Mystery Rock 'Appears' in Front of Mars Rover

I think this rock also looks really neat with the near 90 degree angled edge.



Of course that can happen in nature and does, but none the less it's an interesting fragment I noticed in the photos.
Thought yall might like it if you didn't already notice.

reply to post by muzzleflash


"Near" 90°?
My eyeball tells me that is dead on 90°…

JayinAR
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

"Near" 90°?
My eyeball tells me that is dead on 90°…

Haha, I didn't measure directly so I played it safe.
But yeah, srsly.

reply to post by lostgirl


aye?
[snip]

reply to post by JayinAR


so you don't reckon the snakes on vacation stands a chance then ? .. im mostly agreeing with you in it being a geode, albeit a snakaline structure ;D

funBox

grey580
Link

This is interesting. It's a rock. But how did it get there?
They speculate possibly a meteor event or even the rover itself flipping the rock over.
Or maybe it's some Alien teens playing a prank.
But it's interesting nonetheless.

After a decade of exploring the Martian surface, the scientists overseeing veteran rover Opportunity thought they’d seen it all. That was until a rock mysteriously “appeared” a few feet in front of the six wheeled rover a few days ago.

News of the errant rock was announced by NASA Mars Exploration Rover lead scientist Steve Squyres of Cornell University at a special NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory “10 years of roving Mars” event at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, Calif., on Thursday night. The science star-studded public event was held in celebration of the decade since twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed on the red planet in January 2004.

For those who are saying that the wind blew it over, or that the rover's wheel rolled it over as theorized in the article.There is a problem with that theory and it is this. If the wind moved that big rock, than the smaller ones to the left of it would have shifted or moved as well, which they have not. If the rover wheel moved it, then it would have moved the smaller rocks to the left as well, or at least shifted them, but it did not. Unless Mars has hoping rocks, this is a very serious thing.

reply to post by grey580


None of the other rocks and stones appeared moved so its not wind have blow it there.
So you are left with two choices
1. it was photoshopped
2. Its a form of life it moved or grew into that position.
3. some alien is playing with the humans heads, by placing the rock there

There are no other options

AthlonSavage
reply to post by grey580

 

None of the other rocks and stones appeared moved so its not wind have blow it there.
So you are left with two choices
1. it was photoshopped
2. Its a form of life it moved or grew into that position.
3. some alien is playing with the humans heads, by placing the rock there
4. it was literally THROWN there by the rover wheel as suggested by the professionals quoted in this very thread and backed up by the photos posted by blister which show the mineral traces between the rock's previous location and its new resting spot.

There are no other options

Fixed it for ya.

Also, it could be a meteorite. But ya...

Emerys
If the rover wheel moved it, then it would have moved the smaller rocks to the left as well, or at least shifted them, but it did not.

I know the rover's wheels are not tires like in common Earth cars, but couldn't the rock have been projected by one wheel pressing a corner of the rock and making it jump, like in that game with the coins?

Arken

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.

Thanks for this, ArMaP.

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

And looks like a 'drawing ' of a face just below the rock

LeviWardrobe
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.

That kind of goes towards what I was getting at in my firt post in this thread. The rock in itself could be very light in composition, also Mar's gravity is around the one third of Earth's. So you could argue that the only thing to be disturbed would be a little dust, in a minor and local incident, and indeed Armap's picture shows colouration akin to dust around the edges of the rock.
What would be interesting, would be for NASA to deliberately drive the rover across the rock and see what happens.

LeviWardrobe
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.

The image quality is always just bad enough to not make out details. we must not see the colors as they do since they say the "jelly" part is bright red. I simply don't get the "looks like a jelly donut"?

Seems a little odd that the shape of the area before the object is pretty much the same as the shape of the object.

reply to post by JayinAR


Agree, and thanks for the mention.

If you look closely at the Microscopic Imager pictures (presented earlier) there are light-colored scuff marks where the rock landed on the stones beside it. There is also a small amount of light-colored debris on the surrounding area caused when landing.

Note that the actual means by which "Pinnacle Island" was moved is conjecture. There are currently three options:

(1) It was carried inside a wheel
(2) It was flicked by a wheel and landed a couple of feet away (where we now see it)
and,
(3) It was magnetically attracted to the rover's arm as Opportunity took a close look at it. The rover then moved the arm and subsequently either the rock fell off, or was "swiped off" by the arm.

My intuition leads me to favour option (2) and (1) is unlikely given the wheel design and low proximity of the rover wheels to the place of deposit. Option (3) is very interesting, but requires testing which could take some time as the environment and composition will need to be evaluated and reconstructed.

ArMaP

Emerys
If the rover wheel moved it, then it would have moved the smaller rocks to the left as well, or at least shifted them, but it did not.

I know the rover's wheels are not tires like in common Earth cars, but couldn't the rock have been projected by one wheel pressing a corner of the rock and making it jump, like in that game with the coins?

The spot is in the same spot so was it even moving.

As far as other rocks not moving, most seem to be part of the bedrock, all the little bumpies but they would know if there had been some heavy wind.

Or its all a distraction from my thread www.abovetopsecret.com... ?

funbox
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

Upper left of this on the second inside rim looks like little circles.

The heavier pointed end makes it really look like a shell of some kind. For all we know ;Marsamals; can have such shells and not be water creatures at all.

funbox
reply to post by lostgirl

 

aye?

*funbox reaches into the ball of frantic arms legs and gaffertape*
run that by me again lost girl

Oh geez…Okay...well, I thought you did that post of the super-imposed 'before/after', color/non-color 'views' of the pictures, because of a post where I noted that it seemed as if there was a 'mark' corresponding to the shape of the rock (visible in the 'before' pic) directly where the rock 'landed'…

…hence, my understandingly confusing post to you outlining how I could see from your super-imposed 'views' that I was mistaken in thinking I was seeing a correspondence between the shape of the rock and a 'shape' or 'mark' on the area underneath the rock…

Whew! Boy I hope that all makes some kind of sense

Blister
reply to post by JayinAR

 

Note that the actual means by which "Pinnacle Island" was moved is conjecture. There are currently three options:

(1) It was carried inside a wheel
(2) It was flicked by a wheel and landed a couple of feet away (where we now see it)
and,
(3) It was magnetically attracted to the rover's arm as Opportunity took a close look at it. The rover then moved the arm and subsequently either the rock fell off, or was "swiped off" by the arm.

(4) It was already there and flipped over on its own.
(5) It walked there.

Is there any reason to think it was not the result of wind, gravity or some natural, explainable cause? Perhaps even the Rover itself knocked it loose, picked it up in a track and it fell off?