[X] My Assistant

[djellison]

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/doug_im...aving_larry.jpg (476kb)

Larry is the outcropping to the right - Methuselah is the layered rock on the left.

As an interesting point to judge distances - assuming zero slip the marks made by the hold-down-brackets on the wheel tread are 80cm apart - or about 2ft 7inches

Doug

[djellison]

Wow - yeah - an excellent drive imho - Meth and LL now line up

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...GEP0605L0M1.JPG

Doug

[Mode5]

Surfs up!

Thanks for the analysis on this area dvandorn. I imagine the lower gravity has a lot to do with this terrain being able to hold these odd formations. Is the surface of Mars now believed to be devoid of any movement? I did a quick Google search on this but the only thing I found was that Viking had 2 seismographs. One didn't work and the other was too noisy. I can't see how a quake would not topple something like in Doug's nice picture above or the pic below. Is this an area of debate in the scientific community?

http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/...DWP2279R1M1.JPG

[dvandorn]

Surfs up!

Thanks for the analysis on this area dvandorn. I imagine the lower gravity has a lot to do with this terrain being able to hold these odd formations. Is the surface of Mars now believed to be devoid of any movement? I did a quick Google search on this but the only thing I found was that Viking had 2 seismographs. One didn't work and the other was too noisy. I can't see how a quake would not topple something like in Doug's nice picture above or the pic below. Is this an area of debate in the scientific community?

http://nasa.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/...DWP2279R1M1.JPG

It's pretty certain that Mars' core has solidified and gone cold -- Mars no longer generates a magnetic field, and if its core was still molten, current theory is that it would generate a magnetic field just like the Earth does.

However, there still may be isolated pockets of molten magma in the mantle, here and there... that's not been completely ruled out. (And the detection of methane generation at various places on Mars makes it seem a little more likely, since methane is usually only produced by volcanic activity or biological activity.)

Remember, Earth's quakes are mostly driven by tectonics. And while Mars may once have had tectonic plates, its crust spreading and subducting in various places (detection of magnetic "striping" similar to what we see along the mid-ocean ridges in Mars' southern hemisphere suggests it), since its core has gone cold, it's most likely that Mars' plates have all fused and its crust no longer floats on a liquid mantle. Therefore, there's no major source for Marsquakes.

But, I have to admit, you're right -- the seismometers on the Vikings didn't return much in the way of usable data, so we don't know for sure how active the crust might still be. And while current theory states that Mars' core can't be molten anymore, it is, after all, just current theory... current theory used to state that the Moon's core couldn't be molten, either, and recent analysis of its "wobble" as it orbits the Earth shows that not only is the Moon's core still molten, it rotates in a slightly different direction and at a slightly different speed from the Moon's crust and mantle! So, theories can always be expanded upon... *smile*...

-the other Doug