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Subscribe to RSSNASA's Opportunity rover snapped a picture of strange "spherules." NBC's Brian Williams reports.
Eight years ago, NASA's Opportunity rover came across strange-looking spheres that were nicknamed Martian blueberries — and now the Mars rover has sent back a picture showing a different flavor of berry that has the experts scratching their heads.
"This is one of the most extraordinary pictures from the whole mission," Cornell astronomer Steve Squyres, the rover mission's principal investigator, said today in a news release.
The golf-cart-sized Opportunity rover used the microscopic imager on the end of its robotic arm to take a super-close look at the spherical shapes. These particular berries, measuring as much as one-eighth of an inch (3 millimeters) in diameter, cover an outcrop called Kirkwood in the Cape York segment of Endeavour Crater's western rim.
"Kirkwood is chock full of a dense accumulation of these small spherical objects," Squyres said. "Of course, we immediately thought of the blueberries, but this is something different. We never have seen such a dense accumulation of spherules in a rock outcrop on Mars."
Iron-rich Martian blueberries first came to light soon after Opportunity headed out from its landing site on Mars' Meridiani Planum in early 2004. The fact that they have layers of a mineral called hematite suggests that the spherules were formed by the action of mineral-laden water percolating through rocks. That's how similar spherules formed on Earth, where they're known as thunderballs, shaman stones or Moqui marbles.
Since then, Oppy has run across the blueberries (which are actually gray) many times. A couple of years ago, the rover spotted an unusual spread of blueberries that were so tightly packed that scientists called it a "blueberry sandwich."
Some scientists say the berries could become important in the search for signs of life on Mars: In the August issue of the journal Geology, researchers from the University of Nebraska and the University of Western Australia contend that microbial activity played a part in the formation of iron spherules on Earth — and may have played a similar role on the Red Planet. Spherules with an iron-rich exterior and an iron-poor core could "offer a macroscopic target in the search for life on Earth as well as Mars," they wrote.
Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside
Last week's discovery adds a new twist to the berry investigation. Many of the spheres on the Kirkwood outcrop have been broken open and eroded by the wind, NASA said. The eroded berries show signs of a concentric structure. To investigate further, Opportunity aimed its Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer at the berries and analyzed their elemental composition. The preliminary analysis indicates that the recently found spheres do not have the high iron content seen in the original Martian blueberries.
"They seem to be crunchy on the outside, and softer in the middle," Squyres said. "They are different in concentration. They are different in structure. They are different in composition. They are different in distribution. So, we have a wonderful geological puzzle in front of us. We have multiple working hypotheses, and we have no favorite hypothesis at this time. It's going to take a while to work this out, so the thing to do now is keep an open mind and let the rocks do the talking."
There's plenty to investigate around the place where Opportunity is now: Just past Kirkwood, there's an intriguing pale-toned outcrop in an area where orbital observations have suggested clay minerals are present. That's another sign that the region's geology was influenced by the presence of water in ancient times.
It's been eight and a half years since Opportunity dropped onto the Martian surface, cushioned by a layer of bouncy airbags. Opportunity and its twin on the other side of the planet, Spirit, were expected to last at least three months. Both of those rovers became overachievers. Spirit finally gave up the ghost just a couple of years ago, but Opportunity is still going strong at 14-mile-wide (22-kilometer-wide) Endeavour Crater. This week, the team behind Spirit and Endeavour received the prestigious Haley Space Flight Award for pioneering "new techniques in extraterrestrial robotic system operations."
After weathering another Martian winter, Opportunity is raring to go.
"The rover is in very good health considering its eight and a half years of hard work on the surface of Mars," John Callas, project manager for the rover mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in today's news release. "Energy production levels are comparable to what they were a full Martian year ago, and we are looking forward to productive spring and summer seasons of exploration."
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Ed Truthan / North Coast Graphics
A 3-D picture from the Curiosity rover's hazard avoidance cameras shows the rover's shadow in the foreground, and a 3-mile-high mountain in the far background. Use red-blue glasses to see the 3-D effect.
Michael Howard
A stereo image shows the terrain in front of NASA's Curiosity rover. Use red-blue glasses to get the 3-D effect.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Ed Truthan / North Coast Graphics
A 3-D view from Curiosity's rear hazard avoidance cameras shows one of the rover's wheels in the foreground, and its tracks leading back toward the horizon. Use red-blue glasses to see the 3-D effect.
Curiosity on the move
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, NASA's Curiosity rover is on the move after completing the checkouts on its robotic arm. Curiosity, which arrived on Mars a little more than a month ago, is about twice the size of Opportunity — and thanks to its nuclear power source, it could theoretically last for decades.
The rover is heading for its first major destination: a geologically interesting spot called Glenelg, roughly a quarter-mile (400 meters) away from its landing site in Gale Crater. NASA reported today that Curiosity "perambulated over 105 feet (32 meters) of unpaved Gale Crater" over the past Martian day, or sol. It has put 466 feet (142 meters) on its odometer, and is roughly a quarter of the way to Glenelg.
This week, Curiosity turned its Mastcam imaging system toward the sun, to watch the Martian moon Phobos pass over the solar disk during the Red Planet's equivalent of a partial solar eclipse. Hundreds of thumbnail images were sent back to Earth, but the resolution wasn't sharp enough to show the eclipse. We'll have to wait until the full-resolution images are transmitted to gauge the success of Curiosity's eclipse-watching session. The timing of that transmission is dependent on where it's placed on the mission team's data priority list.
There'll be at least a couple of additional opportunities for eclipse-watching from Mars over the next few days. "This occurrence of transits happens twice per Martian year, which is once every Earth year," deputy project scientist Joy Crisp said during a teleconference on Wednesday, "so we did really want to scramble this time to try to take images."
The transit observations are something of a sideshow for Curiosity's $2.5 billion, two-year primary mission. The rover's main objective is to study Martian soil and rock for the chemical signatures of potential habitability. After spending a few weeks at Glenelg, the rover is due to begin a 12-mile (20-kilometer) odyssey to reach the flanks of a 3-mile-high (5-kilometer-high) mountain in the middle of Gale Crater, known as Aeolis Mons or Mount Sharp. The layers of rock on that mountainside could preserve the biggest geological record ever studied on Mars, going back billions of years — and provide new pointers in the search for traces of life on Mars.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Cornell / USGS / Modesto Junior College
A photo from the Opportunity rover's Microscopic Imager shows strange spherules covering a Martian outcrop nicknamed Kirkwood. The view covers an area about 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) across.
Where in the Cosmos
Opportunity's new flavor of Martian berries served as today's "Where in the Cosmos" photo puzzle on the Cosmic Log Facebook page. It took just seconds for Allen Gregory and Richard Braastad to tell me that the picture came from Mars, and Robert R. Reilly got the blueberry connection. To reward their quick wits and typing fingers, I'm mailing out 3-D glasses, courtesy of Microsoft Research's WorldWide Telescope project. They'll come in handy for checking out 3-D pictures of Curiosity's trek. Ready for another puzzler? Click the "like" button for the Cosmic Log Facebook page, and get ready for next Friday's "Where in the Cosmos" picture.
Update for 12:30 a.m. ET Sept. 15: After some justified goading from one of my friends on Twitter, I emailed Steve Squyres a follow-up question: "If the spherules at Kirkwood are not as iron-rich as typical blueberries, what is their composition?" Squyres was kind enough to write back almost immediately:
"We're still working on that. At this point it's easier to say what they aren't than what they are.
"The spherules are much smaller than the APXS field of view, so we can't isolate a single spherule and measure its composition. Instead, what we measure is a field of view that has two different components in it. The field of view is partly filled with lots of spherules, and partly filled with the stuff they're embedded in, which we call the matrix.
"These two materials, when mixed together like that, have a composition that's a bit like 'average Mars' ... there's nothing noteworthy about it. That's why we're confident in saying that the spherules are not notably rich in iron, and the matrix is not notably rich in sulfur. If they were, we'd see it in the data. With just one measurement, though, we can't disentangle the compositions of the two different materials from one another.
"There's a solution, though. If we can make several measurements, with differing fractions of the field of view filled by spherules in each one, we can do some math and separate out the composition of the two components. And at that point, we'll get a good handle on what the spherules are made of (and, of course, also the matrix).
"It's an interesting mystery... and one that'll take a little while longer to solve."
More about Mars:
- Curiosity uses its X-ray vision
- Mars rover takes a peek at what lies beneath
- Rover ready for rocks after a month on Mars
- Gallery: 11 amazing things the rover can do
- Curiosity snaps its own profile picture
- Cosmic Log archive for the Mars mission
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Look like droplets of a liquid that have hit a dusty surface and rolled, accumulating dust on them in the process. Some have burst in the process (see'burst bubbles' slight off-center and to the right). The 'flow' of 'the liquid' (like rain?) then washes away some of the dust, in the process submerging most of the globules ('droplets') partially in the dust. Finally, all of this this could have frozen in the night chill to preserve the view that is visible to us now.
I was thinking a primitive coral, covered in mud, now being revealed by wind erosion...
Mars; one big Yellowstone Park.
This is clearly the recently fossilized skin of a very large predator.
Were that the case, it would almost have to be a liquid other than water. I can't think of a single non-organic liquid that would behave quite the way you hypothesize.
@Alan,
Thank you for another intriguing article. (Though after reading some posters below, it's clear that certain people can't be bothered with questions -- only answers.)
perhaps an out gassing in a thick sandy clay which than froze, drying over time
a slow sublimation proses could than draw more clay into the center of the "bubbles" slowly filling some and not others there by giving some the appearance of empty bubbles and others a filled look.
"They seem to be crunchy on the outside, and softer in the middle,"
We call 'em zits.
Just wait, Ray Bradbury is going to be shown correct after all.Lots of signs of life on Mars.We just missed them by the blink of an eye on the time scale of the universe.I wonder if some company would consider making acereal or snake for kids and call it Marsberries? Actually do something healthy and right for once.They could make a whole line of goodies based on what Curiosity discovers and get kids interested in science at the same time. Start a revolution in the industry that could change how people buy food!Then again, that might be expecting too much I think!
Oops, I meant snack! LOL
crunchy outside and soft middles? Obviously Whiskas Temptations. A Martian trying to catch his cat.
Now see, if these "scientists" were true believers, like Indiana Jones, they would know that these are merely the petrified droppings of space deer.
You see, Walt Disney actually got there first with Bambi and Thumper, and one of these days, the Martian rovers are gonna come across one of the Drive-In movies that were set up for Martian teens to experiment with the birds and the bees.
What?? Didn't teens really dig the idyllic stories of Walt Disney to score??
looks like the starting of Poppy jasper .When finished the holes fill in. Do a search for it.
I'm thinking geodes. We have them everywhere, and just because the Martian ones are quite small doesn't mean much. However, it's all very interesting.
Also, for the technology, I think this Mars Rover has something like 18 years of battery life. Why can't we get that here? I would think the long-term cost would be defrayed by making a bunch of them, and most cars don't last 18 years!
Just a note of which I have been laughing: The first actual, documented flying saucer was sent from EARTH, and it landed on MARS! That's such a fun thought. Best wishes to all.
generally because nobody wants huge quantities of Plutonium-238 running around in cars and such.
yeah, Curiosity is powered by the heat generated by the radioactive decay of Plutonium 238, which generates something like 500 watts per kilogram
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
Thanks Dan. I didn't know it was nuclear powered. I just read battery operated. Oh well. It would still be nice to have a good, light-weight, reasonably-sized, usable battery for cars.
Knowing Martians, it has to be buckshot.
yeah zapper, it would be nice...
Maybe they are miniature Horta eggs?
The "blueberries" draw the most attention because they are the most prominent repeating features over an otherwise smoother rock surface underneath. The less frequent circles that look like popped bubbles may actually be a separate formation of separate origin. Notice that the blueberries are formed side-by-side and not on top of one another. Because the "blueberries" have a 'filling,' they are probably not bubbles. If they were bubbles, then you'd see hollow, spherical pits and networked holes within holes, i.e., the same sponge-like appearance as lava rock.
Importantly, notice that the "blueberries" are actually shaped like dewdrops. They have trailing tapered points above them just like beads of water or some other liquid rolling downward along a surface because of gravity. Intuitively, I'd say that these "blueberries" were caused by seasonal condensation & remineralization within the condensation droplets.
Mars is very cold and thus very dry because of the cold; BUT Mars does go through seasons or relative 'warm spells.' Relatively, when it warms, the atmosphere is able to hold more moisture & gases that sublimate from the 'slushy-like' permafrost beneath & mixed in with the sand. When it cools, the atmospheric contents condense onto cold surfaces (just as you'd see on a soda can taken out of the fridge; or on a cold wall or pipe in a room full of humidity.) How often or regular these 'warm spells' or seasons occur, I cannot say. This may have happened a long time ago and/or over a long period of time.
The rock "sweats." The solvent that condenses on the rock's surface dissolves the minerals. As the droplets either evaporate or freeze, the minerals take the shape of the droplet. Thus, you have condensation droplet fossils. A softer center may be due to the presence of trapped solvent and, in the case of water, a hydrated mineral complex. It will look diminutive because the Martian atmospheric pressure, partial pressure, & gravity is also diminutive.
The more interesting but more subtle & less frequent and so less eye-catching features (rather than the "blueberries") are the flat circles that look like popped bubbles on the surface of the rock in-between the blueberries. They look like they may or may not have been solid in the center. If the mostly flat circles were bubbles than there are at least three explanations:
The first explanation for the flat circles is that these circles were sites where carbonic acid formed when the carbon dioxide that makes up the Martian air mixed with the (most likely) water solvent droplets. The carbonic acid (aqueous) reacted with the rock minerals and produced gases which formed bubbles that then popped.
The second explanation for the flat circles is that some of the condensation fossil-beads chipped off.
The third (and funnest) explanation for the flat circles on the rock is that if Martian life requires a solvent as does life on Earth, then one of the opportune places for microbes to seasonally reanimate and, in turn, react with/ metabolize the rock & produce gases would be in places of seasonally accumulated solvent condensation.
Perhaps Martians had soft bodies and the only part of them dense enough to fossilize were their gonads?
...or bubbles from lava.
It reminds me of lava, including the broken ones.
Was about to say the same thing. Looked like Lava bubbles that cooled instantly.
It's the face-hugger eggs.
Go visit Yellowstone Park, maybe it will give you some clues.
absolutely inspiring. We are SO fortunate to have the unimaginable thrill of witnessing the exploration of another planet! I have watched the Curiosity landing videos multiple times and I just cannot get enough of it. Congratulations to all the scientists, engineers, support staff and everyone else who had a hand in making this awesome endeavor a reality. Truly, truly amazing!
Nicely done USA.
Not a "Mars" bar after all, it's really a "Crunch" bar!
Lol, that's good!
This is science at its best. "We don't know and we're ok with that because it's fun to figure out what we don't know!"
Real scientists never proclaim they know it all and they are always willing to admit there's something they don't know. Unfortunately capital investment for profit has diminished that humble scientist approach because there's so many dollars on the line if they goof.
But this is science at its most fundamental level. We find something unfamiliar, we happily admit we have no idea what it is, and we do whatever we can to find out. I miss being a genetics major sometimes.
Why does the information go so far as to say that after analysis it is not iron rich, but doesn't say what the composition actually is? Duh! It would be useful to give more information when making such statements. For instance, if the content had calcium…! Well, we may be talking about oolites. Of course, not likely, but…
Exactly, this huge article, as web articles go, and they can't even be bothered to tell the reader what their composition was. Gimme a break! Science at its best, and reporting at its typical worst these days. They analyzed the d@mn things, so tell us what they are made of you m*r*n.
These were only discovered a matter of days ago. It takes time to do proper analysis, which has only just started, and difficult on objects so tiny. Remember too the rover and its equipment are eight years old now, and it is very far away from Earth...
the article (and the scientists) did say they have to take more measurements to get a proper analysis.
geez, talk about "instant gratification" hounds
After Greg sent a tweet with his question about the composition, I sent that question on to Steve Squyres, and you'll notice that Steve was kind enough to send an answer back even though it was after midnight ET. I've included the answer in an addendum above, which is still inconclusive, but at least it's an answer. Greg was nice enough to include a "thank you" in his tweet, which goes a long way with me. Being called a moron, however, does not make me feel so accommodating. Not that I don't deserve it sometimes. But it does seem as if there's a huge amount of discourtesy and intolerance going around nowadays. What a surprise, right? ;-)
I appreciate the clarification, of sorts, but a simple acknowledgement in the original article, stating that the initial analysis was not enough to determine composition would have been appreciated.
The following, from the original article seemed rather contradictory in terms of what they know of the new marsberries.
'To investigate further, Opportunity aimed its Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer at the berries and analyzed their elemental composition. The preliminary analysis indicates that the recently found spheres do not have the high iron content seen in the original Martian blueberries.
"They seem to be crunchy on the outside, and softer in the middle," Squyres said. "They are different in concentration. They are different in structure. They are different in composition. They are different in distribution. So, we have a wonderful geological puzzle in front of us. We have multiple working hypotheses, and we have no favorite hypothesis at this time. It's going to take a while to work this out, so the thing to do now is keep an open mind and let the rocks do the talking."
danwill: nowhere in this article did it say what you quoted: "the article (and the scientists) did say they have to take more measurements to get a proper analysis."
This mission will probably just add to the questions that everyone has about Mars, not answer them.
One question has already been answered, and that is if Mars can support life.
As in our lives, and the short answer is no. In the past, is a completely different question.
Mars now lacks things like a magnetic field, a dense atmosphere, etc. But that does not mean that there is not evidence of life there. Life there will probably not be on the surface where it would be exposed to extremes, and most likely will not resemble what is here on Earth. Erosion can also make the obvious, not so obvious anymore.
There are many oddities on the planet, these "blueberry's" are just one of them. Just because they form on one planet one way, does not mean that they formed exactly the same way on Mars either. It may take years to figure out what, and how, something the rover finds formed. And we may not be able to answer it fully either. Most of what they are basing it on, is how things form on Earth. If it turns out that Mars never had the conditions to form certain things the way they form on Earth, there obviously must be another way to get the same results.
What the rovers do tell us, is where to look when we get there. The rovers will save a lot of running around looking for things to get a better look at. Mars is a lot smaller than Earth, but it is still a big place.
If you don't feel you are getting all the answers fast enough, feel free to go to Mars and look around for yourself.
The pictures remind me of pictures of the hot mudsprings in Yellowstone. Notice, I said "remind," not they are exactly the same. After all, I am no scientist, just an interested layperson.
Alan, as for the moron and other name calling here, you know those people would never have the nerve to say something like that in real life (though they'll tell you they would here). They're simply trying to make up for their little, humdrum lives where they have no control. The anonymity of the Internet allows them to feel like they're so important they can say whatever they want and no one can do anything about it.
Perhaps, as science editor, you should try getting a few psychologists analyze some of these responses to see what they can glean from them? That might make for some interesting reading.
Nice response, Alan. Some people just don't seem to have any idea at all that doing proper robotic analysis on something so far away takes time. Dorothy's calling you a moron was completely unacceptable and ignorant.
Alan, I agree with Paul; thank you for your hard work on this. Being a space exploration fan starting with all the manned flights in the 1960's, this whole Mars rover mission-set has been one huge amount of enjoyment! Excuse the instant-gratification folks and just keep doing the good work you're doing!
Funny,... none of this is on the official NASA site...........
Actually it is...
Horta eggs.
Not so sure. Horta eggs are pure silicon (with a few trace elements), extremely fragile, and about the size of a grapefruit. But they are a geological oddity to say the least.
Maybe miniature Horta eggs, or a species related to the Horta.
hortees?
martian critter eggs............
my guess is that these are formed in wet mud where water is right at the triple point and boiling in the mud. After the bubbles are formed, more wet mud oozes into the void and water evaporates, forming the concentric rings until the void is filled.
Yeeesh, a 30-second commercial to see a 10-second "report". Fix it or I'll get my news elsewhere.
It looks to me as if the video team has changed the settings for this video so that the 30-second ad doesn't run, which is the smart thing to do. Sorry you had to spend that 30 seconds watching an ad that helps pay for bringing information to you.
Alan, good to see you have a great sense of sarcastic humor. I know you can't say it because of professional demeanor and all, but I'll go ahead and do it. Many of these posters heckling your efforts are ingrates and jerks.
You're one of the better writers on this website, if not the best one. Not to mention you interact with us lowly internet plebeians in the comments section. Some of the writers here are technically terrible, and don't "waste their time" further answering our questions.
Kudos to a great writer and an all around good dude!
I'll second what Dangerous Mind has to say about you Alan. I enjoy your articles and appreciate your further involvement with the story through the comment section.
We are not indebted to MSNBC to bring us regurgitated information that we can get for free from the NASA RSS feed.
I agree that this article does not represent my most original work, but we do try to present as comprehensive a news report as we can manage, drawing upon (and crediting) the sources available to us. And sometimes we can even help get more information than people will find on the RSS feed, such as the references to the life-detection research in Geology, the fresh comments from Squyres, or the status report on the Phobos transit. (More about that later.) And it's now NBC News, not MSNBC, for what it's worth.
Thanks so much to others for the kind words ... there are clearly better writers out there, but I hope I'm able to distinguish myself by trying to keep in touch with users and be part of the community. It takes a village to write a blog. ;-)
Well Mr Boyle. To you and your arse-kissers I will point out that the report did not bring any information whatsoever. In fact the headline was completely misleading. It intimated there was some new form of Martian "berries" then showed a picture of the same old thing with no information, explanation, or any redeeming value. But the important thing is that you folks got your advertising revenue and can keep patting yourselves on the back about what a great service you provide the thankless masses. Well, stuff it.
Beer Mug, we must ask then, why one with such a low opinion of the quality of the articles here ... is here at all?
(shrug) That's a threat? This is a great site, but you should be going to a variety of space and science-related places, regardless...
Even Alan cant do everything for you.
but one would think that ignorant arses like "beermug" would at least get an education...
sigh, what can one expect from a name like "beermug" though?...
"They seem to be crunchy on the outside, softer in the middle," Squyres said. And turn gray......
The total accumulation of SPITBACKS from every single box of chocolates man has ever opened!
a pile of melted chocolate chips.
Looks more like peanut brittle or pralines than chocolate.
Exciting!
This is where ET spilled his Reeses Pieces. Crunchy on the outside, concentric layers, soft on the inside.
Oh, those Martians are such a hoot, always playing jokes on us when Curiosity is looking the other way! : )
But seriously, this is amazing, the shots are great!
Could be the rain of molten droplets from a astroid impact. On earth places have been found with deep layers of these molten droplets. Given the deep cold and possibly early water the molten droplets could have decayed and gotten brittle and took on the look of clay nodules.
I'VE SEEN THIS BEFORE!
Rent the 1953 classic "Invaders from Mars." In it, the Martians have a ray they use to melt/blast through solid rock.
The image of the "spheres," shown at the top of the page here, at the beginning of the video, looks exactly the same as a rock wall the Martians used their ray on before it disintegrated!
CALL YOUR NEIGHBORS!
RUN FOR THE HILLS!!
NOW THAT THE MARTIANS KNOW WE KNOW ABOUT THEM, WE'RE DOOMED.
DOOMED, I TELLS YA!
Oppy: hey, oscy got yer ears on, flip on the telly..Oscy: what, what, I was told to snap some pics of the moons, can't it wait a couple o' days? Oppy:no man, check it out, check it out, I found los huevos..ya owe me fifty bucks or a 1909 penny....Oscy: oh chit man, well wait and see what the man says....Oppy: ok, but if da man say it's los huevos, ya owe me big time, you might wanna start wheelin over here now, cause you lost da bet!!....Oscy: we'll, see, we'll (lowers it's camera and starts looking around nevously for signs of life)......
this article is so @!$%#in bad....this has to do with ascension and eternal life you stupid @!$%#in humans....some of you in these comments understand but ill make it clear for you .....you see how they associate searching for eternal life with food ???? bluberries??? iron ??? rich??? money ???? like what the @!$%# am i reading ....you do not .....repeat ....do not need food to survive ....code mssg end
step away from the keyboard, and let the nice men in the white suits take you somewhere more comfortable...
Wow, this guy was quite high when he wrote this. Its so "out there" that you know he's not faking. At least I hope he was high, which is better than the alternative, schizophrenia.
Okay. Stop eating. Please.
Huh? One of us is clearly off his meds...
What, you think just because someone's username is "needlz" that they're some kind of drug addict? Or was it the references to eternal life and ascension?
Los HUEVOS!! looks like oppy found the location for the mexican capitol of the moon!! They are going to make a fortune on tourism!!!.
Unbelievable. Oppy steals 2.5 billion dollars worth of thunder. Man these probes are at a place in human history where we will never be again. So close to an answer for a question that has bothered life on earth since it began. I know eventually probes will find mindblowing discoveries on other planets and moons, but here it is real and in person. Unwritten and Unimagined, we don't even realize this dwarfs columbus sighting the new world, the first set of eyes to see yosimite and write about it, or any of the ancient wonders, or so many explorers that stood on a perch and peered out knowing, as they are the ones seeing it for the first time, it will change the world. The world just changed. It is most likely a geological phenomenon. But I certainly won't write it off as such, just as likely, an organism is a prime cause. It will be hard to rule out some of the pro life hypothesis, but finding supporting evidence of such a hypothesis is going to just as daunting. Not being bound, I can speculate and voice some (biased) ideas. I first thought they are kinda mindful of fossilized, mineralized tadpole deposits. No matter what, eggs do come to mind. Though I do know all too well that plenty of geological processes make all kinds of stuff that appear to be too organized to be from natural choas. I do note researchers from nebraska and australia universities suggest life is behind many of these types of process. Even if they are not our normal martian blueberries, THESE just popped to the top of MY sample and return mission. We'll see. If given enough time the researchers will come up with some clever way of holding the x ray cam just right or bouncing one onto a nice rock to get a spectrogram off. All in all, this looks like a great area to explore, I would not be surprised if boots on the ground don't eventually show up in the decades ahead to "take a look around".
We got a large investment in mars. May we spend it wisely. Should the sun go cephalid on us, we may have no choice. Meanwhile, we can gingerly explore, gasp, and....learn. NOTHING on earth has EVER guided the keel of man's destiny so perfectly as NASA has. Thanks NASA.
Bubbles in lava preserved through rapid cooling seems logical, except that temperatures inside an active volcano on earth are typically between 250 to 1300 degrees C and the melting point of iron is 1535 C... quite a mystery.
I'm only an amateur "rock hound", but what strikes me is the fact that even though the Earth presumably has a higher iron content than Mars, you hardly ever find hematite formations such as this. The fact that they are so abundant on Mars is a bit odd, considering that the requirements to form hematite - heat, water, and an iron solution - are lacking on Mars. I am starting to think that the more and more "Martian blueberries" that we come across, the less and less likely a volcanic explanation fits, considering that Mars lacks the plate tectonics to drive widespread eruptions. So I ask you, what is more likely - a volcanic rock on a planet that has been volcanically dead for millions of years, or bacteria that uptake hematite as part of their metabolism?
I'm just saying, if I was an alien visiting Earth and had never encountered Earth life, I might mistake grass for some type of bizarre silicon dioxide crystal - perhaps we are making the same mistake with these blueberries.
I think that what Squyres was saying, is that after a bit more analysis that they should know the exact chemical composition of the spherules. I think the lander has all the required equipment aboard to figure this out, and I am confident the scientists know what they are doing and the correct way to proceed in this exploration and research.
Earth might have a higher iron content, but isn't Mars more uniform in its mineral composition?