[meteorite-list] Opportunity Mars Rover Stuck in Sand

From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue May 17 22:36:29 2005
Message-ID: <428AAA00.6EDBF925_at_bhil.com>

Hi,


    <http://makeashorterlink.com/?B38F2271B>
    Brain teaser. The nearest crater is not a crater shape (a cone), but a
bowl-shaped depression surrounded by a nearly flat rim that is distinct from
the surrounding terrain. Possibly it is a conical crater in the process of
being filled in by the loose (sandy?) soil the rover was stuck in, but this is
not a shape that drifting sand would produce (the rim).
    Also teasing my brain is the fact that the two little craters do not have
their apparent shadows oriented in the same direction, so possibly the
"shadow" is not an albedo feature at all. Tease.
    The fellow with the "crazy" web site that claims to have discovered
Martian fossils plows ahead with just enough plausibility edge to bother me.
I don't "believe" in his "fossils," as many of them are the product of the
power of the human brain to find patterns in ANYTHING. But then, there's the
"rotini."
<http://xenotechresearch.com/rotini01.htm>
    Tell me, dear geologists, tell a poor old befuddled physicist who only
understands simple dependable things like electrons and stars, what geological
process creates rotini? Where can I find a "geological" rotini on Earth?
Have you ever found a "geological" rotini on Earth? Inquiring minds want to
know...
    I'm not the only one it bothers, as see this article by James Oberg:
<http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4480097/>
    The underlying issue that plagues the whole process of interpreting Mars
Vision is... Time. An authority says that this is a recent feature, "Of
course, recent might mean any time from yesterday to 100 million years ago..."

    Forgive me for finding that dating range a trifle vague. Could ya narrow
that down a little?
    As for the little craters, we have seen the frequency of "dustdevils"
dramatically demonstrated. How long would a little crater last? Hard for me
to imagine them being there very long. But then, I grew up on this busy
planet called Earth, where this kind of stuff happens FAST, so my thinking is
biased whether I like it or not.
    Look at that rippled "sand" (if that's what it is), the wind fluted edge,
the zone of fresh drift just below it. On Earth that fine detail would last
about five minutes, or five days, or maybe five weeks, if things were slow
that month. Has that drift been sitting there for 100,000,000 years without a
grain of sand having been disturbed? Is Mars a museum?
    We've got to send some field geologists there. Yes, I keep saying that
same thing about the Moon, Mars, asteroids, etc. over and over again on the
List, but I'm tired of growing old while watching the human race sit on its
butt.
    Shall I set up a PayPal account to raise funds to send a good geologist
from the List to Mars? Nominate somebody; we'll send him. How about Norm
Lehrman? Up for a field trip, Norm?


Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------------------
Art wrote:

> Hi Everyone;
>
> After reading this artice late last month I checked out some photos on
> the Mars Rover web site
> (http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html) that were taken
> during this period.
>
> The image below is interesting as it reminds me of many daydreams I've
> had while hiking the Algodones area in Southern California ...
> rounding a dune and seeing a small impact crater with a fresh
> Shergottite at the bottom! I wonder what Opportunity would find in
> this small crater?
>
> Tiny Crater on Meridiani Planum: http://makeashorterlink.com/?B38F2271B
>
> Best regards, Art
>
> On 4/29/05, Ron Baalke <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
> >
> >
> > http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/050428_rover_update.html
> >
> > Opportunity Mars Rover Stuck in Sand
> > By Leonard David
> > space.com
> > 28 April 2005
> >
> > NASA's Opportunity Mars rover has run into a sandy snag. All of its six
> > wheels have sunk in deep into a large ripple of soil.
> >
> > Rover operators are optimistic they can extricate the robot from its
> > jam, having gotten dug in before. But ground controllers will need time
> > to wheel back on top of the soil again.
> >
> > Time will also be spent figuring out what's different about the soil
> > that has bogged down Opportunity, hoping to keep this problem from
> > occurring down the road.
> >
> > The Mars machinery had been cruising southward across the open parking
> > lot-like landscape of Meridiani Planum, full of larger and larger
> > ripples of soil. Opportunity has been en route to its next stopover,
> > Erebus crater, nestled inside an even larger crater known as Terra Nova.
> >
> > Be very, very patient
> >
> > "A note to all you Opportunity fans: Get used to the current scenery,
> > because we're going to be here awhile," said Steve Squyres, lead
> > scientist on the Mars Exploration Rover effort at Cornell University in
> > Ithaca, New York. "We are very optimistic that we'll be able to get out
> > of here, but we're really going to take our time doing it."
> >
> > Squyres said the first rule in this case is "do no harm" - and that
> > means don't rush anything.
> >
> > "We're going to take lots of pictures of all the terrain around the
> > vehicle, to get a very complete picture of the situation. We're going to
> > do lots of testing with the rovers that we have on the ground to
> > simulate the situation on Mars. This testing will be aimed not just at
> > finding a plan that will work, but at finding the very best plan that
> > will work," Squyres explained in a Cornell rover web site.
> >
> > One possibility is trying a number of small maneuvers with the robot at
> > first. That information-gathering could then lead to even more testing.
> >
> > "All of this is going to take a lot of time. But this is a very precious
> > vehicle up there, in excellent health, and there's no reason to rush
> > anything," Squyres said. The main message now, he added, "is to be very,
> > very patient."
> >
> > Tiny craters discovered
> >
> > Prior to the rover run-a-muck, Mars rover scientists noted that
> > Opportunity had made yet a new discovery. Two small craters were found
> > on the plains of Meridiani - both less than half an inch deep and
> > clearly visible in snapshots taken by the rover's navigation cameras.
> >
> > The two tiny craters were a surprise find, said Matt Golombek, a
> > principal scientist on the Mars Exploration Rover mission at NASA's Jet
> > Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. "These are the
> > smallest craters yet seen on Mars," he explained in a JPL-released
> > statement.
> >
> > "Given that these two craters haven't been covered by sand even though
> > they are surrounded by sand ripples on a flat plain lends support to the
> > idea that they're fairly recent," Golombek said. "Of course, recent
> > might mean any time from yesterday to 100 million years ago."
> >
> > Cause of the impact craters? They could have been created by an object
> > from space that was large enough to make it through the martian
> > atmosphere without burning up. Alternatively, the tiny craters could be
> > the result of falling rock fragments ejected from a larger crater that
> > formed when something crashed into the martian surface.
> >
> > While engineers wrestle with Opportunity's show-stopping sand trap,
> > sistership Spirit is busy at work on the other side of the planet
> > surveying the Columbia Hills within Gusev Crater.
> >
> > _
>
> --
> Bye for now! Art
Received on Tue 17 May 2005 10:35:44 PM PDT