[meteorite-list] NASA Rover Finds Meteorite on Surface of Mars

[MexicoDoug at aol.com]

Oops, make that 150 million square km.  So  3 billion iron and 60 billion 
DIFFERENT stone.  There is hope after ANSMET  and Morocco:)

En un mensaje con fecha 01/18/2005 6:25:08 PM Mexico  Standard Time, 
MexicoDoug at aol.com escribe:
Charly, List,

Mars has a  surface area of around 50 million square  kilometers.  So, if the 
 
Red Rover has done a small fraction of a kilometer  around the Valley  and we 
scale it up, I'd say about a billion of the metal ones,  and  then another 12 
billion stonies.  (Sagan billions, not British   ones).  But so far all we 
know 
is that it is there is one on the   planet.  Statistics...can be 
misleading...but my jaw also  fell!!!

Did anyone notice this statement in the  article:
>Scientists are not  interested in the meteorite  itself.
Ouch!!!!  So what are we, chopped  liver?  And that  meteorite???

It's a coverup.  What a ratty  RAT...
They need  some of you veteran cutters on staff at NASA, right Al. Al,  Bill, 
 
Bill, Jim, Jim, Jaime, John, Michel, Marvin, Marcin, Mike, Andi, and  the  
rest 
of all you who I really would mention if I just knew...Guys  do your  
patriotic duty and give the next rover a hand.  Or a  paw
Saludos,  Doug

En un mensaje con fecha 01/18/2005 6:05:34 PM  Mexico Standard Time,  
cviau at beld.net escribe:
There must be  thousands, if not millions of them just  sitting on the
surface.   Just imagine the odds.  This rover, for  all the distance it  has
traveled, barely measures a walk in the park, and it  comes across  a
basketball size iron meteorite?     WOWZER.

CharlyV

-----Original Message-----
From:   meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com]   On Behalf Of Ron Baalke
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 6:51 PM
To:   Meteorite Mailing List
Subject: [meteorite-list] NASA Rover Finds  Meteorite  on Surface of   Mars



http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/politics/10674958.htm   

NASA rover finds meteorite on surface of Mars
JOHN   ANTCZAK
Associated Press
January 18, 2005

LOS ANGELES - In a  stroke  of luck, the NASA rover Opportunity has
discovered a  basketball-size metal  meteorite sitting on the surface of
Mars, the  mission's main scientist said  Tuesday.

Opportunity came upon the  meteorite last week while it was  taking a look
at a spacecraft shell  that was jettisoned before landing  after
protecting the rover during  its plunge through the martian  atmosphere.

Tests performed during  the weekend confirm it is a  nickel-iron
meteorite, said Steve Squyres,  a Cornell University scientist who  is the
principal investigator for  NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers  mission.

"I didn't see this one  coming," Squyres said. "I try very hard  to
anticipate the things that  we might find and the things we might need  to
know, and be prepared for  things, but an iron meteorite was  not
something that I was  expecting."

Whether or not other meteorites  are found may help  scientists determine
whether the martian surface is being  covered by  wind-blown materials or
whether surface material is being stripped   away, Squyres said.

Opportunity landed Jan. 24 on the Meridiani  plains,  halfway around the
planet from where its twin, Spirit, set down  in the Gusev  Crater region
on Jan. 3, 2004.

Opportunity, a  six-wheeled robot  geologist, quickly discovered rocks
showing that its  area of Meridiani was  once soaked in water, the major
scientific  finding of the twin-rover mission.  After that it explored
rocks in a  deep crater and then went to conduct an  engineering study of
its  jettisoned heat shield. The meteorite was sitting  nearby.

"I've  actually told the team that we probably shouldn't linger  here  long
because this is obviously the place at Meridiani Planum where   large
metal objects fall from the sky," Squyres joked.

The  meteorite  immediately appeared different from anything scientists
had  seen at either  landing site.

"And then we looked at it with our  infrared spectrometer  and it looked
like the martian sky, which is  really weird," he said. The  metal
surface, he explained, was reflecting  sky radiation instead of  emitting
much of its own.

During the  weekend, the rover drove to the  meteorite and deployed its
instrument  arm to confirm its origin.

The  rover used its brush to remove dust  but did not try to grind into
the  meteorite with its rock abrasion tool  because of the outcome of a
test  conducted by the tool's maker,  Honeybee Robotics of Manhattan.

"We  contacted the meteorite  department at the American Museum of Natural
History  in New York and  they were generous enough to give us a piece of
nickel-iron  meteorite  to try grinding into, and in like an hour of
grinding we wore away   about 25 percent of the grinding heads," Squyres said.

"We designed  our  rock abrasion tool for rock. We didn't design it  for
nickel-iron  alloys."

Scientists are not interested in the  meteorite itself. Rather,  they want
to see if other objects spotted out  on the Meridiani plains are  also
meteorites and what that might tell  them about Mars.

"You've got  sort of a steady rain of meteorites on  to the martian
surface. It's at a very  slow rate, but they are going to  accumulate over
time." Squyres  said.

If sand is continually  blowing in and being deposited on the  surface,
burying things and  building up terrain over time, meteorites will  be
covered and few will  be seen, he said. But if fine surface material  is
being continuously  stripped away by the wind, coarse things  like
meteorites will be left  behind and their accumulation will  show.

"So whether you're seeing  a net accumulation or a net burial of  the
meteorites is going to tell  you something about what the erosion  or
deposition rates are out on the  plains," he   said.

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