NEWEST ROVER TO LAND ON MARS 8/6/2012

@rosborne979,

The article is somewhat confusing in that it expresses the formation of the "Mound" but goes back to a ;akebed so I wonder if they mean the formations qere pre crater ?4Alsp, the cross beddingmeans wind deposition atop the water deposits .
Until we know more, Im stickin with my theory. it makes more sense because when you expose a layer in cross section, that layer hadda be there first to be cross sectioned later.
Sometimes these guys think too much (maybe I dont think enough)

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Did Johmy 5 fire his laser t the rocks yet? I gotta get me one of those

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

Curiosity Rover tweeted that photo with the hashtag #wigglewigglewiggle Smile

Made me laugh.

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The first rock they "blasted" was a basalt. No Sedimentary rocks yet (bummer). We need sedimentary rock...

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/PIA16089_Wiens4-br2.jpg

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@rosborne979,

From the chemistrycoulda been a peridotite. That ould be exciting cause its a deep alkalic rock that, on earth, is common along margins of island arc volcanics (at crustal compression and extension areas) The titanium anomalies that are used to id planetary an lunar geology basalts are not there in any kind f intensity . Also, the rare earths are quite common in flood basalts and they aint showing either.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Did Johmy 5 fire his laser t the rocks yet?
I gotta get me one of those

Will u register it with the Police ?

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@farmerman,

Hi FM,

I'm not able to interpret the graph myself. I was just going by what the article associated with it said. I should have included it before. Here it is...

The Article wrote:

08.22.2012
Coronation's Chemicals
This is the first laser spectrum from the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument on NASA's Curiosity rover, sent back from Mars on August 19, 2012. The plot shows emission lines from different elements present in the target, a rock near the rover's landing site dubbed "Coronation" (see inset).

ChemCam's detectors observe light in the ultraviolet (UV), violet, visible and near-infrared ranges using three spectrometers, covering wavelengths from 240 to 850 nanometers. The light is produced when ChemCam's laser pulse strikes a target, generating ionized gases in the form of plasma, which is then analyzed by the spectrometers and their detectors for the presence of specific elements. The detectors can collect up to 16,000 counts produced by the light in any of its 6,144 channels for each laser shot.

The plot is a composite of spectra taken over 30 laser shots at a single 0.016-inch (0.4-millimeter) diameter spot on the target. An inset on the left shows detail for the minor elements titanium and manganese in the 398-to-404-nanometer range. An inset at the right shows the hydrogen and carbon peaks. The carbon peak was from the carbon dioxide in Mars' air. The hydrogen peak was only present on the first laser shot, indicating that the element was only on the very surface of the rock. Magnesium was also slightly enriched on the surface. The heights of the peaks do not directly indicate the relative abundances of the elements in the rock, as some emission lines are more easily excited than others.

A preliminarily analysis indicates the spectrum is consistent with basalt, a type of volcanic rock, which is known from previous missions to be abundant on Mars. Coronation is about three inches (7.6 centimeters) across, and located about 5 feet (1.5 meters) from the rover and about nine feet (2.7 meters) from ChemCam on the mast.

Source: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4541

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

I think all it means is that it can diagnose the chemical makeup of the emission.

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http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/PIA16105_malin04ano-br2.jpg

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I hope that we will find
that life in this solar system is unique to this Earth.

We shud be so lucky.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

I hope that we will find
that life in this solar system is unique to this Earth.

We shud be so lucky.

You seem overly worried about extremely low probability risks.

Any life we find in this solar system is highly likely to be microbial and of no real threat to us (as long as we don't inhale it).

I hope we do find life (or past life) on Mars (or anywhere else in the solar system) because I would love to know the prevalence of DNA is a basic formula for life. Or if something entirely different from DNA were found, that also would be incredibly interesting.

Even outside of this solar system, it's extremely unlikely that we will stumble upon (discover) any form of life which possesses superior technology without them noticing us first, in which case there's not much we can do about it other than to keep our wits about us and to try to appear as un-threatening as possible.

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

OmSigDAVID wrote:

I hope that we will find
that life in this solar system is unique to this Earth.

We shud be so lucky.

You seem overly worried about extremely low probability risks.

No. I am confident that the chance
of my living out my natural life
without any alien life arriving (other than Mexicans) is very near 1OO%.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:

OmSigDAVID wrote:

I hope that we will find
that life in this solar system is unique to this Earth.

We shud be so lucky.

You seem overly worried about extremely low probability risks.

No. I am confident that the chance
of my living out my natural life
without any alien life arriving (other than Mexicans) is very near 1OO%.

That sentiment is reasonable, but it is inconsistent with the implication of your previous comment.

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

OmSigDAVID wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:

OmSigDAVID wrote:

I hope that we will find
that life in this solar system is unique to this Earth.

We shud be so lucky.

You seem overly worried about extremely low probability risks.

No. I am confident that the chance
of my living out my natural life
without any alien life arriving (other than Mexicans) is very near 1OO%.

That sentiment is reasonable, but it is inconsistent with the implication of your previous comment.

That assertion is FALSE, being predicated upon a misunderstanding of what I said.

I have no reason to anticipate the imminent arrival
of any aliens (except the Mexicans), nor have I suggested such.

David

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

Those horizontal ridges looks almost earth-like.

Amazing!

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

That assertion is FALSE, being predicated upon a misunderstanding of what I said.

Then what DID you mean when you said:

OmSigDAVID wrote:

I hope that we will find that life in this solar system is unique to this Earth.

We shud be so lucky.

Why would you think we would be lucky to find that life in this solar system is unique to earth?

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

Why would you think we would be lucky to find that life in this solar system is unique to earth?

Is this still going on?

a) He thinks that the odds are low that there is any alien life nearby

b) He thinks that alien life may very well be highly destructive to humanity

Those two facts are both about the same subject, but they are still independent and separate facts.

1 Reply

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/Watkins-1-pia161411-br2.jpg

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http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/PIA16130_jpg_small-br2.jpg

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@oralloy,

Curiosity on the Move
Image Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ Univ. of Arizona, HiRise-LPL

Explanation: Curiosity is on the move across Mars -- but where is it going? The car-sized rover's path after 29 Martian days on the surface is shown on the above map. Curiosity is still almost 300 meters from its first major destination, though, a meeting of different types of terrain called Glenelg and visible on the image right. It may take Curiosity two months or so to get to Glenelg as it stops to inspect interesting rocks or landscape features along the way.

The above image was taken about one week ago from high up by the HiRise camera onboard the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

PIA16148: Curiosity Traverse Map Through Sol 29
This map shows the route driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity through the 29th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 4, 2012).

Target Name: Mars
Is a satellite of: Sol (our sun)
Mission: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
Spacecraft: Curiosity
Instrument: HiRISE
Product Size: 3300 x 2550 pixels (width x height)
Produced By: University of Arizona/HiRise-LPL
Full-Res TIFF: PIA16148.tif (25.26 MB)
Full-Res JPEG: PIA16148.jpg (1.558 MB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This map shows the route driven by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity through the 29th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission on Mars (Sept. 4, 2012).

The route starts where the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft placed the rover, a site subsequently named Bradbury Landing. The line extending toward the right (eastward) from Bradbury Landing is the rover's path. Numbering of the dots along the line indicate the sol numbers of each drive. North is up. The scale bar is 200 meters (656 feet).

By Sol 29, Curiosity had driven at total of 358 feet (109 meters). At the location reached by the Sol 29 drive, the rover began several sols of arm characterization activities. The Glenelg area farther east is the mission's first major science destination, selected as likely to offer a good target for Curiosity's first analysis of powder collected by drilling into a rock.

The image used for the map is from an observation of the landing site by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Image Addition Date:
2012-09-06

0 Replies

NEWEST ROVER TO LAND ON MARS 8/6/2012

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