Mystery Rock 'Appears' in Front of Mars Rover

I dont know, but a bicycle or car is going faily fast and as has been said, the rubber compressing against a hard floor will probably act like a rubber band propelling the stone out from underneath. Since the rovers dont have rubbery tyres filled with air this probably wont be an explanation which they can use today at their NASA space news conference. "It is probably a weather balloon" does not quite fit in with this problem so I wonder what they will say.

Still dont know why they raised this and brought it to the attention of the world. Any ideas?

I guess that NASA is genuinely puzzled by this object, and thought it worth mentioning in public. It probably seemed like the most interesting new discovery they could announce around the time of Opportunity's 10th anniversary on Mars.

At last report, they were still talking cautiously about mineral analyses and improbable mechanical scenarios of how the rock was moved to its current location.

If they found, and could confirm, something really amazing, like a Martian snail, NASA would likely receive all the funding they could possibly use. It would be in their interest to reveal, not withhold this information.
Supposing the object is really a rock, they still have to show a credible means by which the rover flipped it to the spot in now rests on. Either that, or explain in some other way how the rock came to be where it is.
NASA press conference on Opportunity at 2 p.m. Eastern Time (11 a.m. Pacific, 1900 GMT) today. View live or archived on NASA TV.

qmantoo
I dont know, but a bicycle or car is going faily fast and as has been said, the rubber compressing against a hard floor will probably act like a rubber band propelling the stone out from underneath. Since the rovers dont have rubbery tyres filled with air this probably wont be an explanation which they can use today at their NASA space news conference. "It is probably a weather balloon" does not quite fit in with this problem so I wonder what they will say.

Still dont know why they raised this and brought it to the attention of the world. Any ideas?

I think an old wagon with wooden wheels slowly rolling half over a rock on a relatively hard surface could propel it out sideways, also. No "rubber band" effect required.

Here's the find by BuzzDengue and imaged by funbox. I'm posting this on a few of the Mars threads because, imnho, it seems like it could be the "breakthrough" potential fossil/rock, and is getting scant attention on the thread where it was posted after its discovery. It came from Sol 518, on the 19th of January. imnho it is very interesting, and deserves ATS attention, outside media attention, and the eyes and analysis of geologists who can explain it in "rock" terms:

The BuzzDengue find, image by funbox:

reply to post by Aleister


Thats amazing-looks like an ammonite.
The rest of the image looks like there could be other fossils nearby.
Got the link to the nasa pic?

reply to post by Silcone Synapse

Got the link to the nasa pic?

Right side, middle.

Source

Honestly, it looks like some rocks and shadows to me. It would be nice to see a better resolution image.

ETA: On topic, did NASA say anything additional about the mystery rock today? I only caught the Q&A part of the press conference with no related Q's or A's.

Silcone Synapse
reply to post by Aleister

 

Thats amazing-looks like an ammonite.
The rest of the image looks like there could be other fossils nearby.
Got the link to the nasa pic?

Here's the post where it was found by BuzzDengue, and then go on from there to lots of posts. Maybe you can post pics of an ammonite on the linked thread:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Posting photos from other threads does not help, it only makes things worse.

reply to post by Zarniwoop


I saw it. They made a brief mention of this anomaly. I'll try to recall what was said. I don't believe they really mentioned anything that I haven't already read here.

-They are still going with the theory that the rock was dislodged when the rover did a pivot maneuver and it's bum wheel dragged over the surface.

-They have analyzed it in great detail with their microscopes and various instruments. "It is definitely a rock".

-It contains unusually high amounts of magnetite? (may be remembering the wrong mineral here) and phosphorous. They also mentioned something about salts but I didn't quite catch what they said.

-They have yet to find the "divit" from which the they believe the rock was ejected. They believe it may be obscured from view by one of the solar panels, so they are going to move the rover in hopes of finding exactly where the rock came from.

I believe those were the main points mentioned about the rock.

For anyone who missed the NASA press conference and wishes to see it, it will be repeated on NASA TV at the following times, tomorrow: 8 a.m., 4 p.m., and 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time ( 5 a.m., 1 p.m., and 5 p.m. Pacific; 1300, and 2100 Friday, and 0100 Saturday GMT.

ArMaP
Posting photos from other threads does not help, it only makes things worse.

Then please come to where it was found and give your analysis of the discovery. And what things does it make worse? Just because BuzzDengue plopped his discovery down in the middle of another thread, and did not create his own thread, his discovery of what may be the finest visual evidence of a fossil on Mars (although the plant threads posted recently have some compelling images as well) has three stars. I gave him one, funbox gave him one, and someone else, bless them, gave him one. I could get three stars for putting a video up of a grandmother jumping rope, and get them within a few minutes. But BuzzDengue may have found a bona-fide visually verifiable image of past life on Mars, and it is more or less being ignored. Angels dancing on the head of a pin mock me for continuing to get attention for this, and I crawl on my knees to the altar of common sense and ask "Why?" - as I only make things worse.

EDIT: I was wrong, and admit it. I put up a thread a half hour ago, a rant about a grandmother jumping rope, and have received no stars. www.abovetopsecret.com... (and I made it a serious thread, age is no limit to being in good shape imnho)

I think an old wagon with wooden wheels slowly rolling half over a rock on a relatively hard surface could propel it out sideways, also. No "rubber band" effect required.

I think you may also find that an old wagon with hard wheels would be going at more than 1-5cm per second. They would have a design requirement that the wheels do not kick up stones since you dont have a mechanic on hand to fix anything on Mars. At that speed, rocks or pebbles are unlikely to skid very far and the rocks are rather crumbly as well I believe.

So we just have to wait for the official explanation - if there is one, but it seems like it will not now include the falling meteorite theory.

Aleister
And what things does it make worse?

It makes the discussion of this case more confusing than it should be.
One thing I have noticed in all these years on ATS is that when someone puts something similar but unrelated on one big thread, some of the people that enter the thread around that time think that the discussion is about that unrelated topic, so they start to discuss it, and in some occasions it takes a relatively long time to understand that they are not talking about the thread's topic but about the other, unrelated topic.

qmantoo
I think you may also find that an old wagon with hard wheels would be going at more than 1-5cm per second.

I don't think speed is that important, as what makes things jump is the pressure applied and the way that pressure is released.

ArMaP -

I don't think speed is that important, as what makes things jump is the pressure applied and the way that pressure is released.

So, speed of movement has no bearing on the ejection distance? Doesn't it have to do with length of time the rover's wheel is contact with the pebble. I get the impression that a car moving quickly has more energy to give to a stone it throws up, rather than a slow-moving car. I am not particularly good at physics.

Surely the weight of the rover and the area in contact with the pebble plus the hardness of each - the wheel and the pebble - will have something to do with it as well? The rovers wheels are wide and relatively solid without any elasticity. The pebble may be liable to crumble as rocks are on Mars, do you thnk it likely it would ping off somewhere if it got squeezed between two unyielding places or do you think it would just shoot out a little way (inches) from under the tyre?

Below, a link to an article covering yesterday's NASA press conference. For the first time, it was suggested that the rock, once dislodged, may have rolled downhill to its current location. They have yet to find its starting point, so don't know this to be so; they are speculating.
This sounds like a change in the scenario NASA has been advocating. Before the rock was supposedly flipped up like a tiddlywinks disk, now they talk of it rolling, instead. Maybe the improbability of the 'tiddlywinks' scenario has been realized.
If it can be shown with reasonable certainty that the object did travel downhill, we are entitled to ask: was there a slope steep enough to make a rough rock roll a meter or more, especially considering that Mars' gravity is only about 38 % of Earth's ?
www.telegraph.co.uk...

Not sure if it's been posted, NY Times posted an article yesterday about the rock:

mobile.nytimes.com... eferrer=

Edit: just Google NY times mars rock...above link might not work.


Same with the Seattle Times:
seattletimes.com...

Maybe the possible photos of fossil remains will hit mainstream news too!!

reply to post by Ross 54


Your right about NASA's funding. Finding ANYTHING remotely interesting would be good for them. Sheesh, if I worked for NASA I'd be stashing stuffed alien toys on the rovers before launch.

Come on NASA, even a fake alien life form would be more interesting than radiation levels and particle analysis. Give us SOMETHING, at this point I don't even care if it's fake.

Everyone knows the old saying, "fake it till you make it"....Well NASA, why the heck not? Apparently our government lies to us all the time, take a page from their playbook.

qmantoo
So, speed of movement has no bearing on the ejection distance?

I don't think it has as much as implied by some of the posts in this thread.

Doesn't it have to do with length of time the rover's wheel is contact with the pebble.

I don't think so.

I get the impression that a car moving quickly has more energy to give to a stone it throws up, rather than a slow-moving car. I am not particularly good at physics.

A car moving quickly has more energy in the direction it is moving, but the weight is the same, and it's the weight that presses the rock against the ground. I loved physics when I was in school, but after 30 years I forgot a lot.

Surely the weight of the rover and the area in contact with the pebble plus the hardness of each - the wheel and the pebble - will have something to do with it as well?

I think that's the most important part.

The rovers wheels are wide and relatively solid without any elasticity.

I don't see why the width of the wheel is important.

The pebble may be liable to crumble as rocks are on Mars, do you thnk it likely it would ping off somewhere if it got squeezed between two unyielding places or do you think it would just shoot out a little way (inches) from under the tyre?

I think it's possible, as I know that happens and I don't see anything that would prevent it from happening.

Ross 54
This sounds like a change in the scenario NASA has been advocating. Before the rock was supposedly flipped up like a tiddlywinks disk, now they talk of it rolling, instead. Maybe the improbability of the 'tiddlywinks' scenario has been realized.
If it can be shown with reasonable certainty that the object did travel downhill, we are entitled to ask: was there a slope steep enough to make a rough rock roll a meter or more, especially considering that Mars' gravity is only about 38 % of Earth's ?

I never considered the possibility of the rock rolling downhill because there's nothing in the photos that gives me an idea of any possible sloping, but as they have that information I thought that the fact that they weren't considering meant that that area is horizontal (or close to horizontal).

Gravity being smaller doesn't change the fact that things still fall, they just accelerate slower.