NASA Gets A Good Look At Mars Soil And A True Puzzle

Chicago Tribune/Yahoo ^ | 1-7-2004 | Jeremy Manier

[blam]

My take on the soil: The water on Mars is in the form of tiny ice crystals mixed with very fine dust.

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[martin_fierro]

My take on the soil:

[Chunga]

"a mysteriously sticky form of soil"

Uh-oh.

[RightWhale]

The dirt that was dragged by the airbags now looks oddly folded, almost as if it were damp clay.

Pond scum

[mewzilla]

Interesting article. To me Mars looks a lot like Monument Valley without the monuments :)

[Pan_Yans Wife]

ping

[kcar]

"a mysteriously sticky form of soil"

Could they have landed in New Jersey?

[Slicksadick]

Heres the sticky stuff

<IMG height=307 alt=" Click For Small photo" src="http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20040106/i/r593415438.jpg" width=410

[mewzilla]

Martian coprolites?

[Slicksadick]

[Fitzcarraldo]

[Viking2002]

This ought to be interesting. The rover has it's first mystery to solve, and it doesn't even have to leave the lander. As Spock might say, 'Fascinating.'

[Cuttnhorse]

Could they have landed in New Jersey?

LOL! Now that's funny.

[null and void]

Pond scum

That would be way KEWL!

[Glenn]

I have had to sit through DOH-DOH Island a couple of times since Christmas. It grows on you.

And that is not a good thing.

[Dianna]

The dark, oblong, rock on the right, middle of the picture looks like a black tennis shoe.

[RightWhale]

fungus, algae

[mewzilla]

Are they going to try to sample that yucky looking mass of stuff?

[asb3pe]

My take is that perhaps any remaining iron in the "iron oxide suface material" is slightly magnetized.

If you've ever played with iron filings and a magnet, I think you'll know where I'm coming from. The apparent cohesiveness of the soil may not be due to liquid content, which everyone obviously has a hard time with given the extremely low temps on mars...

Just my two cents, which is about all a wild guess is worth. :)