[PIC] MARS

T

Travace

Veteran XV
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http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_733.html
As NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity creeps farther into "Endurance Crater," the dune field on the crater floor appears even more dramatic. This false-color image taken by the rover's panoramic camera shows that the dune crests have accumulated more dust than the flanks of the dunes and the flat surfaces between them. Also evident is a "blue" tint on the flat surfaces as compared to the dune flanks. This results from the presence of the hematite-containing spherules, or "blueberries", that accumulate on the flat surfaces.

Sinuous tendrils of sand less than 1 meter (3.3 feet) high extend from the main dune field toward the rover. Scientists hope to send the rover down to one of these tendrils in an effort to learn more about the characteristics of the dunes. Dunes are a common feature across the surface of Mars, and knowledge gleaned from investigating the Endurance dunes may apply to similar dunes elsewhere.

Before the rover heads down to the dunes, rover drivers must first establish whether the slippery slope that leads to them is firm enough to ensure a successful drive back out of the crater. Otherwise, such hazards might make the dune field a true sand trap.
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:lol: when the rover gets stuck anyway then ........ FUCKED
 
This Mars mission is simply amazing. Its awesome seeing how long the rovers can exceed their estimated lifespan. Props to the entire team that worked on this, apparently their engineering was excellent.
 
i heard that you can take an astronomy class at Cornell with a professor that is operating the rover. he sometimes gets a phone call from nasa and runs out of the class.
 
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his frame from the microscopic imager on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows spherules up to about 5 millimeters (one-fifth of an inch) in diameter. The camera took this image during the 924th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's Mars-surface mission (Aug. 30, 2006), when the rover was about 200 meters (650 feet) north of 'Victoria Crater.'

Opportunity discovered spherules like these, nicknamed "blueberries," at its landing site in "Eagle Crater," and investigations determined them to be iron-rich concretions that formed inside deposits soaked with groundwater. However, such concretions were much smaller or absent at the ground surface along much of the rover's trek of more than 5 kilometers (3 miles) southward to Victoria. The big ones showed up again when Opportunity got to the ring, or annulus, of material excavated and thrown outward by the impact that created Victoria Crater. Researchers hypothesize that some layer beneath the surface in Victoria's vicinity was once soaked with water long enough to form the concretions, that the crater-forming impact dispersed some material from that layer, and that Opportunity might encounter that layer in place if the rover drives down into the crater
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/images/pia09077.html
 
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