Mystery Rock Appeared In Front of Mars Rover, We Are Surprised, NASA Says Posted: 19 Jan 2014 01:04 PM PST
Mystery Rock Appeared In Front of Mars Rover, We Are Surprised, NAS... Posted: 19 Jan 2014 01:04 PM PST Last week we reported "Japan Kofun Era Tomb Like Structure Found On Mars" Read More
Now in another interesting development, according to media reports a mysterious rock which appeared in front of the Opportunity rover is "like nothing we've ever seen before", according to Mars exploration scientists at Nasa.
Experts said they were "completely confused" by both the origins and makeup of the object, which is currently being investigated by Opportunity's various measuring instruments.
Astronomers noticed that the new rock had "appeared" without any explanation on an outcrop which had been empty just days earlier. The rover has been stuck photographing the same region of Mars for more than a month due to bad weather, with scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California monitoring the images it sends.
He said the images, from 12 Martian days apart, were from no more than a couple of weeks ago. "We saw this rock just sitting here. It looks white around the edge in the middle and there's a low spot in the centre that's dark red - it looks like a jelly doughnut.
"And it appeared, just plain appeared at that spot - and we haven't ever driven over that spot."
Story got even stranger when Opportunity investigated further. Squyres explained: "We are as we speak situated with the rover's instruments deployed making measurements of this rock.
"We've taken pictures of both the doughnut and jelly parts, and the got the first data on the composition of the jelly yesterday.
 It's like nothing we've ever seen before," he said. "It's very high in sulphur, it's very high in magnesium, it has got twice as much manganese as we've ever seen in anything on Mars.
"I don't know what any of this means. We're completely confused, and everyone in the team is arguing and fighting (over what it means).
"That's the beauty of this mission ... what I've realised is that we will never be finished. There will always be something tantalizing, something wonderful just beyond our reach that we didn't quite get to - and that's the nature of exploration."
Squyres was speaking at an event marking the 10th anniversary of the arrival of Opportunity and Spirit on the surface of Mars.
While Spirit lost contact with Earth and was later declared "dead" in 2010, Opportunity has now roamed the planet far in excess of what was originally planned as a three-month mission. Nasa said that with its maximum speed of just 0.05mph, as of "Sol 3547" (15 January 2014) Opportunity had covered just over 24 miles (38km).
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Comment
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Comment by Luke Skywalker on January 27, 2014 at 10:19pm -
Hi Drekx,
I understand it was not a fragment of ISON but my theory was it may have had something to do with ISON, in terms of an occurance after ISON appeared, like it manifested as a mystical object, a spiritual manifestation linked to the energy that ISON carried .. I cant find the right words to explain what I mean exactly ;-)
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Comment by rev.joshua skirvin on January 27, 2014 at 1:50pm -
Yes Nancy we do and the question is how did that rock get there, not by itself, somebody had to put it there huh ! Adonai
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Comment by rev.joshua skirvin on January 20, 2014 at 11:00am
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They ( NASA ) forgot to mention that it could have come from Comet/Ship Ison when it passed by last month so close to them or it could be a gift from our space brothers, saying Mery X-mas, we are here. What do you think? Adonai
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