[meteorite-list] Mars Rover Discovers A Potential Meteorite

From: Thomas Webb <webbth1_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Jan 14 23:22:19 2005
Message-ID: <20050115042214.86236.qmail_at_web60801.mail.yahoo.com>

Ron and List,

If this rock were on ebay we would already be hearing
"slag", "hematite" etc., etc. :)

Another point - Why did Squyres not anticipate the
possibility of a meteorite and pre-test the abrasion
tool on one before it left here?

Thomas

--- Ron Baalke <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:

>
>
> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6883
>
> Mars rover discovers a potential meteorite
> Kelly Young
> New Scientist
> January 14, 2005
>
> NASA's rover Opportunity has spotted an unusual rock
> on Mars that may be
> a meteorite.
>
> The rover first glimpsed the rock two weeks ago as
> it approached the
> remains of its heat shield, which plummeted to Mars
> during the rover's
> descent through the atmosphere in January 2004.
>
> The object, about the size of a potato, caught the
> eyes of ground
> controllers because of its unusual pitted surface.
> "We've been seeing
> little rocks on the plain since the start of the
> mission," says Steven
> Squyres at Cornell University, the Mars rovers'
> chief scientist. "We all
> just kind of assumed they're little pieces of
> Martian basalt."
>
> But Opportunity's infrared spectrometer, called
> Mini-TES, saw that this
> object did not radiate thermal energy at the
> frequencies expected of
> "typical" Martian rocks, leading scientists to
> hypothesise that the
> object might in fact be a meteorite rich in metal.
>
> Opportunity has stayed next to the object and will
> continue making
> measurements over the weekend to confirm whether
> this is indeed a
> meteorite. Squyres says they should have the results
> by Monday or
> Tuesday. "It could be any number of things if
> somehow we got faked out
> by the Mini-TES data," Squyres cautions.
>
> Unexpected circumstances
>
> Meteorites are objects that survive the - sometimes
> fiery - fall to a
> planet's surface from space. Only about 2% of the
> meteorites that land
> on Earth are made of nickel and iron. The rest are
> made of rock.
>
> Squyres says that the rover's rock abrasion tool,
> which is used to grind
> away the surface of rocks, had never been tested
> against a metal like
> nickel. "I didn't see this coming," he told New
> Scientist.
>
> Opportunity will celebrate its first birthday on the
> Martian surface on
> 25 January. So far, it has trekked over 2000 metres
> around Meridiani
> Planum and recently weathered its first dust storm.
>
> Opportunity's twin rover, Spirit, has been roaming
> around the other side
> of the planet on an area called Husband Hill, but it
> has had trouble
> getting around because its wheels have been slipping
> on the sandy,
> sloped surface. Ground controllers have also been
> monitoring a
> fist-sized rock which has become stuck in the wall
> of Spirit's wheel.
>
>
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>


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Received on Fri 14 Jan 2005 11:22:14 PM PST