Starship Asterisk*

I've used the attached picture (cropped from the original) in a lecture but have misplaced the source...

Lee De Cola, PhD, MCP
U.S. Geological Survey
521 National Center
Reston VA 20192 USA
Room 2D324
703-648-4178, fax 4603
W77°22'10" N38°56'48"
703-709-6972 home
LDECOLA@USGS.GOV

Maybe it's not an APOD. Maybe it's not even Mars.

Threw the image into a TinEye search and got a link to this:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/0 ... 09694.html

There's quite a few articles about it. Original APOD seems to be:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070703.html

apodman wrote:Maybe it's not an APOD. Maybe it's not even Mars.

It's Mars (as already confirmed, I see.)

I have dozens of images of that rock face which I cycle through as desktops. I know Cape St. Vincent (the Martian one) better than I know my own backyard. (You'd have to see my backyard to know how literally true that statement can be!) Rover Opportunity wandered around that neighbourhood for a long time before galivanting off in search of a new home.

Rob

rstevenson wrote:It's Mars

So it is. And it's an APOD as well. So did it avoid my APOD Search or did I look right at it and not recognize it? As it turns out, it was not among the 200 images shown to me out of the 481 search results for "Mars", and I also didn't stumble into it with any of my guesses at additional search words. Hey APOD editors, this ain't my first disappointing search; are there any slightly less stone age search tools available that would maybe show us all the results and not disallow important terms?

---

Never heard of TinEye before this. Pretty cool. Thanks.

Thanks to everyone. I use it to talk about 'health and life' on Earth, and it shakes people's ideas of what a landscape should look like. When someone guesses 'Mars' I usually sneer and say, 'yeah, sure!' but eventually let them know.

However, I did convert it to grayscale.

Lee De Cola.

I am no geologist. Is it possible for such a formation to occur without sedimentation? Many thanks for the earlier posts.

jerbil wrote:I am no geologist. Is it possible for such a formation to occur without sedimentation?

Neither am I, but given what we've found out so far, there's no reason to think that sedimentation could not have occurred, or did not occur on Mars. Here's a definition from wikipedia...

Particles that form a sedimentary rock by accumulating are called sediment. Before being deposited, sediment was formed by weathering and erosion in a source area, and then transported to the place of deposition by water, wind, mass movement or glaciers.

Note that "wind" is included, so we don't even need flowing water to get sedimentary rock, though it seems there was water in the distant past on Mars.

Rob

I've seen that image, but can't recall exactly its circumstances. There's something in the back of my mind saying it was when one of the Mars Rovers was looking for a place to duck into when a winter(?) storm was approaching, or somesuch. Sorry I can't be more help....my memory's just a memory these days.

~*

Rover Opportunity spent a long time in that area just looking around. (The other rover, Spirit, is the one that keeps needing to find shelter, sort of.) Opportunity tried going down the slope in the foreground to enter the crater but found it a little too hard going. The controllers thought it might not get back out. But it did get close to that rock face and took lots of detailed photos before backing out and trundling off towards a much larger crater to the south.

You can find lots of information about Opportunity on the rover web site (marsrover.nasa.gov) although I was unable to find many images of this area. That site needs a much better navigation arrangement for casual viewers.

Rob

Yeah, I believe that's the one. They were afraid if it got down in there it couldn't get back out, & as said, trundled off to greener( ) pastures.

Adding: I'd have to say Spirit (1st) and Opp'y too (as I've come to call her) are my favorite two 'space vehicles' as far as robotic ops. (Tho Hubble's my 'idol'.) I've really rooted for Spirit since the day it landed; marveling at how plucky it's been. I think of it up there, gimping around dragging a bad wheel - it just captured my heart. And how it & Opp'y both have lasted so-o-o-o much longer than anticipated....to me they represent some of the finest in engineering accomplishments I think we've witnessed in several decades, if not the century. If there's a shrine on Mars, I hope they find it!
They make me think of the li'l 'bots* left to maintain the last Earth forest in 'Silent Running'...an all-time fave movie of mine. Pretty deep story there, if you've never seen/heard of it.
*(Yes, I know -- Huey, Dewey & Louie)

~S*H