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Curiosity Finds Volcanic Soils
Zothecula writes "NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has completed its first soil analysis of the Red Planet. The unmanned explorer used an advanced, miniaturized X-ray diffraction instrument that is part of the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument (CheMin) of its internal laboratory. The soil, collected at a site designated 'Rocknest' in Gale Crater, reveals that Martian soil is a weathered volcanic type similar to soils found in the Hawaiian Islands."
And, of course, a shot of the area because it looks cool.
I really hope that Curiosity finds a Martian cat one day.
Ezekiel 23:20
Martian soil is a weathered volcanic type similar to soils found in the Hawaiian Islands
Now all it needs is air pressure, oxygen, water, more sunlight, an ozone layer, a magnetic field, arable soil, flora, and fauna--and we can live there no problem!
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Wow, evidence that there were once active volcanoes on Mars, who would have guessed that...
I think Olympus Mons is bigger than Hurricane Sandy, although it probably didn't affect anybody on this planet.
It's not like anyone would expect to find a lot of sedimentary or organic minerals on mars.
A lot of the dirt we see on Earth, is made from decayed plant material, even normal beach (non-volcanic) sand on our beaches are made up of a lot of crustacean shells. Even with some water chances are Mars is lifeless, if there is live it wouldn't be as plentiful. So the soil would be mostly volcanic like.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Martian atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide. Plants like carbon dioxide. Now we just have to plant enough macadamia and pineapple plants to start terraforming and produce oxygen. :-)
Probably something between the two.
They should take some HDR multi-exposures and show that off :)
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
They are in the commissioning phase for the instruments. They chose to sample this location precisely because it looked like it would be a fairly ordinary volcanic sand. They say in the press release that it's more or less what they were expecting. They weren't expecting big surprises, just confirmation that the instruments do indeed seem to be working.
They will have more interesting sedimentary rocks to sample once they move on to new sites. In fact, some finely-layered, probably sedimentary bedrock outcrop can be seen on the other side of the gully to the northeast of where the rover is now, in the direction they are planning to head next (the telescopic zoom on the mastcams is awesome!). I think the short-term plan is to drill some of those outcrops and run them through the chemical and other analyses. Then they'll probably turn around and head south to look at the main outcrops on the mountain in the middle of Gale Crater, but that's probably a month or two away at least.
What, and we should just assume the expectations are correct? It's always better to know for sure. The reaction from the people interviewed seems to be "Yep, pretty much exactly as we expected". That doesn't mean it was a waste of time, that means they can be even more sure that their models and predictions are right. There's no point in basing a later hypothesis on data which you haven't actually proven: you risk spending years of time and huge sums of money barking up the wrong tree.
I found the links to various terrestrial applications of the x-ray diffraction technology to be quite interesting. Portable or just more compact lab equipment based on this could be quite useful.
Who knows? We may soon be able to run a sample through one of these and see what Slashdot editors have been smoking.
Have gnu, will travel.
Your brain color-adjusts all the time. Back in the film camera days, there was indoor film and outdoor film. If you used outdoor film indoors the colors came out way too warm/yellowish, if you used indoor film outdoors the photo would come out way too blueish/cool. The colors as shown by the film are what the actual colors were, but your brain adapts and changes the colors to "normal".
Free Martian Whores!
Martian soil contains volcanic residue, and Strawberry Tang, that is why its red.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Me too. Blows my mind; now and then I find myself suddenly thinking: oh yeah, there's a frickin ROBOT on another PLANET right frickin NOW! It is incredibly cool.
That, and voyager passing the heliosphere. That is in some ways the number one human physical achievement.
Tt cost 400 Million, so around 1 dollar and 30 cents.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Too bad you weren't around (I assume) when Neil Armstrong first stepped on to the Moon. We were glued to TV that day. That was even harder to believe at the time. Telstar 1, the first satellite to beam live television from Europe to the US was only launched 7 years before that.