[meteorite-list] Paydirt at 8-Year-Old Mars Rover's 'New Landing Site'

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-124

Paydirt at 8-Year-Old Mars Rover's 'New Landing Site'
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
May 03, 2012

A report in the May 4 edition of the journal Science details 
discoveries Opportunity made in its first four months at the rim of Endeavour 
Crater, including key findings reported at a geophysics conference in 
late 2011.

Opportunity completed its original three-month mission on 
Mars eight years ago. It reached Endeavour last summer, three years after 
the rover's science team chose Endeavour as a long-term destination. This 
crater is about 4 billion years old and 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter.

The impact that excavated the crater left a jumble of fused-together rock 
fragments around the rim. In a chunk brought to the surface by a later, 
much smaller impact into the rim, Opportunity found evidence that the 
original impact released heated, underground water that deposited zinc 
in that rock. Later after the impact, cool water flowed through cracks 
in the ground near the edge of the crater and deposited veins of the mineral 
gypsum.

"These bright mineral veins are different from anything seen 
previously on Mars, and they tell a clear story of water flowing through 
cracks in the rocks," said Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, 
N.Y. He is the principal investigator for Opportunity and lead author 
of the new report by 27 researchers. "From landing until just before reaching 
the Endeavour rim, Opportunity was driving over sandstone made of sulfate 
grains that had been deposited by water and later blown around by the 
wind. These gypsum veins tell us about water that flowed through the rocks 
at this exact spot. It's the strongest evidence for water that we've ever 
seen with Opportunity."

For the past four months, the solar-powered rover 
has been working at one outcrop on the Endeavour rim, called Greeley Haven. 
Reduced daylight during the Martian winter, and accumulated dust on the 
rover's solar array, have kept energy too low for driving.

"The days are now growing longer, and the sun is moving higher in the sky at 
Endeavour Crater. We expect Opportunity to resume driving in the next two months 
and continue exploring other parts of the crater's rim," said Mars Exploration 
Rover Project Manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 
Pasadena, Calif.

Researchers hope to get Opportunity to one of the deposits 
of clay minerals that have been detected in Endeavour's rim by observations 
from orbit. These minerals could be evidence of a non-acidic wet phase 
of the region's environmental history.

"Exploring Endeavour Crater is like having a new landing site," said JPL's 
Timothy Parker, a co-author of the new report. "That's not just because of 
the difference in the geology here compared to what we saw during most of 
the first eight years, but also because there's a whole vista before us 
inviting much more exploration."

Opportunity and its rover twin, Spirit, completed their three-month prime missions 
on Mars in April 2004. Both rovers continued for years of bonus, extended 
missions. Both have made important discoveries about wet environments 
on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial 
life. Spirit stopped communicating in 2010. 

NASA launched the next-generation Mars rover, car-size Curiosity of the Mars 
Science Laboratory mission, on Nov. 26 for arrival at Mars' Gale Crater in 
August 2012. 

Landing successfully is quite a challenge, and the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity 
mission pioneers a new landing method to enable use of a heavier rover. 
Curiosity is about twice as long and more than five times as heavy as 
any previous Mars rover.  Its size and mass accommodate a science payload 
designed to study whether the landing region has had environmental conditions 
favorable for supporting microbial life, including chemical ingredients 
for life.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in 
Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project and Mars Science 
Laboratory Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. 
More information about Opportunity is online at  http://www.nasa.gov/rovers 
and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov .  You can follow the project on Twitter 
at http://twitter.com/MarsRovers  and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/marsrovers . 


Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2012-124