MARS - Rock Hunting with Spirit and Opportunity

My favorite are the "Trees" on Mars.

www.xtl-ak.com...

Very interesting...

Here are some other folks who have also been searching over photos.

ufocasebook.conforums.com...

Good stuff.

reply to post by tyranny22


Wow never thought of that , thats actually a really good explanation and very plausable

reply to post by sapien82


It makes sense if you think about it. There's a reason all those geysers are spouting off at the same time; they're fueled by the same source.

There are several sources that could cause an event such as this, but the most evident on our planet would be the man-made oil fields all across the world. It would be a long, long time for these fields to look anything like those on Mars, but if left un-altered ... one day they will.

Little off topic maybe, but...

I just want to say that I think your threads and topics are great and i have really missed some new ones like this.

Maybe more on topic...

If i were the "big boss" i would have granted you a couple of billions and sent you up in space were you could continue research like this and then maybe we would have some disclosure in our lifetime.

John Lear could be the pilot.

Keep up the excellent work!

Originally posted by PlanktonX
If i were the "big boss" i would have granted you a couple of billions and sent you up in space were you could continue research like this and then maybe we would have some disclosure in our lifetime.
John Lear could be the pilot.

Well actually... my R&D crew are telling me $30 million will be enough for the prototype two seater. As to the pilot, I think Matyas is planning to take that

But I figure we scoop up a couple pounds of moon rock... or a few bags of those Martian Blueberries and funding won't be an issue anymore

Originally posted by zorgon
I like rocks... I collect them, I cut them and I sell them. Unfortunately I can't collect them on Mars yet so will have to let Spirit and Opportunity be my eyes...

You can use the NASA method and find your Martian rocks here on earth. They found theirs in Antarctica. If this is too far to travel for your rock collecting, you can hunt for martian meteorites on Ebay..

Regarding NASA's martian meteorite.... How can they be so sure that that their rock came from Mars??? The earth is bombarded with meteorites everyday. How can they tell which planet it came from??? HOW???

I bet they have a mad scientist locked away somewhere inside the NASA complex; Everytime they dump him a pile of rocks, he looks through the pile.... This one is from Jupiter, this one is from the upper left side of the Kuipers belt, this one is from the backside of the moon, this one is from the front of the moon.......hmmmm, wait a minute...THIS ONE IS FROM MARS!!!!

mars is a very strange and interesting place. it is hard to imagine what it would be like to walk across this weird alien landscape. the pictures of the sand geysers do look strikingly similar to what i imagine an abandoned oil field would look like eventually. really interesting thread.

I just wanted to say thanks for this great thread. It really gets the mind going about just what has happened on the face of Mars all of these millions of years.

I did want to say that there is an interesting rock in the fourth picture in your OP. All the way to the left in the middle of the picture, there is an odd shaped rock that looks like it has a loop connecting two separate rocks. One side is angled, the other seems circular, but it is too hard to tell as it is buried in sand. The interesting circular ring that connects the two sides also seems like it might have some vegetation hanging from it. All speculation on my part, as I don't know if it is just my imagination (which it probably is just my imagination).

There are other interesting rocks in that picture, but I don't want to get to far from the OP's original intention. Your thread is amazingly informative, and a great resource. I thank you for your hard work.

I have to agree with everyone here and that is you have posted some of the best if not the best threads here on ATS and I can't speak for everyone else but I think you have brought back what ATS is all about. Great research and a great thread that has been missing here lately. Don't get me wrong there have been some great threads but none that seem to have the amount of research as yours do. Ok enough off topic here.These are the types of pictures that you think the martian landscape should look like and for all we know could look like. Thanks for the great pics and great thread.Keep them coming my friend.

Originally posted by Skallagrimsson
Regarding NASA's martian meteorite.... How can they be so sure that that their rock came from Mars??? The earth is bombarded with meteorites everyday. How can they tell which planet it came from??? HOW???

I have asked that question here at ATS many times... it usually gets ignored or brushed over... I think I will do a thread on it and see if we can get some real answers

In the meantime we do have a meteorite on Mars to look at... I was going to save it but what the heck... it IS a rock

Iron Meteorite on Mars PIA07269


Credit: NASA/JPL/ Malin SSS

Nice how it's just lying around waiting for me to pick it up

Opportunity
Sol 339

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found an iron meteorite on Mars, the first meteorite of any type ever identified on another planet. The pitted, basketball-size object is mostly made of iron and nickel. Readings from spectrometers on the rover determined that composition. Opportunity used its panoramic camera to take the images used in this approximately true-color composite on the rover's 339th martian day, or sol (Jan. 6, 2005). This composite combines images taken through the panoramic camera's 600-nanometer (red), 530-nanometer (green), and 480-nanometer (blue) filters.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Cornell PIA07269
photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov...

A very inspirational thread. It makes me want to form a corporation that would focus on space exploration.

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by Skallagrimsson
Regarding NASA's martian meteorite.... How can they be so sure that that their rock came from Mars??? The earth is bombarded with meteorites everyday. How can they tell which planet it came from??? HOW???

I have asked that question here at ATS many times... it usually gets ignored or brushed over... I think I will do a thread on it and see if we can get some real answers

Yes, that should be interesting. The real mystery is why the great debunkers hasn't gone completely bananas over this long time ago. NASA says it's from mars, and NASA would NEVER LIE about such a thing....

If NASA can be so sure about the origin of the martian meteorite, can they also tell with certainty where all the other meteorites that bombards the earth comes from originally?

Originally posted by Skallagrimsson
The real mystery is why the great debunkers hasn't gone completely bananas over this long time ago. NASA says it's from mars, and NASA would NEVER LIE about such a thing....

You just answered your own question Okay okay working on that thread now

reply to post by Skallagrimsson

The determination of meteoric origins is not the exclusive balliwick of NASA. In fact, most analysis is done by independant parties such as Universities and the Meteoritical Society.

Abstract—Meteoritical BulletinNo. 86 lists information for 1154 newly classified meteorites, comprising 661 from Antarctica, 218 from Africa, 207 from Asia (203 of which are from Oman), 62 from North America, 3 from South America, and 3 from Europe. Information is provided for 5 falls (El Idrissia, Undulung, Dashoguz, El Tigre, and Yafa). Noteworthy specimens include 7 martian meteorites (Ohofar 378, Grove Mountains 99027, Northwest Africa 856, 1068, and 1110, and Sayh al Uhaymir 060 and 090); 4 lunar meteorites (Ohofar 301, 302, 303, and 489); 9 new iron meteorites; a mesosiderite (Northwest Africa 1242); an ungrouped stony- iron meteorite (Dar al Gani 962); and a wide variety of other interesting stony meteorites, including CH, CK, CM, CR, CV, R, enstatite, unequilibrated ordinary, and ungrouped chondrites, primitive achondrites, howardite— eucrite—diogenite (TIED) achondrites, and ureilites.

www.meteorite.it...

As to how it is done? Analysis of the materials contained within them. "Planetary" meteorites have very different compositions from asteroidal meteorites. Meteorites from the Moon match samples returned by the Apollo missions. While it isn't absolutely certain that the "Martian" meteors did come from Mars, gases found inside them match the data on the Martian atmosphere returned by the Viking landers. Other meteorites with similar characteristics are presumed to be from Mars as well.

But meteorites proven (and thought) to be from other major bodies in the solar system are in the vast minority. Most are found to be asteroidal in composition. The radiological age is the important clue about them. The all are about the same age; 4.55 billion years, the time of the formation of the solar system. By contrast, most of the presumed martian meteorites have been in space for 3 to 3.5 million years (based on decomposition due to cosmic ray bombardment). The famous ALH84001 meteorite was originally formed (on Mars) a little over 4 billion years ago.

UPDATE

While looking for some info on Moon rocks... this article popped up in the search so figured I need to add that in this thread before I forget...

Nasa finds 'missing' Mars mineral - 19 December 2008

Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has finally spotted rocks on the Red Planet that bear carbonate minerals.

The ingredients needed to make the rocks are very evident, so their absence had been a major puzzle.

One theory to explain the omission is the idea that water on Mars has been too acidic to allow carbonates.

The rocks' identification now shows these harsh waters have not dominated all parts of Mars - and that is good news for the search for life.

"You want to get an environment that is basically as clement as possible, that's not difficult to live in," explained Bethany Ehlmann from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

"It's difficult to live in a highly acidic environment; it's difficult to live in a very salty environment. If you have neutral waters then that presents a less difficult environment for microbial life," she told BBC News.

news.bbc.co.uk...

New minerals point to wetter Mars
news.bbc.co.uk...

The US Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft found evidence of hydrated silica, better known as opal.

Where do I catch the next Martian Rockhounder's field trip

Add to that the new minerals found on the Moon (new thread shortly) that includes the apparently abundant Chromium Spinel (Spinel is a rare gemstone.. one is found in the Crown of England that has been called a 'ruby')

Time to gather my gear and catch the next Mars shuttle

Nasa Mars Rover Opportunity Reveals Geological Mystery.
"This is one of the most extraordinary pictures from the whole mission," said Opportunity's principal investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "Kirkwood is chock full of a dense accumulation of these small spherical objects. Of course, we immediately thought of the blueberries, but this is something different. We never have seen such a dense accumulation of spherules in a rock outcrop on Mars."



Nasa JPL