Mars Rover Blog and Forum

sol 2347 ( Aug 31, 2010 ) in next drive direction:

Time for a new volume of the trip to Endeavour. Volume 6 is here

I am having trouble reconciling the topography associated with Endeavour based on the contour maps and images I have studied.

The overhead images indicate there is a valley in the surrounding Meridiani beds before they appear to lap onto the resistant ridge which may represent the rim of the ancient crater.

In the interior of the crater (what appear to be flat Meridiani beds) look like they are much lower and yet they too lap onto the Rim? ridge.

Is differential erosion responsible ( where are the scarps) or is it possible that the Meridiani beds are "draped' over pre-existing topography and they are not all horizotal sabkha deposits?

The narrow onlapping? ledge completely surrounds the ridge and appears to be tilted slightly toward the interior of the crater.
Is this post-depositional tilting ?

The topographic contours I have seen do not show the positive nature of the ridge and indicate the surface of the crater interior is several hundred meters lower than the surrounding plains Is this correct?.

I've been looking at some traverse maps, but I have not been able to determine how far are we from endeavour now. does anyone know?

Looks like we are getting closer. Whats our ETA?

The HiRISE imaging and mineral determinations have shown the reasonable certain presence of liquid water on Mars over it's history, with a clear record in the distant past.
Have we been observing the basic requirement for Earth type life in the yearly record of the HiRISE image returns, as in this South circumpolar crater dune assembly forming dark streaks which are not landsliding or large scale material movement?
Is this a liquid flow proof of the presence of water or related saturated solutions in the dunes appearing as a dark feature in the formation near the crest of the dunes and draining down-slope?
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ESP_011812_1135 'RED' IR and near IR JP2.
A JPG full frame view of the central area of the large crater filled with dunes.
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These dark spots have core darker areas which lead to a slightly lighter dark migration periphery which is inclined to drain or move down-slope. The dark spots and dark streaking is similar to the dark streaking in layered slopes and walls not consisting of loose unconsolidated dune materials. Can both formations be the same process, and are both indicative of the same movement properties?
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The darker core areas are altered to near white here, and the down-slope direction at this camera angle is actually upward in the image. The dune patterns and ripples direct the material, of whatever type and composition is seen. Does this appear to be dust, water vapor, or liquid in phase and effect?
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This is very interesting and possibly an MSL target.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10790648

Stop the presses!

Kepler Scientist: 'Galaxy is Rich in Earth-Like Planets'!

The surprise announcement is here. The video is well worth 18 minutes of your life.

I now have some hope that the existence of extraterrestrial life will be proven scientifically within the next decade.

Does anyone have any ideas about all the reports of UFOs lately (July 2010). They have been sighted in China, California and other places. China had one that looked like a big spaceship saucer projecting powerful beams of light and then they had another one that looked like a comet slowly plowing through the lower atmosphere. I saw a wierd thing around the same time in my neighbor hood (in Illinois). It looked like a huge cube-ish thing with a bristle or two. It seemed very large and far away. Silouetted against a storm cloud after dusk, it appeared dark (no lights). It moved very fast and at a constant speed. I thought it was a kite at first but it seemed very far away and would have been too big for a kite, and moving too fast....maybe a giant boxy weather balloon? I'm thinking it must have been at least as big as a garage, maybe a little bigger than a house. I was only able to watch it for 15-20 seconds before it disappeared into the trees. There was a saucer UFO sighted by many witnesses at O'Hare airport last November.

Folks>>>

NASA has made a category for us....called Citizen Scientists. That's right, we have a name to go by. Here is the site for your chance to take part in anything you like that is being investigated. Your help is required in some things.

http://science.nasa.gov/citizen-scientists/

Enjoy.

SAMPLE Q>>>
So Dana what are you doing these days? Well, I'm a Citizen Scientist working with NASA scientists and various research teams studying data about Mars!
WOW, Way cool man!

yt
dx

Don't go and call me crazy for saying this, I just had a weird thought and figured I might as well post it and see what comments you guys would say on it. Just know that what I say just popped in my head after watching a documentary on Space on NatGeo. So to sum up, I just thought of it and felt I should post it.

What if we came from Mars?

I read that Mars once had oceans, rivers, and lakes before it went through a change and became the desert it is now; basically looking like Earth today. What if there were people (the same type of people living on Earth today) lived on Mars at the time. I looked this up and saw some photos of what people believe are pyramids on the planet. Now take note, if Mars changed then maybe the change was so great that any remains of buildings, landmarks, etc. were wiped away leaving only the larger structures behind (such as pyramids) and over the millions of years after the change, the structures began to wear down causing some of the smaller ones to vanish (like buildings, or signs of where the buildings stood). This would explain how the so called "pyramids" look worn and their edges smoothed.

Now, when this change occurred, every life on the planet was completely destroyed (over time their bodies would have vanished either being buried or just turning to dust). What if at this time Mars had some kind of a moon (a very small moon like the size of a meteor) attached to it's gravitational pull and when the change occurred the moon was thrown because the gravitational pulled may have changed too. When Mars changed, what if it let out a burst of radiation that carried some human organism (basically a microscopic cell of some kind) and placed it on the moon before it was released. Then when the moon was thrown, it headed straight for Earth. Basically the whole panspermia theory.

When the moon traveled through Earth's atmosphere, the power of the atmosphere powered up the cells creating life. Now this is also going into the theory of what killed off the dinosaurs because around this time let's say there were dinosaurs. When the moon made impact with the Earth's surface, (like the theory) it was so great that a huge cloud of dust was thrown high into the air and by now you are getting where I'm coming from and know the rest.

So over time, through the ice age and blah blah blah, the cells on the moon began to evolve over time creating the humans we see today. Basically what happened was this change decided to reset itself on another planet starting over from the beginning. This could possibly explain that if we came from Mars there would be no evidence of the technology we once had on Earth. And take note that with it being over millions of years ago, we could have been at any stage in our evolution on Mars (possibly haven't hit the space voyage age or even the computer age we are now in at the time).

The only evidence of this is the so called "ruins" on Mars we have taken from photos and I know that they probably are mountains but this is just a weird thought I had that just came to me after thinking really hard on this and I have this really weird feeling that I should post it somewhere online.

Now, think about this, what if in 2012 the whole idea that the Earth will go through some kind of change, what if the change is the same one Mars went through? But I don't really know, this is just an idea I had. So, post what you wish and try to keep your insults (if you have any) kind of nice.

...folks this just in my mail:

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

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

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

Michael Mewhinney/Rachel Hoover 650-604-3937/0643
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
michael.s.mewhinney@nasa.gov, rachel.hoover@nasa.gov

Rapid Response Department 503-443-7070
Waggener Edstrom Worldwide
rapidres@waggeneredstrom.com

RELEASE: 2010-229 July 12, 2010

NASA and Microsoft Provide Mars 3-D Close Encounter

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-229&cid=release_2010-229

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA and Microsoft Research are bringing Mars to life with new
features in the WorldWide Telescope software that provide viewers with a high-resolution 3-D
map of the Red Planet.

Microsoft's online virtual telescope explores the universe using images NASA spacecraft return
from other worlds. Teams at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., and
Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., jointly developed the software necessary to make NASA's
planetary data available in WorldWide Telescope.

"By providing the Mars dataset to the public on the WorldWide Telescope platform, we are
enabling a whole new audience to experience the thrill of space," said Chris C. Kemp, chief
technology officer for information technology at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The fully-interactive images and new NASA data will allow viewers to virtually explore Mars
and make their own scientific discoveries. New features include the highest-resolution fully
interactive map of Mars ever created, realistic 3-D renderings of the surface of the planet, and
video tours with two NASA scientists, James Garvin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, Md., and Carol Stoker of Ames.

Garvin's tour walks viewers through the geological history of Mars and discusses three possible
landing sites for human missions there. Each landing site highlights a different geological era of
the planet.
Stoker's tour addresses the question: "Is there life on Mars?" and describes the findings of
NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander.

"Our hope is that this inspires the next generation of explorers to continue the scientific discovery
process," said Ames Center Director S. Pete Worden.

The Intelligent Robotics Group at Ames Research Center developed open source software that
runs on the NASA Nebula cloud computing platform to create and host the high-resolution maps.
The maps contain 74,000 images from Mars Global Surveyor's Mars Orbiter Camera and more
than 13,000 high-resolution images of Mars taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's High
Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. Each individual HiRISE image
contains more than a billion pixels. The complete maps were rendered into image mosaics
containing more than half a billion smaller images.

"These incredibly detailed maps will enable the public to better experience and explore Mars,"
said Michael Broxton, a research scientist in the Intelligent Robotics Group at Ames. "The
collaborative relationship between NASA and Microsoft Research was instrumental for creating
the software that brings these new Mars images into people's hands, classrooms and living
rooms."

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reached the planet in 2006 to begin a two-year primary
science mission. The mission has returned more data about Mars than all other spacecraft sent to
the Red Planet. Mars Global Surveyor began orbiting Mars in 1997. The spacecraft operated
longer than any other Mars spacecraft, ceasing operations in November 2006.

"Microsoft has a long-standing relationship with NASA that has enabled us to jointly provide the
public with the ability to discover space in a new way," said Tony Hey, corporate vice president
of the External Research Division of Microsoft Research.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space
Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona,
Tucson, and was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Malin Space
Science Systems in San Diego provided and operated the Mars Orbiter Camera.

To learn more and download the WorldWide Telescope, visit
http://www.worldwidetelescope.org .

For more information and images of Mars taken by HiRISE, visit
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu .

For more about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

-end-

yt
dx
WOW...looks great

As requested, here is a new forum for discussing the Curiosity Rover / Mars Science Laboratory mission, launching in 2011.

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

I've followed spaceflight since Mercury, manned and unmanned. I try to interest others, including people including science teachers on the subject. Folks think I'm a weird egghead for entertaining myself with such. They have no inclinations whatsoever regarding the subject. Why do governments allot money for astronomy and space travel, as so few are interested? How can so many be disinterested? How few are we?

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Mars

Looks like we have an answer.

"The problem is, as NASA's Douglas Ming (the Merciless) has pointed out in a recent paper, the experiments to search for carbon involve heating soil samples to a few hundred degrees and sniffing the vapours. If the soil contains carbon molecules and perchlorates, the carbon molecules will simply burn up. No wonder they couldn’t find any."

Fred

[link]

Looks like we have an answer.

I propose a New Forum Title obviously for the New MSL [Mars Science Laboratory] Rover, just like the Phoenix title-with all news under that title. I know its set to launch next year 2011 November...but there is always news popping up worldwide leading to the launch.

FMR, would you set this up if Mark is interested in continuing with future Rovers like the MSL? Please email if you wish, thanks.

If so please add this link to the first post in the new thread title...its from SpaceDaily's inside titles called MarsDaily.

[link]

yt
dx

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38039490/ns/technology_and_science-space/?gt1=43001
Only for one year but better than nothing
FMR

A flying car that is to sell for all people, at last. Others will follow this first qualified vehicle, and we will find the airways speckled with small four wheeled autos, or PAVs, passing overhead in routine air pathways.
Will new roads open to air traffic, and open wilderness sport short landing strips at getaways soon?
A $10,000 dollar deposit, a price of $195,000, and a short 20 hour training qualification, to try one at your home.
On the roadway, 30MPG.
'Regular' gas.
Parachutes are standard equipment in the package.
[link]
http://www.terrafugia.com/
[link]

That was the name I gave it a long time ago. It doesn't really change much, though, the search for Hort's pony tracks continues.

Fantastic Comanche pan, Hort!

Not specifically Mars related I know - but for me this would have greater repercussions than life on Mars - if it really did prove to be evidence of life that is:

[link] ?pid=30968

Also, just to keep things Mars related:

[link] ?pid=30989