[meteorite-list] Opportunity Rover Finds Yet Another Meteorite on Mars

From: Dennis Miller <astroroks_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:06:54 -0500
Message-ID: <COL113-W42A015144DC5DF4E1A9D26B1C80_at_phx.gbl>

Great pictures! Truly amazing! And even more unusual, two new finds
and no photos with Mike Farmer in them..... Ha!!
Dennis
 
 
 

> From: baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:10:55 -0700
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Opportunity Rover Finds Yet Another Meteorite on Mars
>
>
> http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0910/11meteorite/
>
> Opportunity rover finds yet another Mars meteorite
> BY CRAIG COVAULT
> SPACEFLIGHT NOW
> October 11, 2009
>
> In a remarkable discovery 126 million miles from Earth, the Mars rover
> Opportunity has found a second large iron meteorite sitting just a half
> mile from its twin sibling where they both landed on Mars within seconds
> of each other 3 billion years ago.
>
> The new "Sheltered Rock" meteorite discovered by Opportunity Oct. 2,
> lies only 2,300 feet away from the "Block Island" meteorite that the
> rover discovered in July and examined for six weeks.
>
> Designated "Sheltered Rock" by the rover team, the new meteorite almost
> certainly came from the same body as Block Island that was discovered
> July 18. They both laid undisturbed at the same spot until Opportunity
> stumbled across them while driving west across the Meridiani plain.
>
> Sheltered Rock is about 18.5 inches long compared with about two feet
> for Block Island. Each weighs several hundred pounds and are quite
> similar to each other.
>
> Analysis indicates both fell about 3 billion years ago when Mars had a
> much thicker atmosphere that slowed impact velocity so the rocks did not
> explode and dig craters when they hit the planet.
>
> An inspection plan is being drawn up at Cornell University and Jet
> Propulsion Laboratory to use the rover's robotic arm to place its
> spectrometers and microscopic imager on Sheltered Rock for a direct
> comparison with data from Block Island.
>
> Discovery of the second body will also provide new data on both the
> meteorite and early Martian atmosphere since it is likely whatever
> aerodynamic forces it did encounter, resulted in separation of the pair
> at a low enough altitude for both of them to hit so close together.
>
> It is not unusual on Earth to find multiple pieces from the same
> meteorite event. But on Mars with a single rover, driving in a specific
> direction, it is remarkable that Opportunity encountered a second
> meteorite related to the first.
>
> The new discovery is also the third meteorite found by Opportunity since
> it discovered a much smaller basketball sized meteorite lying near its
> heat shield ten months after landing in January, 2004.
>
> In addition to being smaller, that initial meteorite dubbed Heat Shield
> Rock looks more rounded and polished than the more rectangular Block
> Island and Sheltered Rocks. Data from all three will be compared to see
> if Heat Shield rock could also be related to the original body that
> spawned the more recent finds. All three fell relatively close together
> with Heat Shield rock only about 11 miles away from the other two.
>
> Opportunity had been driving west for three weeks after it left Block
> Island to continue its journey toward Endeavour crater, still more than
> a years drive time away to the south. The jog west was to avoid
> dangerous terrain. Images taken on about sol (Martian day) 2,020 of its
> mission spotted something unusual ahead. On sol 2,022 Opportunity
> completed a drive of 94 feet to pull up beside what turned out to be the
> Sheltered Rock meteorite.
>
> While Opportunity continues to score scientifically on its marathon
> traverse to Endeavour crater, the rover Spirit on the opposite side of
> Mars remain stuck in powdery volcanic material where it was halted in
> early May. JPL computer runs using physical data from two test rovers in
> a JPL sand box continue to asses escape techniques. But it looks
> increasingly likely that Spirit's driving days are over although it's
> Cornell University Athena science package will continue to return
> valuable data even if it is stuck for good.
>
> Steve Squyres rover principal investigator at Cornell has also just won
> a prestigious award for communicating the rover story to the public.
>
> For his work making NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission a compelling
> saga for millions of people, Steven W. Squyres has received the 2009
> Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society.
>
> The Sagan medal recognizes a planetary scientist for excellence in
> public communication. Squyres received the medal during the AAS's
> Division for Planetary Sciences annual meeting, Oct. 4 to Oct. 9, in
> Puerto Rico.
>
> In addition to heading rover science operations Squyres is also the
> Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy at Cornell where he was quick to
> share credit with the entire Mars rover mission team there and at JPL.
> Squyres said he has always taken seriously the responsibility of giving
> people -- the taxpayers who have bankrolled the mission -- a clear
> window into what they are doing on Mars.
>
> "We feel very strongly that the people who pay have a real right to find
> out in very clear, simple terms what they're getting for their $900
> million," Squyres said.
>
> Since January, 2004, when Spirit and Opportunity landed, the rover team
> has maintained a publicly accessible database of images taken by the
> spacecraft. Atypical of most NASA missions, the rover project has
> allowed people to access data almost immediately. It was a conscious
> decision by the rover team, Squyres said, to pipeline the data straight
> to the Web. Squyres told Spaceflight Now that some senior NASA managers
> were against this approach early on.
>
> "If I'm asleep and you're awake, you can see the pictures from the rover
> before I do," Squyres said. "And what that has done is it's really
> enabled people to share in this voyage of exploration."
>
> Squyres hopes these efforts, including the Web site that provides
> updates of rover activities, has inspired young people to pursue careers
> in science and engineering.
>
> As a Cornell graduate student in the early 1980s Squyres began working
> closely with Sagan who died in 1996. "Carl really pioneered, in a very
> important way, the way in which scientists interact with the media and
> the public," Squyres said. "To receive an award that's named after him
> for trying to do the same sort of thing that he did so brilliantly is a
> real honor."
>
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Received on Mon 12 Oct 2009 02:06:54 PM PDT