A New Job for the NASA Rover, “Opportunity”
“Our experience tells us there’s lots of diversity among the cobbles,” said Scott McLennan of the State University of New York, Stony Brook. McLennan is a long-term planning leader for the rover science team. We want to get a better characterization of them. A statistical sampling from examining more of them will be important for understanding the geology of the area.”
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News is coming down from the NASA “informers” that the little Mars rover, Opportunity, is finally leaving his year-old home, Victoria Crater. Packing his bags with his knapsack over his shoulder, the little Mars rover has finished examining the exposed rocks which became his environment, allowing him to examine the exposed ancient rock layers .The image of the little guy struggling to climb the driveable path from the steep crater comes to mind, does it not, limping along due to his disability. But “whatever” the big guys want, he will get if for them …!! Apparently a spike in electric current developed in Opportunity last month by its left front wheel.
The NASA Mars rover Opportunity has another definite job “opportunity” (no pun intended) and that is to inspect loose cobbles on the plains. Maybe not so exciting to someone who so recently was in a bit more exciting of a terrain, but oh well—it’s a job. And the Mars rover pictures are nothing to sneeze at, along with Opportunity and his side-kick Spirit having pioneered this mysterious planet for the many followers—such as the NASA Phoenix lander.
Still associated with the crater, many of the loose rocks on Opportunity’s new “plain” job are pretty good sized, being thrown long distances when Mars was hit by objects. Not paying much attention as he was head toward the crater, Opportunity has driven by the ones he is now beginning to examine except for a few, with NASA researchers and NASA scientist realizing that there is a lot of diversity among these fist-sized and larger rocks that would need more investigation.
The NASA Mars rover had spent a year scouting the area on the rim of Victoria Crater before entering it on September 11, 2007, capturing the area of Cape Verde with its detailed images of layers 20 feet high. This suggested to Opportunity ’s mission team that the sediments were actually deposited by wind, later altered by groundwater, with McLennan saying, “The patterns broadly resemble what we saw at the smaller craters ‘Opportunity’ explored earlier.” Presently the NASA engineers are programming the little rover to climb out of the crater in the same spot he entered it…
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 12:26 am and is filed under Public Relations, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
