Posted on 10/17/2012 10:47:23 AM PDT by blam
Mystery Over Shiny Particles On Mars Gets More Exciting
Dina Spector
Oct. 17, 2012, 12:32 PM
NASA
NASA's Curiosity rover had been on Mars 61 days when she gathered her first scoop of soil.
Before the one-ton robot could finish sifting through her first small bucket of dust, however, all the excitement shifted to a shiny object found in the sand near the rover.
After reviewing images, the Curiosity team determined that the bright material was probably a piece of plastic from the rover and not material from Mars.
Or so they thought.
The rover collected its second scoop of Martian soil at the "Rocknest" site on Sol 66. More bright particles were found. Believing these particles were also tiny pieces of rover, the team decided not to run the dirt sample through Curiosity's analysis instrument to avoid contaminating the mechanism with Earth debris. The scoop was thrown away. That same day, however, Curiosity snapped an image showing part of the hole left when Curiosity took her first scoop.
The team noticed something different this time.
They saw that a light-toned particle was embedded in a clump of Martian soil, leading researchers to believe that the material could be native to Mars. This find completely overturned their original argument: These mystery particles are not something from the rover.
Following the discovery, a third scoop of soil was collected. This sample will now be run through Curiosity's Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument to figure out what it's made of, and hopefully
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(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
It looks to me like an incisor fragment. A new species is for certain.
I used to play in the dirt like that when I 5 or 6. It was cheap fun.
A Hostess Ho Ho wrapper, I think.
Has the look of crumpled manufactured plastic. Interesting.
More likely, it’s debris of the first Mars craft that crashed due to the ‘Metric shift.’
Too funny!
Looks like a stem from a banana..
Illegals trash dump site.
Much ado about nothing.
Why wouldn’t the dirt have specks in it?
Yes, a pull tab from the Beer Can Conglomerate!
The CoasttoCoastAM crowd thinks the Martians all died off and left shape-shifting robots that took out the Russian Martian probe, Phobos 2. Be very afraid of this. Be very afraid. Bring back nothing from Mars. A martian candy bar wrapper could wipe us out.
Or a Wall-Mart bag.
It is an old pull tab from a can of POC beer.
Thanks. Interesting thread!
Could be diamonds.
What do you suppose genuine gem-quality Martian diamonds would go for on the open market?
So the tooth fairy’s from Mars? Who woulda thought.......
Looks organic to me...
It can happen.....I had a 1980 Pontiac Sunbird and one day the muffler just fell off.......it wasn’t even rusted out
“the Martians all died off and left shape-shifting robots “
And one of ‘em was on stage debating Romney last night.
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