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Rover Accidentally Uncovers Mars Hydrothermal Vent
The rover Spirit has been dragging one wheel around the surface of Mars for some time. One of the resulting gouges revealed a mineral deposit which was probably caused by a hydrothermal vent. This implies a large amount of water was present when the vent was active.
Very Cool Indeed.
:) Countdown is currently at 1day, 15 hrs...
Lets hope the Phoenix Lander finds something too
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Even it's broken dragging wheel makes informative discoveries on the Martian surface. The Mars rovers are surely one of our most successful robotic missions ever. Kudos to JPL and NASA and the American Congress for keeping to fund these missions. Let's all keep our fingers crossed for the Phoenix lander this Sunday - landing is at approximately 5PM EST this Sunday on NASA TV.
Oh my... so many possibilities for "accidentally uncovers thermal vent" come to mind. God knows I'm going to try and make some sort of joke and at least one girl I know is going to slap me. I suppose you can't really worry too much about the inevitable though...
It is certainly amazing that the rover is still running well after original mission end date and altogether amusing that, much like most other brilliant advances in science, the hydrothermal vent evidence was discovered completely by accident.
Chance; 'the powers that be'; chaos; coincidence; divine intervention; flying spaghetti monster or just the universes' subversive perverse version of humour; you get the feeling that if it weren't for an infinite amount of insanely improbable accidents, not only science but life as we know it just wouldn't have happened.
Come to think of it, The *Big Bang* probably happened because Chaos and God were up in God's room with Chaos' new chemistry set and they were arguing over who got to light the Bunsen burner when they accidentally knocked the "NEW INSTANT UNIVERSE!" out of the box and onto the floor.
(read instructions carefully. some assembly required. very fragile. may explode if dropped. do not unpack near open flame, spark or antimatter. Batteries not included. your results may vary. not responsible for damages incurred by improper implementation of instructions. universe may be damaged by improper handling. )
They were probably grounded for 240,000 years.
-Magdalene --"there are 10 types of people in the world, those who read binary, and those who don't"
Come on, Editors. This is big Geek news. Surely this deserves an expanded box on the main page and not just a single freaking line.
(or is that just the way it looks with my preferences? I'll accept brick-bats if I've done something stupid. However...)
"If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" --Voltaire
While these rovers are pretty cool, they really do not contain that much equipment. In addition, once landed, they really do not travel that far. Instead, we would be better served with either a unique airplane or a balloon model. While they are testing the airplane idea, I would think that unless the wings can fold up, that when the infamous mars storms hit, that it will be all over. The balloon idea has the advantage of being able to fold up tight, but it can not be as easily controlled. One idea that I saw out there was to release 5-10 balloons with cameras and no ability to land. Right now, MRO has a camera that sees .3M, but an inexpensive camera on the balloon, should be able to take that much smaller due to height and far less atmosphere.
Quite honestly, the rovers are simple extensions of pathfinder, but we now need a combination of large jumps for spot checks and the ability to do a lot more science. The balloon approach would give us the ability to jump with small tests, while the MSL will be the logical outcome of the rovers combined with polar express. The biggest item that will come from the polar express will simply be the landing under power.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Would they even work on Mars? The pressure is less than 1/1000th that of the Earth, or the same pressure as over 30 miles up on Earth. The U-2 spy plane only flew about 13 miles high and the SR-71 only reaches 15 miles. High-altitude weather balloons don't get much over 20 miles up I don't think. While the decreased gravity on Mars might help with the plane idea, would it help with the balloon? Just curious, but wouldn't the decreased gravity adversely affect the buoyancy as much as it would help by making the payload lighter?
You all know this occurred a whole year ago, right? Compare the pictures in the linked article to the pictures in the article linked to by this slahdot article from May 21, 2007...
The article itself links to an article from a year ago:
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Spirit_Rover_on_Mars_finds_water_made_'silica-rich_soil'
It's taken a year for the paper to be published in Science, along with more evidence of other silica outcrops.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080522145222.htm
Original sources:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/320/5879/1063
http://www.mars.asu.edu/news/news-silica.html
Right now, they wouldn't learn anything, because they would be dead. If NASA is dicking around with anything, it would be the ISS. Haul that low orbit pile of resources into a much more stable orbit, and then use it for parts/construction platform for a station with centrifugal gravity and as close to a closed ecosystem as we can manage. Until we improve those technologies, to the level of near permanent space habitats, then multi-year space exploration will be the sole domain of robots.
We are all just people.
...if we break enough rover parts, we'll discover the cure for cancer.
Table-ized A.I.