Mars Rover Appears to Find Mineral Linked to Water (hematite) | NYT

[Ediacara]

Mars Rover Appears to Find Mineral Linked to Water
By KENNETH CHANG

Published: January 30, 2004

PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 30 — The Mars rover Opportunity may have detected the iron oxide — a possible sign of water from Mars' ancient past — that was the original motivation for sending it to a broad plain near the planet's equator, some scientists involved in the project said.

Scientists have been examining data from an instrument called the mini-thermal emission spectrometer, or mini-TES for short, that looks at infrared light radiated from the rocks and soil. The mix of infrared wavelengths identifies certain minerals.

Scientists did not confirm the hematite finding at a news conference this morning at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managing the mission. Dr. Raymond E. Arvidson, chairman of the department of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and deputy principal investigator for the mission, said the scientists were still completing calibrations and checks. "But if you look at any of the mini-TES members, they have huge smiles on their faces," he said.

More at the New York Times

[htuttle]

1. Woo Hoo!

I bet this is one of the few times that people have been happy to find rust!

[StClone]

2. That contradicts this---

The red of Mars is an iron oxide but how did it get there?


http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/04/mars.color.reut/

[EV1Ltimm]

3. Some of the findings seem a little "been there, done that"

I took astronomy in high school, so astronomers around the world tremble in the wake of my corpulence... but anyhoo

A few things i learned in this astronomy class were:
- Mars is red because of iron oxide
- There's ice at the polar caps
- There was once water, but it receeded to the caps

Is the meaning of this mission to just confirm what we thought we knew? or am i way off base?

[Ediacara]

4. The hematite issue is about confirmation IMHO

The fine grained reddish material in the dust was long thought to be hematite, but it was never known for sure.