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More Details About Mars Mystery Rock
First time accepted submitter GPS Pilot writes "Previous reports said the rock that suddenly appeared out of nowhere was merely 'the size of a jelly doughnut.' Now, a color image shows additional reasons for this metaphor: 'It's white around the outside, in the middle there's kind of a low spot that's dark red,' said lead scientist Steve Squyres. In the image, the object does stick out like a sore thumb amidst the surrounding orange rocks and soil. Its composition is 'like nothing we've ever seen before. It's very high in sulfur, it's very high in magnesium, it's got twice as much manganese as we've ever seen in anything on Mars.'"
.... See subject. I think the evidence speaks for itself.
Maybe it's not a rock...
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Dr. Squyres said the object is "like nothing we've ever seen before."
The Mars rovers have examined thousands of rocks. If this were just some random rock kicked into position by one of the rover's wheels, it's highly improbable that it would also be "like nothing we've ever seen before."
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Almost everyone has assumed that if aliens ever show up that it would be a big show: "We come in peace. Take us to your leader" Or, if not that, then something like, "We've been here watching for decades | hundreds | thousands of years." I don't think anyone ever considers it possible that an alien presence would be revealed by a prank to be followed by the intergalactic equivalent of Nelson's "Ha ha!" or "You guys are a hoot! You're our favorite 4D TV show!" Well, it beats being eaten.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Sometimes a rock is just a rock, could had ended there because winds, a chain reaction caused by the rover, even a small asteroid hitting the planet and spreading pebbles around is easier to happen than life forms moving it.
With 1/3 the gravity of Earth I can see typical 80 mph winds carrying something as small as a doughnut
http://saveie6.com/
some poor martian is trying to figure out how to snatch his breakfast without the camera seeing him...
How much magnesium/manganeese is in the metal the skycrane/parachute that delivered curiousity to mars was made out of?
The wind on Mars is not "strong" enough to move rocks on the surface. Even though winds on Mars can probably reach large speeds, the atmospheric density is so low, that the force the wind can impose on a rock is quite small. For instance, a wind of 10 meters per second (about 20 miles per hour) here on Earth produces a force which is four times stronger than does a 50 meter per second wind (a bit more than 100 miles per hour) on the surface of Mars. So, since a 20 mile per hour wind here on Earth does not generally move rocks about on the surface (though it does raise dust), the winds on Mars don't move rocks on the surface either.
Jim Murphy
Mars Pathfinder ASI/MET Science Team
Source: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/ask/atmosphere/Feel_of_Wind_on_Mars.txt
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
If any of your endeavors involve a 54.6 million km journey through space I'm sure you'll get your share of free marketing too.
That's easy. Just do them on another planet and you'll get all the publicity that you could ever want!
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
water on mars is not boring, nor would the discovery of microbal life
How much magnesium/manganeese is in the metal the skycrane/parachute that delivered curiousity to mars
Doesn't matter, because the Curiosity rover, and the Opportunity rover that discovered this object, are on opposite sides of the planet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_rover#Image_map_of_Mars_landings
Also, Opportunity has traveled 24 miles from its landing site. http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/status_opportunityAll.html
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
that eventually our existence as a species will depend upon having colonies there
wrong.
the most inhospitable places on earth are like paradise compared to mars. conditions on earth would need to get much, much worse before we'd break even. the root of our problem here is scarce resources. that's not going to magically go away on mars. it's going to be much, much worse. growing food? can't just walk outside and plant something. you have to find water, that's frozen under the surface, thaw it, and pipe it to the sealed, heated, and completely environmentally controlled habitat. even the simplest things we take for granted on earth are a massive complicated task.
if we can't make it here, we aren't going to make it there.
The folks at NASA are remotely controlling a roving "SUV" on a planet millions of miles away from us in a scientific effort to learn more about the Universe and our surroundings. Does this impact day-to-day life *right now*? No, of course not. Is it incredibly cool and deserve a spot on Slashdot's home page? Definitely. Are your endeavors even close to this scale of technological achievement? (I'll be the first to admit that my own endeavors, while important to me, don't rise to the level of technical coolness that would make for an interesting Slashdot story.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
FTFA:
"The other is that there's a smoking hole in the ground somewhere nearby and this is a piece of crater reject."
I think the word they were looking for is ejecta...
So this rock moved when we weren't looking at it... Do you realize what this means? It's a Weeping Angel! Get that rover out of there now! (But don't look away. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
It just boggles the mind how eager everyone is to go along with NASA's hype about the mission, to the point here of giving time here to the event of a rock getting popped up in the air by the Rover and landing upside down.
In fairness, people got almost as excited by a tunnel boring machine in Seattle hitting a forgotten pipe.
From religion to aliens to ghost-hunters, people just want to find something that suggests that, in this mind-bogglingly large universe, our species doesn't count as the sole intelligence.
On the one hand, that would technically make us really quite special - Unique, even. On the other, it makes us special to nobody and nothing except ourselves. And our dogs, but I don't think they'll do any better than we will when our sun eventually goes nova.
So yeah, spooky rocks. I'll take obsessing about that, over going home and slowly drinking myself to death day after day for 40 years until society has no more use for my body and they let me "enjoy" my final arthritis-ridden decade.
"Ich bin ein Berliner" - First Contact
I was referring to any problems of global catastrophe like the Earth being hit by a big rock, which will eventually happen. The long term survival of humans will require us to expand into the galaxy, presumably starting with Mars.
Have gnu, will travel.
If only I could get that kind of free marketing for my own endeavors.
Once you are capable of sending robots to mars, we can talk.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCARADb9asE
God bless the atheists!
if you meant mars, because it'd be a learning experience, then yes.
if you meant mars because it might be more hospitable than a future earth, then no. earth could be hit by a big rock and would still be far more hospitable than mars.
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=7708&st=345
These are some picture posted there:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=31925
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=31954
science baffles scientist,still.
I dunno, Mars was pretty balmy compared to Chicago the other day...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Just Michael Valentine Smith throwing rocks at the rover.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
An "extinction" event
wouldn't wipe out all human life here
Orly? Dictionary says otherwise.
Oh come on... we all know that the mission controllers got bored and told the rover to do a few donuts when nobody was looking!
Hell, you're hundreds of millions of miles from home -- there are no police -- who's going to give you a ticket for a bit of "sustained loss of traction" in the company's rover? :-)
Then.... bugger! Forgot about the camera! Duh!
The rover rolled over the rock, in doing so it flipped the rock up into one of the wheel wells, it rolled in the well as the rover moved forward until it rolled out and into it's new resting place. Mystery solved.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
I'll put my money on it's being a discus lost in the last Olympics when a female Russian threw one so hard it left the stadium.
the rock that suddenly appeared out of nowhere was merely 'the size of a jelly doughnut.'
Really? Hadn't anyone given thought to the fact that it might actually BE a strawberry jelly doughnut? So just what DOES a jelly doughnuts look like after months of hardened vacuum while bombarded by cosmic rays? I'm just glad it still wasn't in a "Krispy Kreme" wrapper.
... there's a back fender, too.
I mean, come on -- the guys that build the rover are all geeks and nerds, right? Show me one of those who doesn't like doughnuts. Now they're stuck working in a clean room for hours and hours, with nothing to eat or drink. Wouldn't you get hungry after a while too? And realize these are smart guys who could easily bypass the security entry systems. Now, just imagine that someone stayed up late one night (like THAT'S inconceivable?), snuck in their snack like usual, but forgot about it.
Plus, can you imagine the conversation: Wally: Umm, boss, about that "rock" that fell off the rover's front fender; well, you see
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
News Alert. Authorities in California are raiding Justin Bieber's home looking for evidence through his security videos of him throwing rocks at the Mars Rover Opportunity.
The only way to be absolutely sure that the rock was "flipped" by the wheel, is to run it over again (and again, and again) and see where it goes. I personally don't think it's likely. So it's either the result of vulcanism, or it's a meteor.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If you look in the photo provided by CNN in the article, look at the rock which casts a shadow near the top left corner of the photo.
That same rock is there in the newer photo with the donut-rock. Now, just look down a little bit and slight right you will see a darker spot that wasn't that dark in the earlier picture and it appears to cast a shadow. Therefore, there are more rocks (at least two) that weren't there before.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
... our solar neigbourhood turned out to be, so that all we need to get all excited is an unsual rock. With all of the endevaours to reach those places, starting with the Sputnik, I find them very exciting, just as I find the results very depressing.
If you look at numerous images, you can tell what happened with basic physics. Before the "magic" rock shows up, there is an image of a small protrusion which is a bit pointy, let us call it "horn" shaped for ease in dialogue. You can also see after the "magic" rock hows up, this point is moved from it's original location and is facing a different direction. So the "horn" shaped rock could have tiddly winked the bigger rock we are calling the magical "jelly donut" or it could have been part of the same rock which broke under stress. Either way, the movement is easily explained without winds, or an asteroid. No insult intended in the use of the term "magic", just easier than typing 'unexplained' over and over.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
"Mom, the Mars Rover followed me home. Can I keep it?" asks the Martian kid while offering a jelly donut to the machine.
I have read that a simple explanation is wind, but it seems too simple. Why or why not could it have been wind? The surrounding area unchanged? Also, has the other mystery in space been solved yet concerning the water build up in the space station's astronaut's helmet?
Or better, God bless the aliens!
I've done a very quick animated gif: https://imgflip.com/gif/69vpc If you see the circled area, that looks like the area the rock has come from, probably flicked there by the front wheels?
Insert signature here...
In light of the observation that "in the middle there's kind of a low spot that's dark red", mission scientists now believe the mysterious object is not a jelly donut but, in fact, a danish.
Work is ongoing in order to determine whether it is raspberry or strawberry.
The whole thing is being shot in a Hollywood studio. A night janitor was goofing around with the set and didn't put things back properly. Happens all the time.
I do a lot of brickwork in my damp basement, and Efflorescence was the first thing that came to mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... .
a suitably "fluffy" pic
http://www.retrofittingcalifor...
meh
Surely it is easy for image specialists to correlate the two images and correct for tilt, rotation, distance, contrast, brightness and color, and crop both images to their common areas. It would be much easier to analyse, and one could make blink overlays to spot any other differences. Looking at it this way is almost a waste of time.
If it moves again, KILL IT! (I grew up watching those movies...)
Wow that picture looks a lot more like a meteorite than I expected. I am not sure about the crater ejecta theory but it might well be a rock which hit the ground at terminal velocity and bounced off the rover. Objects like the rover would tend to accumulate little objects like stones around them becuse they get in the way of bouncing objects. This happens a lot on the moon where big rocks have little scree sloped of debris around them.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Man, that Lard Lad. . . one helluva throwing arm.
Why assume God did it? It looks like Dunkin Doughnuts was responsible. Or Mars law enforcement.
Kythe
Our past? Quite a broad topic for this short conversation, but we'll share a key piece of our history with you.
...Or should we just go back into the forest and kick back and enjoy ourselves knowing that a Zebranky wasn't gonna jump out of a bush and eat us!
After we killed off the last Zebranky we faced an interesting dilemma.
Should we proceed, and establish a culture which would advance in art, technology and social sophistication?...
Well, we DID go back into the forest.
We stayed there for about five thousand years and had a great time
Then, one stormy day, a Zoq, a Fot, and a Pik were walking up a steep path looking for something good to eat, when a bolt of lightning struck nearby.
With a huge flash of light, the bolt of energy carved a strangely-shaped chunk of granite out of a cliff.
It was a disk, with a hole in the middle!
As the rock began to roll down the hill, toward the three terrified beings some dry grass got caught in its hole, and since the rock was still hot the grass caught on fire.
When the rock finally got to the Zoq, the Fot, and the Pik they simultaneously discovered the Wheel, Fire, and Religion thus catapulting them on to the road of progress.
Which has led us to this day, Captain.
Oh! How did the flaming wheel give religion to our Culture, you ask?
I will explain.
You see, when it got to the threesome, the flaming wheel was going at a pretty good clip and it ran smack into the Zoq, killing him.
The Fot and the Pik felt so bad... they really liked that Zoq!... that they decided the Zoq hadn't really died when the wheel flattened him; he had just gone to `a better place.'
Presumably one without lethal flaming wheels.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Red spore duststorms anyone?
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
A bit of dry ice forms in a crack in a stone and stays below freezing for a day or a million years before a rover tyre moves some soil and exposes it to the heat of the sun. The dry ice sublimates but instead of earth water's slow process of expanding and cracking a rock, sublimated dry ice occasionally pops a rock shard quite a long distance. Like pop-rocks.
Pop rock manufacture (from Wikipedia): The candy is made by mixing its ingredients and heating them until they melt into a syrup, then exposing the mixture to pressurized carbon dioxide gas (about 600 pounds per square inch or 40 bar) and allowing it to cool. The process causes tiny high-pressure bubbles to be trapped inside the candy.
follow on missions are planned to look for that
Everyone keeps mentioning Star Trek, I'm disappointed no-one has mentioned the telepathic rocks from Blake 7 who could move to follow the sun.
Now all we need to do is find a telepath and get them to Mars to ask the rock what it wants.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
That's hilarious. Post was downmodded because I mentioned the 19th century Mormon's habit of stealing everything not nailed down, in accordance with their Doctrine of the Consecration of Goods.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin