[meteorite-list] Science Benefits from Diverse Landing Area of Curiosity Mars Rover

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 12:35:08 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201309261935.r8QJZ8Yc021418_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

September 26, 2013

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown at nasa.gov

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov
     
RELEASE 13-298
     
Science Benefits from Diverse Landing Area of NASA Mars Rover

NASA's Curiosity rover is revealing a great deal about Mars, from long-ago
processes in its interior to the current interaction between the Martian
surface and atmosphere.

Examination of loose rocks, sand and dust has provided new understanding of
the local and global processes on Mars. Analysis of observations and
measurements by the rover's science instruments during the first four months
after the August 2012 landing are detailed in five reports in this week's
edition of the journal Science.

A key finding is water molecules are bound to fine-grained soil particles,
accounting for about 2 percent of the particles' weight at Gale Crater where
Curiosity landed. This result has global implications, because these
materials are likely distributed around the Red Planet.

Curiosity also has completed the first comprehensive mineralogical analysis
on another planet using a standard laboratory method for identifying minerals
on Earth. The findings about both crystalline and non-crystalline components
in soil provide clues to the planet's volcanic history.

Information about the evolution of the Martian crust and deeper regions
within the planet comes from Curiosity's mineralogical analysis of a
football-size igneous rock called "Jake M." Igneous rocks form by cooling
molten material that originated well beneath the crust. The chemical
compositions of the rocks can be used to infer the thermal, pressure and
chemical conditions under which they crystallized.

"No other Martian rock is so similar to terrestrial igneous rocks," said
Edward Stolper of the California Institute of Technology, lead author of a
report about this analysis. "This is surprising because previously studied
igneous rocks from Mars differ substantially from terrestrial rocks and from
Jake M."

The other four reports include analysis of the composition and formation
process of a windblown drift of sand and dust, by David Blake of NASA's Ames
Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and co-authors.

Curiosity examined this drift, called Rocknest, with five instruments,
preforming an onboard laboratory analysis of samples scooped up from the
Martian surface. The drift has a complex history and includes sand particles
with local origins, as well as finer particles that sample windblown Martian
dust distributed regionally or even globally.

The rover is equipped with a laser instrument to determine material
compositions from some distance away. This instrument found that the
fine-particle component in the Rocknest drift matches the composition of
windblown dust and contains water molecules. The rover tested 139 soil
targets at Rocknest and elsewhere during the mission's first three months and
detected hydrogen -- interpreted as water -- every time the laser hit
fine-particle material.

"The fine-grain component of the soil has a similar composition to the dust
distributed all around Mars, and now we know more about its hydration and
composition than ever before," said Pierre-Yves Meslin of the Institut de
Recherche en Astrophysique et Plan??tologie in Toulouse, France, lead author
of a report about the laser instrument results.

A laboratory inside Curiosity used X-rays to determine the composition of
Rocknest samples. This technique, discovered in 1912, is a laboratory
standard for mineral identification on Earth. The equipment was miniaturized
to fit on the spacecraft that carried Curiosity to Mars, and this has yielded
spinoff benefits for similar portable devices used on Earth. David Bish of
Indiana University in Bloomington co-authored a report about how this
technique was used and its results at Rocknest.

X-ray analysis not only identified 10 distinct minerals, but also found an
unexpectedly large portion of the Rocknest composition is amorphous
ingredients, rather than crystalline minerals. Amorphous materials, similar
to glassy substances, are a component of some volcanic deposits on Earth.

Another laboratory instrument identified chemicals and isotopes in gases
released by heating the Rocknest soil in a tiny oven. Isotopes are variants
of the same element with different atomic weights. These tests found water
makes up about 2 percent of the soil, and the water molecules are bound to
the amorphous materials in the soil.

"The ratio of hydrogen isotopes in water released from baked samples of
Rocknest soil indicates the water molecules attached to soil particles come
from interaction with the modern atmosphere," said Laurie Leshin of
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., lead author of a report about
analysis with the baking instrument.

Baking and analyzing the Rocknest sample also revealed a compound with
chlorine and oxygen, likely chlorate or perchlorate, which previously was
known to exist on Mars only at one high-latitude site. This finding at
Curiosity's equatorial site suggests more global distribution.

Data obtained from Curiosity since the first four months of the rover's
mission on Mars are still being analyzed. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, Calif., manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate
in Washington. The mission draws upon international collaboration, including
key instrument contributions from Canada, Spain, Russia and France.

For more information about the mission, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/msl

and

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl

-end-
Received on Thu 26 Sep 2013 03:35:08 PM PDT