[meteorite-list] NASA's Opportunity at 10: New Findings from Old Rover

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 15:38:59 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201401232338.s0NNcxfL029545_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-022

NASA's Opportunity at 10: New Findings from Old Rover
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
January 23, 2014

[Images]
    * Self-Portrait by Opportunity Mars Rover in January 2014
    * Mineral Detected from Orbit Found in Dark Veneers
    * 'Matijevic Hill' Panorama for Rover's Ninth Anniversary (False
      Color)
    * 'Esperance6' and 'Lihir' Rover Targets
    * Mineral Plot from 'Esperance' Target
    * Opportunity's First Decade of Driving on Mars
    * NASA's Mars Rover Spirit's View Southward from Husband Hill


New findings from rock samples collected and examined by NASA's Mars
Exploration Rover Opportunity have confirmed an ancient wet environment
that was milder and older than the acidic and oxidizing conditions told
by rocks the rover examined previously.

In the Jan. 24 edition of the journal Science, Opportunity Deputy
Principal Investigator Ray Arvidson, a professor at Washington
University in St. Louis, writes in detail about the discoveries made by
the rover and how these discoveries have shaped our knowledge of the
planet. According to Arvidson and others on the team, the latest
evidence from Opportunity is landmark.

"These rocks are older than any we examined earlier in the mission, and
they reveal more favorable conditions for microbial life than any
evidence previously examined by investigations with Opportunity," said
Arvidson.

While the Opportunity team celebrates the rover's 10th anniversary on
Mars, they also look forward to what discoveries lie ahead and how a
better understanding of Mars will help advance plans for human missions
to the planet in the 2030s.

Opportunity's original mission was to last only three months. On the day
of its 10th anniversary on the Red Planet, Opportunity is examining the
rim of the Endeavour Crater. It has driven 24 miles (38.7 kilometers)
from where it landed on Jan. 24, 2004. The site is about halfway around
the planet from NASA's latest Mars rover, Curiosity.

To find rocks for examination, the rover team at NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., steered Opportunity in a loop, scanning
the ground for promising rocks in an area of Endeavour's rim called
Matijevic Hill. The search was guided by a mineral-mapping instrument on
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which did not arrive at Mars
until 2006, long after Opportunity's mission was expected to end.

Beginning in 2010, the mapping instrument, called the Compact
Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, detected evidence on
Matijevic Hill of a clay mineral known as iron-rich smectite. The
Opportunity team set a goal to examine this mineral in its natural
context -- where it is found, how it is situated with respect to other
minerals and the area's geological layers -- a valuable method for
gathering more information about this ancient environment. Researchers
believe the wet conditions that produced the iron-rich smectite preceded
the formation of the Endeavor Crater about 4 billion years ago.

"The more we explore Mars, the more interesting it becomes. These latest
findings present yet another kind of gift that just happens to coincide
with Opportunity's 10th anniversary on Mars," said Michael Meyer, lead
scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program. "We're finding more
places where Mars reveals a warmer and wetter planet in its history.
This gives us greater incentive to continue seeking evidence of past
life on Mars."

Opportunity has not experienced much change in health in the past year,
and the vehicle remains a capable research partner for the team of
scientists and engineers who plot each day's activities to be carried
out on Mars.

"We're looking at the legacy of Opportunity's first decade this week,
but there's more good stuff ahead," said Steve Squyres of Cornell
University, Ithaca, N.Y., the mission's principal investigator. "We are
examining a rock right in front of the rover that is unlike anything
we've seen before. Mars keeps surprising us, just like in the very first
week of the mission."

JPL manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate in Washington. Opportunity's twin, Spirit, which
worked for six years, and their successor, Curiosity, also contributed
valuable information about the diverse watery environments of ancient
Mars, from hot springs to flowing streams. NASA's Mars orbiters Odyssey
and MRO study the whole planet and assist the rovers.

"Over the past decade, Mars rovers have made the Red Planet our
workplace, our neighborhood," said John Callas, manager of NASA's Mars
Exploration Rover Project, which built and operates Opportunity. "The
longevity and the distances driven are remarkable. But even more
important are the discoveries that are made and the generation that has
been inspired."

Special products for the 10th anniversary of the twin rovers' landings,
including a gallery of selected images, are available online at:
http://mars.nasa.gov/mer10/ . For more information about Spirit and
Opportunity, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/rovers .

You can follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at:
http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .

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

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2014-022
Received on Thu 23 Jan 2014 06:38:59 PM PST