That's pretty cool.
Mystery Rock appears in front of Mars rover Opportunity
- Thread starter DarthTom
- Start date
That's pretty cool.
Isn't it, but the Martian surface the rover is on looks too stony. The sailing rocks are on a softer clay surface than the one the rover appears to be on. Two theories in an article here are:http://www.space.com/24356-mars-rock-mystery-opportunity-rover-photos.html
I lean toward the rover kicking something up. The article mentions a high amount of sulfur, magnesium, and manganese, higher than normally found, so even if it's something the rover kicked up the rock's origin is still an interesting question.
Is it alone, or is there more of the rock type? Is it really anomalous in the elements listed for the area? Is it a meteor or part of a meteor, or Martian rock thrown by such an impact, or could it be ejecta from some Martian volcanic event? It's an interesting little guy.
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All of this To Do over the placement of a doughnut-sized rock, on a rocky planet strewn with rocks surprises me. I can only imagine what the reaction would've been, had it been a black monolith - HA! Nobody would believe it, probably! They'd say it was faked ... yet a common stone earns all of this publicity and interest.
Uh-huh. Because we shouldn't bother trying to figure out what the data sent back by the rover means. Rich!
Yeah, fuck science! Who cares about that noise? Let's talk about celebrities on the red carpets!
Taikonaut.
Uh-huh. Because we shouldn't bother trying to figure out what the data sent back by the rover means. Rich!
Plus, no matter how it got there it clearly indicates some sort of activity. Doubly interesting because everything else around the rock in question looks exactly like in the first picture, none of the other rocks have moved an inch from what I can tell.
So, unless the rover itself put it there, exploring an active environment is a lot more interesting than a completely dead surface like the moon.
Uh-huh. Because we shouldn't bother trying to figure out what the data sent back by the rover means. Rich!
Plus, no matter how it got there it clearly indicates some sort of activity. Doubly interesting because everything else around the rock in question looks exactly like in the first picture, none of the other rocks have moved an inch from what I can tell.
So, unless the rover itself put it there, exploring an active environment is a lot more interesting than a completely dead surface like the moon.
But, yeah, fuck science.
Nothing says common like a scientist telling you "It's like nothing we ever seen before. It's very high in sulfur, very high in magnesium, it has twice as much manganese than anything we've seen on Mars" does.
Exactly. NASA's own scientists and the language they used to describe this event fired up the UFO conspiracy theorists.
I don't see how the reaction of a handful of people who would get fired up over anything is relevant.
I hate to step in like this, but please stop reiterating the "UFO angle" here. Almost every post you made in this thread has been about the "UFO conspiracy theorists." This is the Science and Technology forum, so let's have more science and less conspiracy junk.
Thank you.
What I'd like to know is whether they've scanned the vicinity and found a spot this rock may have come from.
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If you compare the two photos, you'll see that this "rock" has the very same outline than the cracks in the ground.
Also, there has a second one arisen in a crack right next to the tip of the wing-like protrusion of the rover (red circles)
Most of you live in areas where you have frost. Have you ever watched moisture in the soil freeze and the ice rising through cracks and capillaries in the ground?
This martial phenomenon looks much the same to me. Something appears to have risen through the cracks and turned solid. And propably it does so at regular intervals because the crack was there before.
What are the current temperatures on the site? Maybe that'll give us a clue as to what the substance might be.
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I got that beat ... Try this on, for size:
A "selfie" by the world reknowned Professor of Archeology:
Indiana Jones, himself! Posing with a rock ... like no other. Here, Indy calls upon diamond-filled Sankara Stones to work their wonders! Shiva's magic easily trumps any mere Martian pebble. And no, it's not for science, but for something, perhaps, even greater! "Fortune and Glory, kid."
"Fortune ... and ... Glory!"
It's got to be an amazing stone if you need magic to beat it. Though real archeologists are also ecstatic about things that look more like this. That's a huge discovery on Earth, now, if that were on Mars, that same dull and uninteresting common stone would spell the end of the world¹ as we know it.
¹ Well, the end of Mars as we know it.
¹ Well, the end of Mars as we know it.
How far apart were the two shots taken?
Mars brings out some of the best cranks.
Further down the article someone has pointed out an image from day 3544 which shows an area of disturbed ground that could be where the rock could have been kicked up from.
http://www.universetoday.com/108733...-on-mars-came-from-and-no-its-not-a-mushroom/
Further down the article someone has pointed out an image from day 3544 which shows an area of disturbed ground that could be where the rock could have been kicked up from.