[meteorite-list] Spirit Drives to a Rock Called 'Adirondack' for Close Inspection

From: David Freeman <dfreeman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:32:04 2004
Message-ID: <400D64A4.9020009_at_fascination.com>

I happen to own a wonderously beautiful 3 pound "TRICANTERED" specimen
of emerald green nephrite (known as a "slick").
Ventifacts are relatively common here in SW Wyoming, and I suspect other
areas of the western U.S.

Dave F.
snowballs


Dan Wray wrote:

> Hello Thomas and group,
>
>
>
> Adirondack and many other rocks in the rover photos appear to be
> altered by wind erosion. This can leave very sharp faces and are known
> as ventifacts. Other terms used for this effect are dreikanter also
> windkanter. Seasonal changes in wind direction can cause two or three
> distinct planes on the rock surface. They are common in windy desert
> environments.
>
>
>
> Dan Wray
>
> COMETS
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> From:Thomas Webb <mailto:webbth1_at_yahoo.com>
>
> To: Ron Baalke <mailto:baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
>
> Cc: meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
> <mailto:meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 7:35 AM
>
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Spirit Drives to a Rock Called
> 'Adirondack' for Close Inspection
>
>
> Ron and List,
>
> Does it appear to you that there may have been some shearing on
> the right hand side of the rock called 'Adirondack'?
>
> Thomas H. Webb
>
> Ron Baalke <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov
> <mailto:baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> > wrote:
>
>
>
> Guy Webster (818) 354-5011
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
>
> Donald Savage (202) 358-1547
> NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
>
> News Release: 2004-024 January 19, 2004
>
> Spirit Drives to a Rock Called 'Adirondack' for Close Inspection
>
> NASA's Spirit rover has successfully driven to its first target on
> Mars, a football-sized rock that scientists have dubbed
> Adirondack.
>
> The Mars Exploration Rover flight team at NASA's Jet Propulsion
> Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., plans to send commands to Spirit
> early
> Tuesday to examine Adirondack with a microscope and two
> instruments
> that reveal the composition of rocks, said JPL's Dr. Mark Adler,
> Spirit mission manager. The instruments are the Mössbauer
> spectrometer and the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer.
>
> Spirit successfully rolled off the lander and onto the martian
> surface last Thursday. To make the drive to Adirondack, the rover
> turned 40 degrees in short arcs totaling 95 centimeters (3.1
> feet).
> It then turned in place to face the target rock and drove four
> short
> moves straightforward totaling 1.9 meters (6.2 feet). The moves
> covered a span of 30 minutes on Sunday, though most of that was
> sitting still and taking pictures between moves. The total amount
> of time when Spirit was actually moving was about two minutes.
>
> "These are the sorts of baby steps we're taking," said JPL's Dr.
> Eddie Tunstel, rover mobility engineer.
>
> "The drive was designed for two purposes, one of which was to
> get to
> the rock," Tunstel said. "From the mobility engineers' standpoint,
> this drive was geared to testing out how we do drives on this new
> surface." Gathering new information such as how much the wheels
> slip in the martian soil will give the team confidence for more
> ambitious drives in future weeks and months.
>
> "Adirondack is now about one foot (30 centimeters) in front of the
> front wheels," he said.
>
> Scientists chose Adirondack to be Spirit's first target rock
> rather
> than another rock, called Sashimi, that would have been a shorter,
> straight-ahead drive. Rocks are time capsules containing
> evidence of
> the environmental conditions of the past, said Dr. Dave Des
> Marais,
> a rover science-team member from NASA Ames Research Center,
> Moffett
> Field, Calif. "We needed to decide which of these time capsules to
> open."
>
> Sashimi appears dustier than Adirondack. The dust layer could
> obscure good observations of the rock's surface, which may give
> information about chemical changes and other weathering from
> environmental conditions affecting the rock since its surface was
> fresh. Also, Sashimi is more pitted than Adirondack. That
> makes it a
> poorer candidate for the rover's rock abrasion tool, which scrapes
> away a rock's surface for a view of the interior evidence about
> environmental conditions when the rock first formed.
> Adirondack has
> a "nice, flat surface" well suited to trying out the rover's tools
> on their first martian rock, Des Marais said.
>
> "The hypothesis is that this is a volcanic rock, but we'll
> test that
> hypothesis," he said.
>
> Spirit arrived at Mars Jan. 3 (EST and PST; Jan.
> 4 Universal Time) after a seven-month journey. In coming weeks
> and months,
> according to plans, it will be exploring for clues in rocks and
> soil to decipher whether the past environment in Gusev Crater
> was ever watery and possibly suitable to sustain life.
>
> Spirit's twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, will reach Mars
> on Jan. 25 (EST and Universal Time; 9:05 p.m., Jan. 24, PST) to
> begin a similar examination of a site on the opposite side of the
> planet from Gusev Crater.
>
> JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in
> Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's
> Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Images and additional
> information about the project are available from JPL at
>
> http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
>
> from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., at
>
> http://athena.cornell.edu/ .
> -end-
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Tue 20 Jan 2004 12:25:56 PM PST