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Comments: 82 +-   Possible Meteorite Imaged By Opportunity Rover on Monday August 03 2009, @10:41AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday August 03 2009, @10:41AM
from the marvin-is-right-behind-it dept.
mars
space
science
Matt_dk writes "The Opportunity rover has eyed an odd-shaped, dark rock, about 0.6 meters (2 feet) across on the surface of Mars, which may be a meteorite. The team spotted the rock called 'Block Island,' on July 18, 2009, in the opposite direction from which it was driving. The rover then backtracked some 250 meters (820 feet) to study it closer. Scientists will be testing the rock with the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer to get composition measurements and to confirm if indeed it is a meteorite."
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Submission: Possible Meteorite Imaged by Opportunity Rover by Matt_dk (1306071)
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  • After all you know, Arthur C Clarke predicted this in 2001: A Space Odyssey, then in 2010

  • NASA should make RC toys (Score:3, Insightful)

    by InMSWeAntitrust (994158) on Monday August 03 2009, @10:46AM (#28928307)
    NASA should make RC toys to build funds, if anything I bought lasted as long as these rovers, I'd be a happy camper.

  • Im no scientist (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Alarindris (1253418) on Monday August 03 2009, @10:47AM (#28928321)
    But shouldn't there be a bigass crater with a meteorite that big?

    • Re:Im no scientist (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Gothmolly (148874) on Monday August 03 2009, @10:48AM (#28928339)

      Less than you'd think - the biggest damage is not caused by the impact, but by the supersonic shock wave of superheated air preceding the meteor. In a thin atmosphere like Mars, there's a much less pronounced shock wave.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Well, in the picture there's no crater at all. The thing is sitting on the surface. That's certainly "less than I'd think".

      • Conservation of energy. Less atmosphere, less shock wave; greater velocity and impact force.

      • Re:Im no scientist (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Blublu (647618) on Monday August 03 2009, @11:11AM (#28928725) Journal
        Wait, shouldn't the moon then be ... less ... uh, cratered?

          • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

            by RockWolf (806901)

            No, the moon has virtually no atmosphere unlike Mars which has a thin wind, causing erosive effects. The moon is like a museum until something hits it.

            At which point it continues to be a museum, just with a hole in it.

            /~Rockwolf

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cyn1c77 (928549)

        Less than you'd think - the biggest damage is not caused by the impact, but by the supersonic shock wave of superheated air preceding the meteor. In a thin atmosphere like Mars, there's a much less pronounced shock wave.

        What!?!?! Do you have any technical qualifications to make that statement? Because from a scientific standpoint, it is complete bullshit.

        No way. I completely disagree with you. That's like saying that a bullet doesn't hurt you that much, but the shock it drives in the air ahead of it does all the damage. Think about the impedance mismatch between the shocked air and the solid ground... it makes no sense.

        While you are correct that there is less of a shock in a thinner atmosphere, you have your dama

        • You need to consider the relative energy contained in the shock wave versus the kinetic energy of the moving solid object. The solid object driving the shock wins every time... and by a massive margin. That's why it is driving the shock wave in the atmosphere.

          Clearly you have not yet seen the elusive Martian Stork Feather Meteorite.

          I accept your apology, sir.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I know nothing either, but maybe a big meteorite landed some distance away and made a crater and exploded flinging decent sized fragments out in all directions, this then bounced and rolled to a stop without ending up sitting in a crater.

    • Re:Im no scientist (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Alioth (221270) <no@spam> on Monday August 03 2009, @11:16AM (#28928805) Journal

      There probably is one, somewhere. This may be a smaller piece of a much larger impact - I'd expect bits of the meteorite to bounce and land some distance from the main impact site.

    • If you look carefully at the image on the page linked, just to the left of the rock, you can clearly see the footprints of those who moved it into place.

      ... now I just have to edit that image... where did I store that NASA website password again?

  • I was worried for a second... (Score:4, Funny)

    by mongoose(!no) (719125) on Monday August 03 2009, @10:48AM (#28928329) Homepage
    I was worried for a second when I misread the title as "Possible Meteorite Imagined By Opportunity Rover".
    • Yeah, poor little guy doesn't have any humans to crush now that he is self aware. Conversely, Opportunity became self aware and just sees the logic in following NASA's commands... no one ever explores this possibility in sci-fi...

  • Odd Shaped Rock? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by truckaxle (883149) on Monday August 03 2009, @10:52AM (#28928381) Homepage

    Why the use of this adjective? Most rocks i know of are "odd shaped"

  • mmm... block island

    salt water taffy, clams, lobster...

    http://www.blockislandguide.com/cuisine.html [blockislandguide.com]

    sorry, its 11:52 am right now on the east coast

    time to go to lunch i think

  • Lack of crater - explained? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by burtosis (1124179) on Monday August 03 2009, @10:58AM (#28928497)
    Perhaps it tumbled into position and the crater(s) are some distance away. It looks highly unusual as it is sitting too high up above the surface indicating that it was not deposited along with the rest of the material which *guessing* is why they were able to identify it as a possible meteorite from such a far away distance. Besides the color presumably not matching the surrounding material.

    • The parent object "exploded" on impact and this got flung far from the impact point, most likely. I believe they call that phenomenon ejacula... err, ejecta.

    • Opportunity is actually on it's way to a large crater. Perhaps it could come from an impact in that area.

  • Wow! (Score:4, Funny)

    by hansede (1521535) on Monday August 03 2009, @11:04AM (#28928587)
    Looks like the Monolith was discovered on Mars. For some reason I was expecting it to be found on the Moon . . .
    • Maybe we should import this "Monolith" to earth, it cant make games any worse than its namesake.

  • Scientists will be testing the rock with the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer to get composition measurements and to confirm if indeed it is a meteorite.

    . . . if there's some Mars critters in there, they ain't gonna be happy.

    . . . before you say "get off my lawn," do you mind if I point my "alpha particle X-ray spectrometer" at your house . . . ?

  • A meteorite? (Score:3, Funny)

    by VincenzoRomano (881055) on Monday August 03 2009, @11:13AM (#28928769) Homepage Journal
    that must have softlanded not to leave the crater!
    As an alternate scientific hypotesis I would say the martians just put a rock there to make fun of us!

  • Look, Earthlings don't have a monopoly on flubbing rover landings or making unit conversion screw-ups. Fortunately we still have a monopoly on working Mars rovers! They though that since Mar's atmosphere is so weak they could completely ignore air friction and make the thing out of really light and cheap materials, and that melted hunk of slab is all that's left of their rover.

    On the other hand, the Euporans are way ahead of us on exploring Neptune.

  • Late-Breaking News from the Council (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead (54550) on Monday August 03 2009, @11:19AM (#28928877)
    Citizens of our peaceful red world stand engorged with pride, as confirmation has come in that the second of the robotic invaders from the blue planet has been immobilized. K'Breel, speaker for the Council of Elders, made the announcement from his flagship:

    When we embarked upon this campaign, we had no idea how long it would take. Having buried the first monstrosity up to its wheels in the ashes of legions of the blue planet's soldiers, our Kinetic Bombardment Force has turned its attention to the region infested by the monstrosity's evil twin. Rejoice, podmates, for even the blue planet's own puerile propaganda illustrates that their second robotic monstrosity now stands paralyzed with fear!

    When a journalist suggested that the blue planet's robot had merely paused to inspect a meteorite, K'Breel had the traitor's gelsacs stapled to the heat shield of his flagship, and initiated re-entry procedures.

  • Meteorite From Earth (Score:4, Funny)

    by geoffrobinson (109879) on Monday August 03 2009, @11:20AM (#28928893) Homepage

    It would be humorous if the meteorite on Mars was of Earth origin (blow back from Earth getting hit by something). We found evidence of life on Mars! Err, it's from Earth.

  • mars rover blog (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Frogg (27033) on Monday August 03 2009, @11:23AM (#28928931)

    here's a link to a blog by someone on the mars rover team:- Mars and Me [blogspot.com]

    ...fascinating stuff!! :)

  • Turns out that Opputunity spotted this metorite in space. Heading towards earth. That is all.

  • 7th meteorite found by rovers (Score:3, Informative)

    by peter303 (12292) on Monday August 03 2009, @12:24PM (#28929957)
    The first one found in 2005 made big news. Since then there have been seven [astronomynow.com] more suspected.

    • Your proposed subject line is inferior. Doesn't matter if you won't read anything that might challenge your monopoly on whining. Your irrational hatred of passive voice is still foolish and wrong. That is not what your 4th grade writing teacher was trying to tell you.

      Also, and go ahead and call me a pedant, but pedantry does not mean criticizing the style of something that is grammatically, syntactically, and semantically correct.

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