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Spirit Grinds Adirondack, Looks for Iron

Posted by Hemos on from the mining-for-scienc-e dept.

Quantum Jim writes "Space.com reported on Friday that Spirit used its Rock Abrasion Tool against a Martian rock dubbed Adirondack. Although the rover spent three hours grinding the rock, it was only skinned by about 2.7 mm. Scientists say this is due to an unexpected amount of resistance. Spirit is currently standing by for ground contollers to deactivate a safety feature so it can be repositioned"

4 of 28 comments (clear)

  1. Lack of interest? by tiled_rainbows · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does the fact that, at the time of writing, the only post in this thread is about asci cow porn indicate that people are getting bored with all this Mars stuff?

    I hope not, but speaking personally, I'm finding it hard to get excited (about the rock-grinding, not the cow porn. I mean, that doesn't excite me either, I was just saying, in case anyone misinterpreted me).

    --

    evil math within Nature's Cubic Creation!
  2. eh... by deglr6328 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    While Spirit's drilling of an igneous rock is kindof interesting, it's (IMHO) comparatively dull when contrasted with Opportunity's microscopic images of the sedimentary rock at the Meridiani location. The layers could have been formed by sedimentation at the bottom of a lake or by volcanic ash being succesively deposited by eruptions, we should know within a day or two when the APXS and Moessbauer spectrometer reveal the chemical makeup of the rocks.

    --
    - "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
  3. Missing raw images by Frans+Faase · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It seems NASA themselves are also getting lousy with putting all the raw images on the website. I get the feeling that some are missing. Are they affraid of others putting the color images together before they do themselves?

  4. Microspheres by bluyonder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I noticed that two of the micro images from Opportunity had overlapping coverage so I added them together into a red/blue anaglyph. Take a look here. (sorry Chris)