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Wandering Far and Wide
November 20th, 2008 | Tags: Mars, MER B - Opportunity | Published in latest, pictures | 9 Comments
Opportunity is racking up the odometer count as it heads toward the giant Endeavor crater, which lies well over the horizon.
But on the Meridiani Plains of Mars, there are always sights to see along the way. At right, the rover uses its robotic arm to study something odd. While most of the rock in the area is the same layered flagstone found at Victoria, the rock under examination looks like it contains no layers and is made of something else entirely. It could be another meteorite, or something more surprising.
Sent by: MER-B | From: Mars | Sent: Nov, 2008 | Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell | Image source
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November 20th, 2008at 3:36 pm(#)
I always wonder as I look at these photos….what’s the general weather conditions in these scenes? Looks like a pretty calm day in a desert, but is it windy? Really cold? I’m trying to place myself there.
November 20th, 2008at 4:18 pm(#)
Meridiani is currently experiencing clear skies. There is wind, but you’d barely feel it in the whisper-thin air. Air temperatures can reach as high as 30 degrees C. (86 degrees F.) in summer and as low as -80 degrees C. (-112 degrees F.) in winter. The temperature swings wildly from day to night, just like an Earthly desert, but much more so.
Take a look at this chart of temperatures throughout the mission.
November 24th, 2008at 12:07 pm(#)
Brr. Chilly. So by that right (on the thin air) would light winds on Venus feel like hurricanes because of the air density? You know, if you could withstand the pressure and heat and acid and flying monkeydog attacks and all that?
November 24th, 2008at 12:19 pm(#)
In the thick air, I’m guessing it would feel more like a strong underwater current than a hurricane.
The flying monkeydogs are all bark (and glow-in-the-dark fangs) but no bite.
November 24th, 2008at 4:21 pm(#)
Knowledge is power.
November 25th, 2008at 8:23 am(#)
That whisper-thin air is an interesting aspect of the erosion (or lack of it, rather) on Mars. For example, in this picture we see sharp-edged cracked rocks everywhere. But the impact (or subsidence, or whatever it was) that caused those cracks likely occurred hundreds of millions of years ago, if my vague recollection of the various things I’ve read lately is even close to accurate.
Obviously the wind can push around sand and little pebbles, but it seems to do so fairly gently. So most of the time we’re seeing an ancient landscape in these extraordinary photos.
Of course, once we get there in numbers, things will speed up enormously as we start to bull our way around in the china shop, arguing all the while about whether we should be changing anything.
November 25th, 2008at 11:41 am(#)
You raise an interesting point about the slower action of wind on Mars, and yet given enough time, even there it can literally move mountains.
November 25th, 2008at 1:44 pm(#)
Oh yes, no doubt about it — wind-blown sand can erode anything, even when it’s carried by the thin Martian wind. But erosion on Mars will occur on a different time scale than that of our raucous, windy and watery world’s erosion.
November 25th, 2008at 3:19 pm(#)
[...] a closer look at the small rock mentioned a few days ago that Opportunity is inspecting. During the solar conjunction that is now temporarily [...]