Opportunity Spots Curious Object On Mars

EhobaX writes "Space.com is reporting that NASA's Opportunity Mars rover has come across an interesting object -- perhaps a meteorite sitting out in the open at Meridiani Planum. Initial data taken by the robot's Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) is suggestive that the odd-looking "rock" is made of metal."

Re:A real mystery.

[Rei]

This is a big deal. You don't find raw metal much on Mars; most of it is tied up with oxygen. Raw metal has many implications: if it is common, it can be a great source of base building. If the metals are rare on Earth as well, and they're common on Mars, they could provide a potential export source. If it is a meteor, and they're common, it could affect our models of how often Mars gets struck by meteors. Since the rock isn't buried, it could provide clues as to how long it's been on Mars, how fast Meridiani Planum is eroding, and give us dataon how metals wear over time on Mars.

Any time you find something you've never found before, it's a big deal. Honestly, to people who've been following the mission, it looked like Opportunity was pretty much wrapping things up. It just left a geological treasure trove and there isn't much more "on the map", so to speak. It's neat to see it continue making nice finds.

Mini-TES

[A Boy and His Blob]

For those of you who don't know what TES (Thermal Emission Spectrometer) is, here [asu.edu] is some more information. The webpage is quite interesting.

Re:What was their first reaction?

[Vellmont]

Looking at the heat shield doesn't seem like a very revealing bit of science -- more of a "gee look how far we've come" sort of cool thing.

You're right, looking at the heat shield isn't about science, but it is about engineering. The heat shield can obviously never be adequately tested, and until you take a look at it you never know exactly how well it performed. Were there areas where it could have failed? Was is over-engineered? Those are usefull questions that if we had answers to we could design better/more efficient heat shielding in the future.

The heat shield also digs into the surface far more than the rovers ever could, so you might see whats below the surface. Though looking at the heat shield sounds like a total geek thing to do, it can reveal a lot of non obvious information.

At this point you're probbably right about finding something to do. In the area where the rovers have landed we've seen the everyday stuff, and now it's all about being lucky enough to see the more rare things.

Re:Could it be the remains of predecessor or itsel

[jdray]

It could resaonably be an iron meteorite [permanent.com].

"Iron meteorites", also called "irons", are usually just one big blob of iron-nickel (Fe-Ni) metal, as if it came from a industrial refinery without shaping. The alloy ranges from 5% to 62% nickel from meteorite to meteorite, with an average of 10% nickel. Cobalt averages about 0.5%, and other metals such as the platinum group metals, gallium, and germanium are dissolved in the Fe-Ni metal. (Fe is the chemical symbol for iron.) While most "irons" are pure or nearly pure metal, the technical definition of an "iron" includes metal meteorites with up to 30% mineral inclusions such as sulfides, metal oxides and silicates. The irons represent the cores of former planetoids.

Re:But what is this?

[damiangerous]

Yes, it's the heat shield, which turned itself inside out. Here [nasa.gov] it is in color, from a different angle.

Original full size images

[Anonymous Coward]

Pic 1 [nasa.gov]

Pic 2 [nasa.gov]

but its probably part of this [nasa.gov] (see the springs and other debris in the sand)

Re:Mini-TES

[rk]

For clarity: That link is to TES, which flies on the Mars Global Surveyor. The instrument on the rovers is called Mini-TES [asu.edu] and does similar things.

I work at the lab responsible for both.

Re:If it's a meteorite, then where is the crater?

[M1FCJ]

Doesn't have to be there. The best best case scenario would be if it fell down when the area was under water. That would be really brilliant. You would get just a nice big splash.

Even without water, it doesn't have to create a crater. It is quite small, such an object might not create a crater if it fell down at a shallow angle or low speed trajectory. Also probably it fell down billions of years ago, not last week. The crater might have eroded away, if it was too shallow (the rock looks approx. fist sized), it wouldn't have created a crater.

Re:Meteorite with no crater?

[david.given]

Anyone with more knowledge of meteor physics than me have an explanation?

Meteors don't work like that, basically. What happens is that anything moving above a certain speed gets vapourised; shooting stars are. If it's large enough that it doesn't vapourise completely, what's left hits the ground at kilometres per second and makes a hell of a bang.

However, anything moving slowly gets slowed to a stop by the atmosphere, at which point it just falls.

The net effect is that meteors hit the ground either at kilometres per second or about two or three hundred miles per hour, and nothing in between.

Nice Idea, But Scotched By The Dunes

[cmholm]

That the "rock" might be a melted piece of aeroshell ain't a half bad idea, considering that the rest of the immediate surroundings are covered with crap from the impact. However, there are a few clues I think point away from that:

the blob seems to be about the thickness of a good skipping stone, while the aeroshell is mostly honeycombed aluminum or titanium, made of metal sheets much the same thickness as a soda can.

If enough Titanium melted from the aeroshell to make that one blob, it wouldn't be the only blob, and we wouldn't have enough rover left to take its picture.

The rock is embedded in the dune such as to suggest wind has had time to blow the sand around it. Other evidence suggests that the various sand ripples you see haven't moved much in thousands of years. The grains in the surface crust are somewhat cemented together, and the thin Martain wind has a hell of a time moving a grain of sand, much less make an impression on the crust over the course of a year.