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Space Science

Spirit Grinds Adirondack, Looks for Iron 28

Posted by Hemos from the mining-for-scienc-e dept.
Quantum Jim writes "Space.com reported on Friday that Spirit used its Rock Abrasion Tool against a Martian rock dubbed Adirondack. Although the rover spent three hours grinding the rock, it was only skinned by about 2.7 mm. Scientists say this is due to an unexpected amount of resistance. Spirit is currently standing by for ground contollers to deactivate a safety feature so it can be repositioned"
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Spirit Grinds Adirondack, Looks for Iron More

Spirit Grinds Adirondack, Looks for Iron

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  • Lack of interest? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tiled_rainbows ( 686195 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @08:24AM (#8224735) Homepage Journal
    Does the fact that, at the time of writing, the only post in this thread is about asci cow porn indicate that people are getting bored with all this Mars stuff?

    I hope not, but speaking personally, I'm finding it hard to get excited (about the rock-grinding, not the cow porn. I mean, that doesn't excite me either, I was just saying, in case anyone misinterpreted me).
    • Boredom is inevitable, at least until the 3D IMAX movie comes out.

      The last time we were roving around on another planet and looking at rocks during Apollo 17, the world responded with a collective yawn. Better to bring your golf club like Alan Shepard. Now that's exciting! You can hit a one-handed seven iron like 1000 yards...

  • saftey feature = bsod

    • Re:saftey? (Score:5, Informative)

      by noselasd ( 594905 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @08:45AM (#8224857)
      No. When Spirit encountered problems(the flash memory), the software sat a flag.
      The flag indicated that the rover shouldn't drive anywhere regardless of what commands it gets.
      Now that the memory issues are hopefully fixed, the engineers forgot to clear the flag.
      Naturally Sprit wouldn't perform the commands to drive.

      More at http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/040208rove rs.html

      • Re:saftey? (Score:3, Funny)

        by Thing 1 ( 178996 )
        Still, reminiscient of Chernobyl, where the engineers wanted to "turn off a safety feature" to run a test.

        But I think it was just a poorly-worded submission.

  • eh... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @08:44AM (#8224853)
    While Spirit's drilling of an igneous rock is kindof interesting, it's (IMHO) comparatively dull when contrasted with Opportunity's microscopic images of the sedimentary [nasa.gov] rock at the Meridiani [nasa.gov] location. The layers could have been formed by sedimentation at the bottom of a lake or by volcanic ash being succesively deposited by eruptions, we should know within a day or two when the APXS and Moessbauer spectrometer reveal the chemical makeup of the rocks.

    • Re:eh... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 09, 2004 @09:31AM (#8225269)
      It's not quite that simple, because a clastic (fragmentary -- sand, pebbles, etc.) sedimentary rock derived from volcanic rock sources may differ in a chemical analysis only slightly from the original volcanic rock. It is a common problem to distinguish between a primary volcanic ash deposit and some kind of volcaniclastic sedimentary rock. There should be some chemical differences between them, but given the poor understanding of weathering processes on Mars (past or present), it is little tough to make predictions about what the chemical differences will be.

      The microscopic imager may be of greater use here, because it may resolve details of the bedding that will distinguish how the material was deposited. Some of the pictures already show some strange "ball-shaped", better-cemented structures that are eroding out of the bedrock and are accumulating on the surface. These could be pebbles (i.e. sedimentary) or they could be lapilli (volcanic structures formed by the sticking-together of ash particles). They could also be zones of cementation that developed long after deposition (e.g., concretions), in which case they do not say much about conditions at time of deposition. The latter two are more likely, because the "balls" are so spherical (most pebbles are not so perfectly equidimensional).

      Anyway, people seem to focus on the quantitative chemical analysis instruments as the ultimate tool, but they only give bulk compositions. Chemistry only takes you so far. The imaging is at least as important, and it is complementary to the other tools. For a good field geologist (which these rovers are supposed to emulate), a hand lens is more useful than an APXS or Moessbauer spectrometer would be, but it is great to have them all along.
      • These could be pebbles (i.e. sedimentary) or they could be lapilli (volcanic structures formed by the sticking-together of ash particles). They could also be zones of cementation that developed long after deposition (e.g., concretions), in which case they do not say much about conditions at time of deposition. The latter two are more likely, because the "balls" are so spherical (most pebbles are not so perfectly equidimensional).

        I've been excited about the spheres, too. Unfortunately, there seem to be so
    • Unless one of the rovers discovers little green men, then there prolly won't be much exciting from them in the near future. They've already sent back the panoramas, so there won't be any more and different ones till they've moved quite a ways away.

      But we still get intermittant stories about stuff that was discovered by te Viking probe. I'm sure the data these rovers collect will lead to lots of interesting discoveries over the coming years long after the rovers have stopped working when people have time

    • Nice! Those layered images are pretty damn cool, but they haven't been featured on the marsrovers front page that I know of. Is that because the people analyzing the photos haven't agreed on how to characterize the photo yet?

    • Re:eh... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That's because the apparently foliated structure of the Meridiani outcropping could have arisen from other processes than sedimentary deposition. The parallel channels shown in the outcropping could easily have arisen from steady weathering in an environment dominated by a single wind direction, for instance.

      In fact, interpreting them as sedimentary would require some pretty radical planetological claims: (a) a long-lasting supply of deep water in which sediment could accumulate into mudstone or sandstone

      • Re:eh... (Score:4, Funny)

        by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @03:50PM (#8229734)
        If you want to be excited by them, talk about their observable features (foliation, heterogenous grain size, polarization proerties), not about their genesis. We don't have the evidence to conclude they're sedimentary, much as we would like to do so.

        Yes, because when I think excitement, I think heterogeneous grain size polarization properties. :-) :)

  • Looking for the obvious (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pogue Mahone ( 265053 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @08:45AM (#8224856) Homepage
    From the title:
    Spirit grinds Adirondack, looks for iron

    It's right there in the middle, between Ad and dack. Silly of it not to spot that right away ;-)

  • Images. (Score:5, Informative)

    by noselasd ( 594905 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @09:00AM (#8225015)
    Those interrested in images from the rovers should perhaps bookmark
    Mars Exploration Rover Imagery [lyle.org].
    Nice and updated page with all the latest images.

  • Missing raw images (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Frans Faase ( 648933 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @09:09AM (#8225087) Homepage
    It seems NASA themselves are also getting lousy with putting all the raw images on the website. I get the feeling that some are missing. Are they affraid of others putting the color images together before they do themselves?

  • Tools (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Spirit used its Rock Abrasion Tool against a Martian rock...

    ...and by attaching the special router bit, it should manage to build a lovely bird-bath by the end of the week.

  • "ground controllers"? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by mnmn ( 145599 )
    Shouldnt they refer to them as "controllers in the sky on the wayward different planet"? We should use the reference of the rover when referring to it like "it turned left", which wouldnt be true if we used the reference of the "ground controllers".

    Or are we firmly entrenched in the terms used when Sputnik was launched?

  • Microspheres (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bluyonder ( 643628 ) on Monday February 09, 2004 @11:24AM (#8226327)
    I noticed that two of the micro images from Opportunity had overlapping coverage so I added them together into a red/blue anaglyph. Take a look here [nwark.net]. (sorry Chris)
  • ... against a Martian rock dubbed Adirondack ...
    I can understand naming a huge rock hurtling through space, or the big red rock (monolith) in the middle of Australia. But naming a small rock on Mars?

    Do the folks at NASA name their french fries before eating them too? LOL

    Good news that both explorers are functioning well now.

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