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Martian Meteorite Gets NASA Mars Rover's Attention

Posted by samzenpus on from the would-you-look-at-that dept.

coondoggie writes "NASA's Mars rover Opportunity will take a small detour on its current journey to check out what could be a toaster-sized iron-based meteorite that crashed into the Red Planet. NASA scientists called the rock 'Oileán Ruaidh,' which is the Gaelic name for an island off the coast of northwestern Ireland. The rock is about 45 centimeters (18 inches) wide from the angle at which it was first seen on September 16."

23 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Something is missing by Stumbles · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If that is a meteorite, then where is the crater?

    --
    My karma is not a Chameleon.
    1. Re:Something is missing by gsslay · · Score: 2, Informative

      In the ground, which is at an angle in this photograph that would either put it out of sight, or off frame?

    2. Re:Something is missing by maxwells_deamon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Lots of material spashes out of an impact. Also many small meteorites do not make craters, A thin atmosphere may help.

    3. Re:Something is missing by tokul · · Score: 5, Informative

      If that is a meteorite, then where is the crater?

      Destroyed by winds and soil erosion.

    4. Re:Something is missing by masshuu · · Score: 5, Informative

      http://michaelscomments.wordpress.com/2006/11/19/meteorite-hits-car/
      Look at the size of that rock. It didn't make a crater the size of a house, all it did was add an easy access hole to someones trunk. And roof.
      I imagine by the time a rock that size passes through the atmosphere and survives, its moving slow enough to rebound off the surface, or, in this case, get stopped by a car.

      --
      O.o
    5. Re:Something is missing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      A) it's small. Small meteorites don't make much of a crater because their velocity is slowed much more than larger meteorites
      B) the area that Opportunity is visiting has experienced substantial erosion on the bedrock surface, such that even if it did make a small dent in the surface, it could be eroded away by now. More durable rock types (such as the iron-nickel meteorites found previously, and also the hematite "blueberry" concretions that litter the surface) tend to accumulate on the surface as the softer rock is worn away. It's what geologists call a lag deposit.

      Incidentally, Opportunity has already moved a closer to the rock in question. The picture in the article was taken on Sol 2363, and there are now pictures downloaded to Sol 2367, such as this one, and this one. The higher-resolution "Panoramic Camera" images aren't fully downloaded, but you can see the edge of the rock. Looks like the next download pass they should have some pretty good shots. Check the "raw images" page for the Opportunity Rover in the next couple of days and there should be plenty of closer shots.

    6. Re:Something is missing by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You seem know nothing about trig and astrophysics so your assertions are completey bollocks. I can come up with at last 50 scenarios where that rock can simply plop there from space slow enough to make a smallish crater, bounce out and lay on the surface. And I only took classes up to the 101 level.

      Are you assuming that everything in space has millions of miles per hour relative velocities? You know the soil composition of that location?
      Are you telling me that if it came in a very shallow angle it could not get any aerobraking? Strange.... as NASA thinks it can, and I am absolutely certain they know a WHOLE LOT MORE than you do on the subject.

      Also given the gravity well strength of Mars, if that rock was simply captured because it was lazily floating about at only a couple hundred miles an hour, it's impact would be a low energy impact due to relative velocities calculated by any acceleration from mars's gravity well. These are only off the cuff in the head calculations. I'll leave it to you to crack out the calculator or mathlab and give us exact numbers. please calculate out at least 10 reentry angles and show us how you are right and NASA is wrong.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    7. Re:Something is missing by spydink · · Score: 2, Informative

      A) There is not that much Martian atmosphere to slow the "meteorite" to the point a "soft landing" and I can see no re-entry rockets on said rock; so your reasoning is bollocks.

      In the BBC series Wonders of the Solar System, this type of non-crater-producing Martian meteorite is used as possible evidence that Mars had a thicker atmosphere in the distant past when these meteorites impacted. It was in the Thin Blue Line episode if I remember correctly.

      --
      Always be sincere, whether you mean it or not.
    8. Re:Something is missing by blair1q · · Score: 2, Informative

      Rocks coming from space arrive at speeds from slightly less than escape velocity to much more than escape velocity*. A rock following the planet in a similar orbit may enter the planet's gravity well at a speed relatively near to 0, but by the time it hits atmosphere the relative speed will be very high. And a rock falling towards the sun on an elongated elliptical orbit that intersects the Earth's will be going extremely fast at the point it reaches the atmosphere.

      The incident angle is more of a factor here. A direct descent through 100 km of progressively increasing density of air will have only a few seconds to decelerate and will make a much bigger dent than a grazing trajectory that goes through hundreds or thousands of km of atmosphere, losing speed sometimes to the point it's at terminal velocity. Although terminal velocity for a solid hunk of iron is going to be several hundred kph at least, which would make it as destructive as a cannonball.

      If the meteor explodes due to atmospheric heating, pieces can go in any direction with any speed from the point of the explosion, so it might be possible for a rock to have a fairly small speed on impact with the ground.

      But more likely the case for the martian meteorite here is that it hit at an oblique angle and bounced and rolled to where it sits now. Follow its track back and you'll likely find a fair sized hole that may or may not be round (impact craters are funny in that they come out round for a wide range of angles of impact).

      * - Escape velocity for Earth is 11 km/s (about 25k mph).

  2. Oileán Ruaidh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Oileán Ruaidh translates to red island.

    1. Re:Oileán Ruaidh by benwiggy · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oileán Ruaidh translates to red island.

      "Oileán Ruaidh" is pronounced "red island". FTFY.

  3. This sounds familiar... by ctrl-alt-canc · · Score: 2

    I bet that it is a meteorite that was ejected from the Earth due to a comet impact, and that reached Mars after a long journey bringing with itself traces of life.

    1. Re:This sounds familiar... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Mars->Earth is comparatively easy because Mars has much lower gravity and (nowadays) has quite a thin atmosphere. I'm not sure Earth->Mars is even physically possible. It would certainly be many, many times less likely.

      In any case, out of the many thousands of meteorites found on Earth, less than a dozen are known from Mars. So it's very unlikely that the few examples that Opportunity has found are anything other than the usual bits and pieces from collisions in the asteroid belt. The iron-nickel nature of the ones found so far is consistent with such an interpretation. Iron-nickel ones are from broken-up asteroids where the process of chemical and density differentiation caused the iron-nickel to sink towards the core of the asteroid, and then it was smashed by collision -- you can't get iron-nickel meteorites by blasting at the surface of Mars or Earth because iron-nickel isn't exposed on the surface, it's deep in the core of the planets.

  4. Re:Oileán Ruaidh = "ay-lan ruah" by fantomas · · Score: 2, Funny

    A bit like "ay-lan ruah" apparently but yes, let us know if we're supposed to prounce that in an Irish accent, an American accent, or a Martian accent..... ;-)

  5. Re:Why? by Notlupus · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well the Opportunity Rovers initial mission was supposed to last 90 sols (1 sol = 1 day on Mars), and it has so far functioned for over 2200 sols, so anything interesting they can do with it they will just go for.

  6. Re:Why? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A rock which has been somewhere else can tell you about conditions at its source, and along the path it took to its present location. It makes sense to investigate rocks like this now because Opportunity may not live much longer. Best to take the opportunities (yeah) as they come.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  7. Bad naming scheme by Mathinker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    > NASA scientists called the rock 'Oileán Ruaidh,' which is the Gaelic name for an island off the coast of northwestern Ireland

    Can't NASA scientists think ahead a little bit to make the future a safer place? GPS manufacturers of the year 2437 are gonna be pissed when their customers end up on Mars while trying to fly to Ireland...

  8. Typical by The_mad_linguist · · Score: 4, Funny

    Typical, just typical. We spend all this time and money going to an exotic location to see the sights, but once we're there you want to spend all this time looking through the imported kitsch.

  9. Re:Why? by Lumpy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have here a server that cost well over $450,000 new and I use it only to run Quake 3 tourneys after work.

    Using worn out hardware to do other work is simply smart. the rovers are worn out, hell it's a engineering miracle they are still operating. have you SEEN photos of how dust covered they are?

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Mars_Spirit_rover's_solar_panels_covered_with_Dust_-_October_2007.jpg

    this was in 2007, it now has 3 more years of dirt and dust on them.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  10. Oileán Ruaidh? by zrbyte · · Score: 2, Funny
    Sounds like Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn to me.

    Maybe the GREAT ONE lives on Mars.

  11. Keep on chugg'n by oracle_of_power · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What really is amazing is that the rovers only had a design life of 90days and they are still going after several years.

    --
    Arctic Turtle
  12. Re:It's a teabagging fest! Get yer sacks unlimbere by radtea · · Score: 2, Interesting

    We don't know that it didn't bounce or roll there- no telling when it got there, the planetary conditions at the time it arrived- maybe Mars had a thicker atmosphere then, whether it impacted there or is it just a fragment of something else that landed there.

    This is the amusing bit: the dweebs here who assume that the only way a piece of rock from space ever winds up on a planetary surface is to come crashing straight down into the atmosphere and drill a deep hole without any fragmentation or ejecta.

    I guess they are ignorant of the entire class of meteorites found on Earth that are believed to be ejecta from Martian impacts. Or they are too stupid to realize that if a rock can hit Mars hard enough that fragments sometimes wind up on Earth, maybe a few of the fragments might just possibly hit Mars at far distant locations.

    Man /. is depressing this morning. The parade of arrogant ignorance on display here these days is really something to see.

    --
    Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
  13. Re:18'' by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 2, Funny

    Toaster-sized at 18''? That's a quite a toaster...

    To be fair, the standard SI toaster was defined in 1897, when toasters were a novel luxury item and generally much larger due to the newness of the technology. The original standard toaster, made of solid iridium, is still kept in a vault in Paris.

    In 1992, the standard toaster was redefined with dimensions based on the wavelength of a particular spectral line of light given off by a nichrome toaster heating element heated to exactly 1044 K.