Saturday, February 15, 2014

Mars rover rock mystery in depth study and critique



http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/15/nasa_solves_the_mystery_of_the_martian_doughnut/

the rock is rounded in the corners so unlikely to be lifted and looks dry so one might conclude unlikely to be sticky to the rovers specialised wheels

Copyright NASA - original Rock photo 1

wheels of the rover designed so that they do not hold onto rocks and dust
very small indents provide a very robust and smooth surface so rocks will not be lifted and so it is unlikely a rock passed through the air by being lifted.

Copyright NASA - wheels (photo 2)
http://marsrover.nasa.gov/spotlight/wheels01.html

so the question remains .... where are the photos of the rock this mystery rock broke off from and where are the chips or fractures in the rock that indicate the rock chipped from the bigger rock..

and in addition is the rock bigger than the tread ? probably
are there moved rock chips or scrape marks from where the rock skidded along the ground , well i don't see them. ;-)

where are the skid marks where the rover tried to climb a rock and chipped it...
unless all the rocks here are glued down , for example by oxidation.

earlier questions still remain unanswered :

http://esa-space.blogspot.com/2014/01/strange-rock-movement-shows-signs-of.html

today the Nasarians got us a new photo to look at :-)

the new story of the rock develops and it gets interesting :p

quote :


And it's not an alien life form. Research has revealed the 4cm-wide rock is a piece of a larger rock that was broken and moved by Opportunity's wheel in early January. The white-rimmed, red-centred rock caused plenty of speculation when it showed up in a picture taken on January 8th, but was nowhere to be seen in an image of the same area on December 26th 2013 - one man even sued NASA for failing to pursue its extraterrestrial origins. But analysis has revealed the rock is still special as it contains unusually high levels of manganese and sulphur, likely put there by water.

Read more: http://ab.co/N1SJxa via ABC Science



Copyright NASA - Photo 3

: end quote

the fact that the first rock in photo one at the top of the page is clearly rounded and clean , in photo 3 however  covered in brown dust and the second rock in photo 3 is not .... and doesn't look entirely like the original picture (photo 1) is of no interest... :p and as can be seen is of a differing shape...
could the rock really have been cut in half by the tire ? *shrug*





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