than that."

You again totally misinterpreted me. I totally agree with the above.

I just don't think that they are allowed to hunt after the "fossil" hypothesis.
They have to justify each of their steps and that puts some limitations on their options.

[lars_J]

It has nothing to do with being "allowed" or not. Fossil-hunting simply isn't even practical nor does it make sense with the equipment on the rovers. Should they keep "rat"-ting down the entire outcrop in a vain hope of finding something? It would take forever, and wear down the tools until thry are useless, or the rovers lifespan is used up.

It makes much more sense for the rovers to learn as much as they can about the sediments, and then leave any future fossil hunting for future missions or sample returns - if it makes sense at that point.

These rovers have no organic compound detection ability, and looking for life is not its mission. But you can be sure that if they actually happen to find something, we will know about it.

[chaosman]

It certanly wouldn't make sense to try to dig around löike mad.

Well, the they have found these marbles, and some of them show features that look very biotic to me. (I'm not telling they are biotic)

I would make more use of the MI to get better statistics of these marbles and their morphologies.

I have only seen round about 10 - 15 of them in micrographs so far.


And if these once was the bottom of a body of standing water doing more micrographs of the soil would make sense to look for microfossils.

[EckJerome]

First up...dj, great forum, great images. Thanks!

Onto the the blueberries/marbles/spherules. There is no shortage of oddly-eroded spherules for the rovers to check out. Indeed, many have been photographed already, some of them in great detail. The primary concern has become "what are they actually made of?" While pictures help, they need more to answer that.

The plan, after investigating more of the layered rocks, is to travel to a small depression (the "Blueberry Bowl") on the far side of the outcrop where a number of spherules have rolled together. There, Opportunity will use the MI and spectrometers in what promises to be the most efficient way of gathering a large amount of data about them.

Then, with the primary mission past its halfway point, and the (might I say) dazzling and tantalizing Endurance Crater laying two weeks to the east...it's onward ho!

The primary mission is to look for evidence of water and, now having found it, to determine exactly what form of water (groundwater? sea?) and how long it might have been there. Opportunity is making extensive use of the MI. Should it happen to find a fossil, GREAT!, but the rovers have very limited ability to methodically hunt for them. (Indeed, interesting bits are seen in some MI shots...though I think some of the speculation I've seen elsewhere is a bit premature.)

You can place your money, however, that future missions will return to this area specifically designed to look for fossils or even life itself.

Eric

[djellison]

Thanks

Of course, we never know what is over the next hill as it were - but I'd be very confident of a future MSR mission visiting the Challenger station - there is too much to be learnt from that outcrop.

Of course, the far side of the Eastern Crater seems to have a quite ENORMOUS outcrop, that will dwaft the current one, and the rover. Will be the most stunning sight I am sure

Doug

[Shimon]

Have you seen the "rotini" picture
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/oppo...asa_040301.html
?
If you look closely, you can see several "rotini" like structures that remind me of sea anenome or shells.
Of course, no scientist is going to risk his/her reputation by declaring any such features to be fossils unless there is cast iron evidence, but its great to look at these pix from an armchair and speculate and dream!

I think the brilliant success of these missions is a compelling argument against sending a manned mission to Mars. These robots are true extensions of mankind. The internet culture and the great excitement generated amongst millions of surfers who watch these pictures and spectographs as they come in make the fact that the work is being done by a machine, rather than some guy, irrelevant. A manned mission would cost at least 200 times as much, would be v. hazardous and can't happen for another 25-30 years, by which time i'll be dead or senile!
More importantly, the danger of bio-contamination by a manned mission, that could mask any slight chemical traces of ancient life, is v. real. We don't wanna have some some guy from Iowa or Hong Kong coughing and peeing on Martian microfossils.

[DavidVicari]

I think the brilliant success of these missions is a compelling argument against sending a manned mission to Mars. These robots are true extensions of mankind.

I agree, these missions have been amazing, but I still think there is a place for manned mars missions. There are so many things that humans can do better.

I think the real lesson from these missions is that all future landers need to be mobile. If Opportunity wasn't a rover, all of its instruments would of been almost useless. Being able to move is essential.

The Phoenix lander in 2007 wont be mobile. Even though it doesn't have to be for its mission, I think it would be a lot better if it was mobile. While the results from Phoenix will be interesting and exciting, I don't think it will be nearly as exciting as the rovers. Looking forward to MSL in 2009.

[djellison]

Well - of course, Phoenix is just the 2001 lander with the rover ripped off an a different instrument bolted on.

After Rover-mania -it' will be a very dissapointing mission for the public. No roving, image quality not as good.

GOod science all the same though

Doug

[Guest_paulanderson_*]

I've posted a zoomed crop of another and better view of this "stemmed spherule" from Sol 37. This is more of a nice side view, with the "stem" and associated shadow clearly seen:



Original:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...18P2392L7M1.JPG

I've also posted crops of two other possible ones, from Sols 16 and 34, one seemingly sticking up from the soil in the outcrop and another "extension" from one of the spherules sliced by the rover:

http://www3.telus.net/paulanderson/mer.html

No specific claims here, just think it warrants looking at!