NEWEST ROVER TO LAND ON MARS 8/6/2012

Click on picture for larger version.

That 's probably Y we found no dinosaurs there.

( That 's a little joke. )

the high areas around the aerial photo with the over prts are what interested me, they look like sedimentary structure. The photoof the horizon with the big 'range" in the background is orobably the edge of the crater , so that is rpobably the outer edge of the impact crater.

Im hoping the dome area is analyzed so we can see the layering.

You might find this one interesting:

Caption:

"This is a close-up view of the zones where the soil at Curiosity's landing site was blown away by the thrusters on the rover's descent stage. The excavation of the soil reveals probable bedrock outcrop. This is important because it shows the shallow depth of the soil in this area. The area surrounding the zones of excavation shows abundant small rocks that may form a pavement-like layer above harder bedrock."

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16025

Id like to see some real close-ups of the broken rocks in that detail. Id like to see whether theres any evidence of wind blown or water rounding. Wind erosion forms a crust called "desert varnih" whereas streams cause some sub rounding and we could see how much erosion occured.

If the dust is all thats left, the rovers gonna have to do a point count to develop an energy balance to determine what caused the layout of clasts.

I'm a little confused as to how the central "mountain" in that crater formed as well.

I'm aware that impact craters often have a central spike due to rebound during the collision. Is that what happened here? And then are they speculating that water filled the crater and left a sort of "stratified shell" of sediments over the central cone?

I found this:

From: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/timeline/prelaunch/landingsiteselection/aboutgalecrater/

It seems to imply that all of Gale Crater may have filled with sediment over time, and Mt. Sharp formed as the wind eroded away the sediment (more from the edges of the crater than the middle), leaving Mt. Sharp in the middle.

If that's the scenario they are working from, then I can only surmise that they are guessing that the shape of the crater itself somehow caused the wind to erode in this pattern.

thats what I was thinking when we could see the "layering" effect. Its probably several styles of sedimentary deposition, water fluvial underlaying some evaporite deposits like gypsum of selenite as the water dried up.

Nifty geology, Ill have to think about getting these fotos on loan from JPL to use in an econ=geo fieldmethods Im giving

2012 August 9
See Explanation. Moving the cursor over the image will bring up an annotated version. Clicking on the image will bring up the highest resolution version available.
Mars in the Loop
Image Credit & Copyright: Cenk E. Tezel, Tunç Tezel (TWAN)

Explanation: This composite of images spaced some 5 to 7 days apart from late October 2011 (top right) through early July 2012 (bottom left), traces the retrograde motion of ruddy-colored Mars through planet Earth's night sky. To connect the dots in Mars' retrograde loop, just slide your cursor over the picture (and check out this animation). But Mars didn't actually reverse the direction of its orbit. Instead, the apparent backwards motion with respect to the background stars is a reflection of the motion of the Earth itself. Retrograde motion can be seen each time Earth overtakes and laps planets orbiting farther from the Sun, the Earth moving more rapidly through its own relatively close-in orbit. On March 4th, 2012 Mars was opposite the Sun in Earth's sky, near its closest and brightest at the center of this picture. Just arrived on the surface of the Red Planet, the Curiosity rover was launched on November 26, when Mars was near the crossover point of its retrograde loop. Of course, Mars can now be spotted close to Saturn and bright star Spica, near the western horizon after sunset.

New Curiosity Images: Including 360 degree panorama and rover self portrait

PHOTOS

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

Fascinating stuff.

I'm surprised that they think that the wind would erode the sediment in the crater and leave a "mountain" in the middle. Why would wind erosion in a crater produce such a formation?

Just for a good reference on the scale of things, here's Google Map's "Mars Map".

http://www.google.com/mars

If you select "Craters" and search for "Gale Crater" you will see where everything is.

There are so many interesting things on mars to explore. It's amazing that such an unassuming little thing like Gale Crater made the cut. But I guess it was the "Goldilocks" location.

really neat . Im driving all over looking at fracture traces.

I think it's hard not to relate human knowledge about earth's geology to what we observe on other planets. Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park's geology have been studied extensively, and scientists have determined that the rock formations there are the result of water and wind.

Why are you looking at fracture traces? What's interesting about them? (not that everything on Mars isn't interesting)

fractures represent a stress relief in a triaxial force field. It allows one to imagine from which way forces came. In most cases where fractures are parallel (These are called en echelon) they mean that there was a pulling back or a slumping at that point.

So You Landed On Mars. Now What?
by Joe Palca
Morning Edition NPR
August 10, 2012

The Mars rover Curiosity is beginning its fifth day on the red planet, and it's been performing flawlessly from the moment it landed.

That's been especially gratifying for NASA landing engineer Adam Steltzner. Last Friday, while Steltzner was still on pins and needles waiting for the landing to take place, I told the story of Steltzner's decision as a young man to give up his life as a rocker and go for a career in space engineering.

After the landing, I wanted to check in with Steltzner again to find out what those fateful moments were like for him during the landing.

No mortal member of the press corps gets to be in the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory during a landing. I was crammed into a makeshift press room in another building, watching a video feed from the control room as Curiosity was descending to the surface of Mars. I could see Steltzner on the TV screen, there in the room, but I wanted to know what was going on in his mind.

After the landing, the media all streamed into an auditorium, where NASA would be holding a news conference that he'd be starring in.

I decided to wait outside, hoping to catch him as he came over from the control room. His giddy team was there, but no Steltzner. Eventually he showed up, and high-fived his way through the throng on his way into the auditorium. There was really no time to talk.

It wasn't until later in the week that I could steal him away from his meetings and media interviews for a quick chat over lunch at a nearby — and thankfully empty — restaurant.

On landing night, he said, he was terrified of jumping the gun in declaring that the rover had landed safely.

"I did not want a false positive celebration in the control room under any circumstances," he said.

He told me he'd set up three conditions that had to be met before he would declare success.

Hear The Control Room Audio Of Curiosity Landing On Mars

"One of our teammates called out 'tango delta nominal,' and that meant that the rover had sent a little postcard with its touchdown velocity, and where it thought it was on the surface of Mars," Steltzner said. "And I had another guy call out 'RIMU stable,' which meant the rover's not moving. And then as soon as RIMU stable was announced, Brian Schratz, who was sitting in the control room with us, was to count to 10 and confirm that the UHF telemetry stream from the rover was continuous. And that meant that the sky crane hadn't fallen back down on top of it."

"UHF is good," Schratz reported.

"He said that ... oh, I remember like, pointing to Al [Chen, JPL engineer], like I'm throwing success into his body. You know, like 'Yes! Let's do it, Al,' " Steltzner said.

Then Chen said it: "Touchdown confirmed. We are safe on Mars."

"And that was incredible," Steltzner said.

Years of planning and worrying had produced total success. Steltzner said he wasn't sleeping well before the landing. I asked if he slept better afterward, and he said yes, but only for a couple nights.

"Now what's interesting — last night I didn't sleep that well, and I sure hope I'm not on to worrying about the next thing and where to go from here."

He's talking about what's next for Adam Steltzner. About what's the next challenge for him. As he told me before the landing, he's a guy who needs something to measure himself against.

"The thing that engineering and physics gave me was, there's a right answer, and I could get to it," he says.

Steltzner told me the next right answer he'd love to get to is a landing system for a mission to Jupiter's watery moon, Europa.

Joe's Big Idea is an NPR experiment exploring how ideas become innovations and inventions. Follow us at Facebook.com/JoesBigIdea. And enter your big idea in our video contest.

I was looking at more of the large features. Some of the sharp peaks are very symmetrical. I assume they are volcano's, but it's interesting that they are so sharp and round. Then there's that big deep "blue" basin to the south. Not sure what caused that.

Most of these features are probably known and identified already. I just haven't read about them.

From The Onion

NASA Calls It A Mission As Curiosity Rover Fills Up Whole 2-Gigabyte Memory Card

2012 August 11
The First Color Panorama from Mars by Curiosity
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS

Explanation: You've just landed on Mars and opened your eyes -- what do you see? If you're the Curiosity rover, you see a strange gravelly place with a large mountain in the distance. You've landed on target near the edge of 150-km wide Gale Crater, with Mount Sharp on the horizon being the rise in the crater's center. As a car-sized rover with six wheels and a laser, you prepare yourself to go on a two-year mission of exploration, climbing Mt. Sharp, and looking for signs that Mars once harbored life.

Currently you sit motionless, check yourself over, and receive a detailed briefing from Earth on things you will need to know while rolling around, trying to avoid flipping over or getting your wheels stuck in sand. Your rolling explorations will likely start in a few days. What will you find? What's out there?

PHOTO

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/