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ZL2VAL > ROVERS 02.04.04 13:18l 137 Lines 5288 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 3D0718ZL2VAL
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Subj: Update, 1st April
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Sent: 040402/1058Z @:ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC #:38402 [New Plymouth] FBB7.00g
From: ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
To : ROVERS@WW
Spirit Backs Up Water Finding on 2nd Rock
By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 04:14 pm ET
01 April 2004
Only two days away from the end of its primary mission, NASA's Mars
rover Spirit has found more evidence that water once affected rocks
strewn across its Gusev Crater landing site.
Spirit's studies of a target called Mazatzal found it covered with
multiple coats of dust and flush with fractures containing material that
apparently settled when water flowed through the rock in the past.
Scientists do not have evidence that there was an ocean or lake at the
Spirit site as existed at the Opportunity rover site on the other side
of Mars.
Opportunity, meanwhile, has spent the last week poring over the only
large rock it can see in the plains of Meridiani Planum. It is a rock
the robot happened to crash into during its bouncy landing on the red
planet back in January.
The two rovers are approaching the end of their nominal 91-day mission,
Opportunity now in its 67th Martian day and Spirit into its 89th, and
planners for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project are gearing up for
an extended mission.
"Both spacecraft are going to last well into their long lifetime," said
Chris Lewicki, MER flight director, during a press briefing held at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Tale of two rocks
Unlike its twin Opportunity, Spirit has had a tough time piecing
together a history of water at Gusev Crater. But its Mazatzal studies
support previous hints of water seen in a previous rock target called
Humphrey.
"The rock is a basalt and clearly has been altered with fluids," said
Hap McSween, a rover science team member from University of Tennessee,
Knoxville. "It the most enticing hint yet about water here."
Basaltic rock is born of volcanism and is one of the most common rock
types on Earth.
Spirit used its mast and robot arm-mounted instruments to study
Mazatzal, including a number of rock abrasion tool session to uncover
the upper portions of the rock that were then studied by the rover's
microscopic imager.
Rover researchers said cracks in the rock's surface are still present
after drilling through multiple layers of Mazatzal, and they would be
good entry points for past water.
"They seem to be an area that water flowed through, potentially with
minerals that precipitated through and lined the crack walls," said
rover science team member Jeff Johnson.
What a Bounce!
At Meridiani Planum, Opportunity has spent the week obsessed with a
target called Bounce Mark Rock, aptly named because it lies in a bounce
mark left by the rover's airbags when the spacecraft landed.
"It looks like there was one rock out there in the plains and we managed
to hit it," said Jim Bell, lead scientist for the rover's panoramic camera.
Covered in dust and standing about 4 inches (10 centimeters) high, the
rock appears to be the first candidate for a truly basaltic rock seen by
Opportunity, MER scientists said, adding that parts of the rock appear
to contain the volcanic types of material more commonly detected at
Gusev Crater.
Bounce Mark's encounter with Opportunity may have also left a scar.
"The whole rock may have been moved by the impact," Bell said, adding
that signs of the impact appear in the cracked and crusty soil around
the rock's base. "That rock had a very interesting day on Jan. 24 when
we came flying to it."
The impact with Bounce Mark may have even pitched Opportunity into Eagle
Crater, where it eventually rolled to a stop and began a most fortuitous
few weeks of exploration, scientists said.
Possible sign of age
Earlier this week, Opportunity had problems with some command sequences
written to a portion of its non-volatile EEPROM memory and took that
area offline.
"It didn't impact our science operations at all and we were able to
recover the memory," Lewicki said, adding that the glitch was different
than the flash memory malfunction that afflicted the Spirit rover
earlier in its mission. "We understand the problem completely now and
safeguards are in place."
It is possible, Bell added, that the malfunction was the first sign of
age by Opportunity.
But the rover was able recently to send the largest amount of data ever
relayed home by a MER robot, and is currently in the process of sending
scientists the largest panoramic image taken of Mars. Dubbed the Lion
King, the panorama of Meridiani Planum seen from the edge of Eagle
Crater is a patchwork of 558 images taken in eight parts over two days,
and sucks up much of the rover's onboard flash memory.
In the next two weeks, ground controllers plan to unleash Opportunity on
long haul drives across the flat expanse of Meridiani Planum to a crater
dubbed Endurance.
Spirit, however, is being prepared for a 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) run to
Columbia Hills, where scientists hope it will find more evidence of
water in the rock face.
=========================
73 de Alan, (Sysop ZL2AB).
AX25:ZL2VAL@ZL2AB.#46.NZL.OC
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Message timed: 22:52 on 2004-Apr-02 (NZT)
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Points to ponder
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marriage
~~~~~~~~
How do most men define marriage? A very expensive way to get your laundry
done for free.
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