MER-B First images in!!

....And the terrain looks a *LOT* flatter than all the other previous
sites, too!

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

In article ,
om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy... _facility.org says...
...And the terrain looks a *LOT* flatter than all the other previous
sites, too!

Flatter, and weirder, too. Steve Squyres says he won't even
attempt an analysis yet; he's never seen anything like it.

Unlike Gusev, you can really see where the airbags bounced.
Much different soil composition, then.

And unlike any other Mars landing site, I don't see any loose
rocks.

This will be a very interesting site.

Diane

Diane Wilson wrote:

Flatter, and weirder, too. Steve Squyres says he won't even
attempt an analysis yet; he's never seen anything like it.


If you didn't know better, you'd say that that place dried up yesterday,
given what the soil looks like close up.
What the hell is this all about? Wind-blown soil shouldn't make patterns
that small and hard-edged, by a long shot...

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote...


Diane Wilson wrote:

Flatter, and weirder, too. Steve Squyres says he
won't even attempt an analysis yet; he's never
seen anything like it.


If you didn't know better, you'd say that that place
dried up yesterday, given what the soil looks like
close up.
What the hell is this all about? Wind-blown soil
shouldn't make patterns that small and hard-edged,
by a long shot...

Next time you're at the beach, take a snorkel and goggles and have a look
at the sand under the wave zone. In light oscilations of wash, small
defined little dunes form. When the big wave sweeps by, the definition is
erased and there remains more sweeping smooth-edged undulations. That is,
the surface texture is constantly changing. Mars' atmosphere is very
sparse and the wind direction is variable. And we don't know what the soil
particles are like... yet We'll soon know a lot more about what it
'should' be like.

- Peter

Pat Flannery wrote:

Diane Wilson wrote:

Flatter, and weirder, too. Steve Squyres says he won't even
attempt an analysis yet; he's never seen anything like it.


If you didn't know better, you'd say that that place dried up yesterday,
given what the soil looks like close up.
What the hell is this all about? Wind-blown soil shouldn't make patterns
that small and hard-edged, by a long shot...

Yup ... been to places like that, including Nambung National Park in
West Australia [1]. In fact, when I saw that first photo from MER-2 of
the close-up of the ground, it instantly struck me that that's what it
resembled. You might find coarse particulates, about 1cm to 5cm just
under the dust, all jumbled up, and then fine dust on top in rippled
patterns caused by wind (and very little else - even in Nambung it
doesn't rain an awful lot).

Mind you, in the case of Nambung (famous for its 'pinnacles') it was
formed by tree roots causing a change in the ground chemistry, which
after the trees vanished caused uneven erosion patterns including short
limestone rod-like formations (between 3 and 10cm long) which are the
reason for the weird patterns on the surface. With Mars, it would be an
entirely different particulate generating method, but the results look
strikingly similar.

Unless there were once trees on Mars and that white rocky outcrop is limestone...


[1] For more info, go to:
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/surf...ed/Nambung.jpg - this is
my own photo of the soil, the foreground is about 50cm across

Otherwise:
http://www.calm.wa.gov.au/national_p...h/nambung.html
http://www.alexbond.com.au/mattedpri...docs/mp32.html


David
--
per aspera ad astra

"Peter Smith" wrote in
:


Pat Flannery wrote...


Diane Wilson wrote:

Flatter, and weirder, too. Steve Squyres says he
won't even attempt an analysis yet; he's never
seen anything like it.



It is going to be beyond anything that we have seen yet I'll bet. Think
about it. Low atmospheric pressure means that only very light particles
can be suspended most of the time (but the wind can blow very fast). No
other erosion at all other than the slow expansion and contraction due to
diurnal heating to break stuff up and the very occasional meteor strike
to really stir the mix. NOt very interesting until you add billions of
years of time for stuff to slowly move around and settle in layers or
behind rocks or whatever, and you have something weird. Static
electricity or very small chemical attraction between fine particles and
their shapes is going to be important. The top layer is probably some
very fine cohesive powder with maybe a crust that has been scoured by the
wind. I hope that the rover is impervious to this stuff because it is
going to be all over everything before you know it. Lunar dust got all
over the Apollo equipment and inside the spacecraft; this stuff looks a
lot worse because the wind has "sorted" out the very fine particles for
us when we finally get there.

If you have not seen this article yet, here is an excellent site about
the findings from the Viking sites that is a very good read.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-425/contents.htm
Bryan

Looks to like it's sitting in a very subdued crater. From the 360 pan I'm
sure you can see its trail coming in and bouncing back down the other side.
Like it tried to make it out, but didn't have enough momentum, so it rolled
back into the middle of the crater.
The inside could be the same as the crater that Spirit is going to visit,
full of dust but smaller.
I predict that when it crawls out we shall see the familar site of 'loads of
rocks'

Mick.

"OM" om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote
in message ...
...And the terrain looks a *LOT* flatter than all the other previous
sites, too!

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

"fstops" wrote in message
...

It is going to be beyond anything that we have seen yet I'll bet. Think
about it. Low atmospheric pressure means that only very light particles
can be suspended most of the time (but the wind can blow very fast). No
other erosion at all other than the slow expansion and contraction due to
diurnal heating to break stuff up and the very occasional meteor strike
to really stir the mix. NOt very interesting until you add billions of
years of time for stuff to slowly move around and settle in layers or
behind rocks or whatever, and you have something weird. Static
electricity or very small chemical attraction between fine particles and
their shapes is going to be important. The top layer is probably some
very fine cohesive powder with maybe a crust that has been scoured by the
wind. I hope that the rover is impervious to this stuff because it is
going to be all over everything before you know it. Lunar dust got all
over the Apollo equipment and inside the spacecraft; this stuff looks a
lot worse because the wind has "sorted" out the very fine particles for
us when we finally get there.

Maybe it happened billions of years ago due to water and there's been no
appreciable action since.

In article ,
says...

"fstops" wrote in message
...

It is going to be beyond anything that we have seen yet I'll bet. Think
about it. Low atmospheric pressure means that only very light particles
can be suspended most of the time (but the wind can blow very fast). No
other erosion at all other than the slow expansion and contraction due to
diurnal heating to break stuff up and the very occasional meteor strike
to really stir the mix. NOt very interesting until you add billions of
years of time for stuff to slowly move around and settle in layers or
behind rocks or whatever, and you have something weird. Static
electricity or very small chemical attraction between fine particles and
their shapes is going to be important. The top layer is probably some
very fine cohesive powder with maybe a crust that has been scoured by the
wind. I hope that the rover is impervious to this stuff because it is
going to be all over everything before you know it. Lunar dust got all
over the Apollo equipment and inside the spacecraft; this stuff looks a
lot worse because the wind has "sorted" out the very fine particles for
us when we finally get there.

Maybe it happened billions of years ago due to water and there's been no
appreciable action since.

With soil that fine and Martian winds, there *should* have been some
action since ancient water. That's part of the puzzle.

Diane

Mick Hyde

Looks to like it's sitting in a very subdued crater. From the 360 pan I'm
sure you can see its trail coming in and bouncing back down the other side.
Like it tried to make it out, but didn't have enough momentum, so it rolled
back into the middle of the crater.



That would explain the long bounce/roll period nicely, wouldn't it?

Pat