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Mars Curiosity Rover - Mission Progress
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tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
Having translated Carl Sagan's COSMOS in Italian, I remember a similar feeling of Sagan. These are his words: I remember being transfixed by the first lander image to show the horizon of Mars. This was not an alien world, i thought. I knew places like it in Colorado and Arizona and Nevada. There were rocks and sand drifts and a distant eminence, as natural and unselfconscious as any landscape on Earth. Mars was a place. This was the Viking 1 lander in 1976. Tullio |
Nick Send message Joined: 11 Oct 11 Posts: 4344 Credit: 3,313,107 RAC: 0 |
+1...yes, it's a "place"...lets hope we find evidence that it had something happening there at one time in the past worthy of discovering. The Kite Fliers -------------------- Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes. |
skildude Send message Joined: 4 Oct 00 Posts: 9541 Credit: 50,759,529 RAC: 60 |
I'd be its a sand dune In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face. Diogenes Of Sinope |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
There is no grass on Mars and yet there are polar caps and probably there was water, as proven by the sulphate rocks. Where did the grass go? Giovanni Schiaparelli in the XIX century thought he has seen canals bringing water to the plains from the polar caps. He thought he had seen the plains blossoming in martian spring and decaying in martian autumn. Now all we see is dry,rocky and sandy. Tullio |
Nick Send message Joined: 11 Oct 11 Posts: 4344 Credit: 3,313,107 RAC: 0 |
I clearly see a road in center of that image which zigzag to go hide behind a dune and then reappear from the dune to the left and then go up the mountain. Appears to be several of these courses in the photo and no doubt NASA has picked up on these too. The Kite Fliers -------------------- Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes. |
Lynn Send message Joined: 20 Nov 00 Posts: 14162 Credit: 79,603,650 RAC: 123 |
Looking at the photo, Lynn; you do get a distinct impression that Mars I feel the same. Plate tectonics on Mars may increase chances of finding signs of life. So says a study. |
Lynn Send message Joined: 20 Nov 00 Posts: 14162 Credit: 79,603,650 RAC: 123 |
Exposed by Rocket Engine Blasts Rocks look earth like. |
Nick Send message Joined: 11 Oct 11 Posts: 4344 Credit: 3,313,107 RAC: 0 |
Lynn, this shot certainly gets the imagination racing a bit. The lower squarish "rock" certainly has a building block feel about it. There's another interesting formation in the lower left hand side of this shot, the two dark grey rocks, they have the appearance of having been hewn. To my mind Mars is very worthy of a manned space visit so that one can get their hands on this stuff to really see what it is. Features like this we are seeing here are making this Curiosity mission very worthwhile. I'm not into travelling through space myself but... ....I want to be there and see this all first hand. All that we eventually get to see may be no more than that explainable away as occurring through natural causes upon this planet. But I feel what we are currently seeing is quite remarkable. The question is, "Was Mars ever once a living planet"...we should find out within the next few months. The Kite Fliers -------------------- Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes. |
Lynn Send message Joined: 20 Nov 00 Posts: 14162 Credit: 79,603,650 RAC: 123 |
Lynn, this shot certainly gets the imagination racing a bit. The lower squarish I agree with you. The rocks looked so real, wanted to reach out and touch one. Every penny spent by NASA, was well worth it for this mission. The next will be a manned mission to the red planet. No contamination from Curiosity. The science shows sometimes agree Mars, was once a habitable planet. Millions of years ago. I hope they find some microbes. Lynn |
tullio Send message Joined: 9 Apr 04 Posts: 8797 Credit: 2,930,782 RAC: 1 |
NASA says there are "fluvial valleys" descending from the rim of Gale crater, typical results of streaming water. Although Curiosity has not been planned to go to the rim, because it should climb the Sharp mountain, it might be worth of a trip. Tullio |
jason_gee Send message Joined: 24 Nov 06 Posts: 7489 Credit: 91,093,184 RAC: 0 |
Still looks like where I live in Australia, pretty much, sans the semi-living shrubbery of course. Mind you, finding evidence of life here can be tricky too, though supposedly there is and has been plenty. "Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions. |
.clair. Send message Joined: 4 Nov 04 Posts: 1300 Credit: 55,390,408 RAC: 69 |
A bit unlikely to find just one house brick in the middle of nowhere :-) You have not been to the places i have been and found a `house brick` in the middle of nowhere . . . . But that is just our filthy species, i hope aliens would not be like us. As far as rocks in brick shapes go, i have seen plenty of rocks that have broken up into geometric shapes due to natural weathering, Pick up a few nice ones and build a wall with few gaps between. |
Nick Send message Joined: 11 Oct 11 Posts: 4344 Credit: 3,313,107 RAC: 0 |
A bit unlikely to find just one house brick in the middle of nowhere :-) Yes, Clive; nature does have it's ways of creating things that could easily be interpreted as being man-made. The human eye picks these features out, naturally, and hence becomes inquisitive just as we are with those rocks in the previous photo. So let the chemist sample the the contents of the soil, the geologists the rock and ground formations and the electronics buffs go searching for old discarded capacitors, resisters, valves and transistors all for evidence of past inteligent life and the rest of us sit back and allow our imaginations to run for a while....who knows, us armchair lot might see something that the experts over-look. The Kite Fliers -------------------- Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes. |
Jim Martin Send message Joined: 21 Jun 03 Posts: 2473 Credit: 646,848 RAC: 0 |
Results of past water action? jm |
Nick Send message Joined: 11 Oct 11 Posts: 4344 Credit: 3,313,107 RAC: 0 |
Sedimentary layers ? The Kite Fliers -------------------- Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes. |
Nick Send message Joined: 11 Oct 11 Posts: 4344 Credit: 3,313,107 RAC: 0 |
You have not been to the places i have been and found a `house brick` in the middle of nowhere . . . ....and on Mars too by the looks of things. Anyone got an idea on what we are actually seeing here with these two small block formations in that shot? The Kite Fliers -------------------- Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes. |
DesO Send message Joined: 2 Feb 12 Posts: 144 Credit: 2,624,617 RAC: 0 |
I have seen similar formations where igneous rock has intruded into softer rock (perhapes sedimentary but not always). If the two phases therafter errode differentially the result can be exposure of the intrusion in its origional plane. |
Lynn Send message Joined: 20 Nov 00 Posts: 14162 Credit: 79,603,650 RAC: 123 |
Curiosity's First Rock Star, Up-Close Enjoy! Lynn |
Dimly Lit Lightbulb 😀 Send message Joined: 30 Aug 08 Posts: 15399 Credit: 7,423,413 RAC: 1 |
The invasion begins with the firing of teh lazors :) RELEASE: 12-287 Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club. |
Nick Send message Joined: 11 Oct 11 Posts: 4344 Credit: 3,313,107 RAC: 0 |
Lovely pic ! The rock formations in the middle of the picture clearly appear to have suffered from a source of erosion different to those at the top of the picture. To this end then wind can't be the whole reason for this as both layers would appear then the same. Is this difference in erosion then due to liquids acting upon the middle layer and not to the rocks in the top layer. The Kite Fliers -------------------- Kite fliers: An imaginary club of solo members, those who don't yet belong to a formal team so "fly their own kites" - as the saying goes. |
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