Meanwhile, on Mars... "Rover Finds a Meoteorite"
"NASA's Opportunity rover has eyed an odd-shaped, dark rock on the surface of Mars — scientists think it could be a meteorite. Opportunity's handlers spotted the rock, which measures about 2 feet (0.6 meters) across, on July 18 in the opposite direction from which the rover was driving. The rock, dubbed "Block Island," is unusual for its size, mission scientists said.
A close-up view of "Block Island," an odd-shaped, dark rock, which may be a meteorite.The rock was imaged with the navigation camera on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.
The rover then backtracked some 820 feet (250 meters) to study the rock closer. Scientists plan to study the rock with the rover's alpha particle X-ray spectrometer to get composition measurements and to confirm if indeed it is a meteorite. If the rock turns out to be a meteorite, it won't be the first Opportunity has found. In January 2005, Opportunity identified the first meteorite to be found on another planet. It was lying just over half a mile from its landing site in Mars' Meridiani Planum. Since landing on Mars in 2004, Opportunity has driven across 10.7 miles (17.2 km) of the red planet's surface.
The 1-foot (31-cm) diameter slug of iron and nickel gained the moniker "Heat-Shield Rock" due to the rover's discarded heat shield having come to rest only 20 feet (6 meters) from the meteorite. Opportunity and its sister rover Spirit have been rolling along opposite ends of the red planet for more than five years now. While Opportunity passed the 10-mile mark, Spirit has been mired in a Martian sand trap for more than a month. Rover engineers back on Earth are working with a test rover to come up with ways to free the mired robot.
In its five years on Mars, Opportunity has spent two years exploring Victoria Crater, revealing that the whole region the crater lies in was likely shaped by water and winds that blew up huge sand dunes. Its twin Spirit is on the other side of Mars in a region known as Gusev Crater."
- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32271632/ns/technology_and_science-space/
Well, yeah, I know money is tight right now, but would it be too much to ask for COLOR pictures?
Unless there's some reason they'd rather not do that...
Well, yeah, I know money is tight right now, but would it be too much to ask for COLOR pictures?
Unless there's some reason they'd rather not do that...
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