NASA Selects Mars Landing Sites

carstene writes "NASA has announced the finial landing sites for the upcoming mars rover missions. Looks like they are going looking for water in a dried lake bed and a promising site that looks like it contains hematite."

Re:They oughta send one to the Face

[assosiation]

note the quote "Once they reach their landing sites, each rover's prime mission will last at least 90 martian days (92 Earth days). The rovers are solar-powered, and in approximately 90 days, dust accumulating on the solar arrays likely will be diminishing the power supply. "

Have those people ever heard of wipers????? :)

If Kryptonite make Kryptonians weak

[wowbagger]

If Kyptonite makes Kryptionians weak, does hematite make Hemos weak?

Perhaps Hemos should stay away from that area of Mars...

Re:Hematite?

[eggstasy]

If you remember the controversial meteor of martian origin that was found a while ago, you will also recall that the alleged signs of life were iron crystals of a kind that is usually, at least on Earth, only produced by bacteria.
Hematite is an iron ore. It's logical to assume they're looking for more rocks like that one, which could point towards the existance of life on Mars, past or present.

Re:Hematite?

[young-earth]

Check out the article [hawaii.edu] which explains that researchers now

think that there is now abundant evidence that most and probably all of the magnetites in ALH 84001 formed because of shock heating of carbonate. Faceted magnetites resembling the supposedly biogenic magnetites are crystallographically oriented in the carbonate lattice and could not have formed inside bacteria. We infer that ALH 84001 magnetites differ from abiogenic terrestrial magnetites because terrestrial carbonates never experienced the unique im

Re:Hematite?

[barakn]

The problem with Creationists is that they'll post without knowing what they are talking about. Gray hematite can precipitate out of hotsprings here on Earth, and spectroscopic evidence has been found of gray hematite on Mars [nasa.gov]. NASA is looking for evidence of ancient hotsprings on Mars. The Martian meteorite has nothing to do with it. young-earth's post should be modded Overrated.

Not biological

[barakn]

Gray hematite can precipitate out of hotsprings here on Earth, and spectroscopic evidence has been found of gray hematite on Mars [nasa.gov]. NASA is looking for evidence of ancient hotsprings on Mars, which would only point to liquid water, not life.

Re:Hematite?

[Tablizer]

What would be the use of hematite?

To fix the hemaloose :-P

Some harder than others

[djupedal]

"Landing on Mars is very difficult, and it's harder on some parts of the planet than others," said Dr. Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator for space science in Washington, D.C. "In choosing where to go, we need to balance science value with engineering safety considerations at the landing sites. The sites we have chosen provide such balance."

And the Finial site, may well prove to be the hardest of all...