Possible Meteorite Imaged By Opportunity Rover

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."

I bet its an obelisk

[Hansele]

After all you know, Arthur C Clarke predicted this in 2001: A Space Odyssey, then in 2010

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[Tubal-Cain]

Just hope it's not a monolith.

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[3chuck3]

No Warhammer 40000 Necron Scout debris, Necrons came to Vaul Moon to look for their lost God, the Void Dragon!!!!!

Re:I bet its an obelisk

[davester666]

It's probably an native crouching down, thinking "if I just stay still, maybe it won't probe me".

No chance, because paybacks a bitch. Now, we just need to figure out which end is the front and which is the back...

NASA should make RC toys

[InMSWeAntitrust]

NASA should make RC toys to build funds, if anything I bought lasted as long as these rovers, I'd be a happy camper.

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[Canazza]

I'd buy a model ISS to hang from my ceiling. The best part? They can charge extra for the add-ons!

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[FudRucker]

even better is make one with lots of wireless accessories that can roll around in your yard, things like a camera, microphone, loud speaker, pepper spray, tazer, machinegun (well maybe not a machinegun)

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[Canazza]

Just let me attach an "Ion Cannon" to it :D

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[Smidge204]

> (well maybe not a machinegun)

Yeah, the recoil would bounce the thing all over.

Therefore; Rocket launcher.
=Smidge=

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[Vu1turEMaN]

And then kids would buy them and dream of being astronauts and hell...maybe in 1000 years the United Earth Sphere Alliance will finally put money into space development. Until the Gundams come...

Re:NASA should make RC toys

[Chris Burke]

NASA should make RC toys to build funds, if anything I bought lasted as long as these rovers, I'd be a happy camper.

Yeah but who the hell is going to buy an RC toy that has a top speed of 0.1 mph and doesn't respond to your commands for twenty minutes?

and costs millions of dollars?

[WoTG]

I don't think I'd be able to afford a realistic version of the rover... but an officially licensed NASA rover toy would be kind of cool.

Re:NASA should make RC toys

[James Skarzinskas]

IE users?

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[GundamFan]

It's too bad I don't have mod points, the parent actually made me laugh.

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[ukyoCE]

Which is going to live longer, the Mars Rover or IE 6

>.

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[Late Adopter]

Radio Shack customers?

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[farnsaw]

They do make them, and sell them, but most people don't want to / cannot pay for $30,000,000+ radio control / semi-autonomous toys. Personally, I would and want to, but cannot afford to do so.

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[rafaelolg]

If you think the NASA toys would last long imagine how long a Mir toy would last.

Im no scientist

[Alarindris]

But shouldn't there be a bigass crater with a meteorite that big?

Re:Im no scientist

[Gothmolly]

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.

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[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".

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[truckaxle]

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

Re:Im no scientist

[Blublu]

Wait, shouldn't the moon then be ... less ... uh, cratered?

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[RockWolf]

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

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[cyn1c77]

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

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[bhiestand]

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.

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[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

[Drakin020]

The Opportunity rover is also on a long path towards a crater if I'm not mistaken. That could be from an impact that send other rocks flying out to various areas.

Re:Im no scientist

[Alioth]

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.

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[farnsaw]

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?

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[kiehlster]

That's only if they decide to study it with the Uranium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator instead of the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer.

History Repeats Itself

[sysusr]

Silly NASA keeps forgetting to put in the blast crater...

I was worried for a second...

[mongoose(!no)]

I was worried for a second when I misread the title as "Possible Meteorite Imagined By Opportunity Rover".

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[GundamFan]

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?

[truckaxle]

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

Not odd is odd

[tizan]

A rock in the shape of a sphere or a cube or a tetrahedron...now that will be odd to have
such a non odd shaped rock on Mars. Hence a non odd shaped rock is odd and an odd
shaped rock is non odd. Go figure what was meant then

Re:Odd Shaped Rock?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Odd==not eroded according to the geology and climate of Mars.

Re:Odd Shaped Rock?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

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

Because it stood out from the other rocks in the area. It's easy to imagine that they had Slashdot nitpickers in mind when they wrote that. "How could they tell it wasn't just a rock that's been sitting there for ages and ages?"

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[Late Adopter]

Because it resembles every second one they find.

all this story made me thing of was

[circletimessquare]

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?

[burtosis]

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.

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[macraig]

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.

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[Drakin020]

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

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[Froeschle]

Besides the color presumably not matching the surrounding material.
I would be inclined to agree if it were not a grey-scale image.

Wow!

[hansede]

Looks like the Monolith was discovered on Mars. For some reason I was expecting it to be found on the Moon . . .

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[ijakings]

Maybe we should import this "Monolith" to earth, it cant make games any worse than its namesake.

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[mtemmerm]

I had imagined it... taller?

. . . what if someone is inside . . .?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

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?

[VincenzoRomano]

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!

It's a crashed probe sent from Europa.

[Chris Burke]

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

[Tackhead]

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.

Re:Late-Breaking News from the Council

[Chris Burke]

For the love of Jeebus, please Martian journalists, please learn to stop contradicting K'Breel to his face!

Meteorite From Earth

[geoffrobinson]

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

[Frogg]

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

...fascinating stuff!! :)

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[j0se_p0inter0]

Thanks for the link! Some good stuff on there,

Turns out...

[erbbysam]

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

pedant = 1

[AP31R0N]

Rover captured image of possible meteorite. /hates passive voice //won't read your whiny ass reply, save your time

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[Chris Burke]

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.

7th meteorite found by rovers

[peter303]

The first one found in 2005 made big news. Since then there have been seven [astronomynow.com] more suspected.