Mystery Rock 'Appears' in Front of Mars Rover

ArMaP
Interesting find.

Sol 3541 has better (in my opinion) photos of the rock, so I made a colour version.

In colour it looks even more interesting.

Can you do this with the 'before' picture so we can compare? (your picture really clarifies that area)

I may be mistaken, but I could swear that 'before' the rock shows up, there's a mark (or indentation) in the same 'triangular' shape, right where it 'lands'...

St Udio
the engineers will need to take a panorama shot of the area that is the length of the sweeping motion of the rovers disabled traction device...

I can only make a panorama from the "before" Sol, as there aren't photos for a panorama from the "after" Sol, at least that we can see.

reply to post by Arken


What if it's silver?

Dayum!

Mars is the "mother lode"!!!!

Arken
Thanks for this, ArMaP.

You're welcome.

At first glance it looks like.... Mother Pearl...

That's what I thought.

ArMaP

St Udio
the engineers will need to take a panorama shot of the area that is the length of the sweeping motion of the rovers disabled traction device...

I can only make a panorama from the "before" Sol, as there aren't photos for a panorama from the "after" Sol, at least that we can see.

Okay, even in this panorama, if you zoom all the way in, you can see that indentation I mentioned….right where the rock 'ends up' there is a spot in it's shape, as if meant for the rock to be there...

reply to post by Blister


if not for this post i would say its a piece of the wheel

wheel damage

DustbowlDebutante
reply to post by wildespace

 

Hey, I was thinking a tremor or quake could have been responsible for this rock moving....

Pardon my ignorance (I usually don't hang around the space forum, so my knowledge is certainly limited), but do we know if Mars has quakes and/or tremors? Do we even know if it is comprised of tectonic plates like our own planet? Or is that something that will have to be proven once we put people there to study and find out?

Again, pardon my ignorance on the subject, everyone.

~Dustbowl

If it is next to a good upward grade I could maybe see it roll down, but it would have to be one heck of a quake to make one single rock jump somewhere.

Pearl would make sense considering how easily it seems to have flaked off. If that's afreaking shell, holy crap. And what are thechances it would appear there under such strange circumstances.

I really think it looks like an old clam or oyster shell that has accumulated crap on top of it from lying face down for who knows how long. Its the symmetry at the top of the image that gets me.

reply to post by ArMaP


a much better picture Armap, kinda looks like a geode to me, etheir that or an egg got broken and theres a nest of angry baby snakes



funBox

It looks like i lost my pound so i will double my money an say it is the element mercury,on mars, edit a mercury egg lol triggered by the vibrations of the rover.

Or something has burried into the ground like a mole

reply to post by symptomoftheuniverse


Tests show very high levels of sulphur, magnesium and manganese.

“We are as we speak situated with the rover, with its instruments, making measurements on this rock. We’ve taken pictures of both the donut part and the jelly part,” Squyres said. “The jelly part is like nothing we’ve seen before on Mars. It’s very high in sulfur and magnesium and it has twice as much manganese as anything we’ve seen before. I don’t know what any of this means. We’re completely confused, everybody on the team is arguing and fighting. We’re having a wonderful time!”

Source: www.universetoday.com...

Makes it sound very dramatic...

reply to post by Blister


Are you saying then that 'Pinnacle Island' was not recognised as something that already being studied? at least not by this guy Stephen, since the name was only given when the rock 'appeared' and in the link he also says that this 'bright' rock is now being studied since it flipped over, and also because it is bright, I'm a little puzzled because the linked story is kind of vague. Thing is, in the link you are only given one out of two alternatives, with only one being plausible, and therein there is the rationale that Mars is, "static" while it is pretty clear already that Mars is anything but "static"

Did a bit of perspective correction because I wanted to see if there was any obvious disturbance around the site. As best as I can see, there isn't. It looks like the rock could've just been place there, as opposed to "knocked" into place. Every significant feature that you can see is, essentially, in identical positions between the two images.

i.imgur.com...

You'd figure we would see some sort of disturbance. The image quality is pretty bad, so it's hard to tell for sure.

reply to post by grey580


This is clearly a MARS methane traveling floating & landing rock observed from time to time hoping along and hovering on the MARS horizon. Nice find OP

reply to post by grey580


I Vote Alien Teens , the Little Bastids were on my Lawn the other day !

Alright after reading a bit, I am going with meteorite at this point.
At least unless something convinces me otherwise of course.
It's all speculative anyhow. Just playing the odds as I see em.

reply to post by muzzleflash


how about the absence of a creator ,quite a large one ide imagine not that there would be any pictures of course , in which case I never even said this

anyone find out if there any microphones on board any of the rovers?
funBox

reply to post by smurfy


Well, obviously Mars is not "static". It has weather and geology, which all effect what we see as Mars.

The popularly accepted options for the appearance of the "Pinnacle Island" are namely (a) caused by Opportunity's wheels dislodging it, and (b) as crater ejecta.

There are other potential explanations, such as it rolled to the position having moved from an uphill position without external interference; Martians put it there; it landed there as a meteorite; etcetera.

Whilst I can and do subscribe to some or a few as yet unproven theories with regard to Mars, I feel that option (a) represents the best explanation. Just my opinion.

lostgirl

ArMaP

St Udio
the engineers will need to take a panorama shot of the area that is the length of the sweeping motion of the rovers disabled traction device...

I can only make a panorama from the "before" Sol, as there aren't photos for a panorama from the "after" Sol, at least that we can see.

Okay, even in this panorama, if you zoom all the way in, you can see that indentation I mentioned….right where the rock 'ends up' there is a spot in it's shape, as if meant for the rock to be there...

I see what you mean, it looks like it simply flipped in place. The side that was showing before actually looks creature like.

It is a weird area a lot of interesting shapes.

Kind of creepy if you ask me. I mean, compare the two photos. The rock appears out of nowhere. Surely if the rover's dragging wheel scraped it up you wouldn't be able to see the ground hasn't changed under the 'rock' from before.?? If you scan the areas in close proximity, all of the rocks of decent size haven't changed, or been moved. This is so odd...