NASA Reveals the Mystery of the Rock that Suddenly Materialized on Mars

Searched and did not see it anywhere. Looks like the Mars Mystery Rock has been figured out. See, this is what it looks like when people keep using science and logic to work at a problem rather than jumping to unfounded conclusions.

sploid.gizmodo.com... do_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

jaffo
Searched and did not see it anywhere. Looks like the Mars Mystery Rock has been figured out. See, this is what it looks like when people keep using science and logic to work at a problem rather than jumping to unfounded conclusions.

sploid.gizmodo.com... do_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

There were some quite plausible ideas already mentioned on ATS, and of course NASA had the advantage anyway, and said what was the explanation some time ago. The blog in your link however is still a bit teasing re the NASA explanation. whereas many accept NASA's rationale.

reply to post by jaffo


Why is it that every time someone post a UFO(and by that i mean UNIDENTIFIED flying object),people scream CGI right away but no one ever seem to do the same with NASA pics?
So I'll be "that guy" and ask if any expert(and by that i mean you know what you doing) check to see if it wasn't tempered with....Heck that pic can be from earth and there is no way of proving it.

This link doesn't have a source to a journal article that I can see and it doesn't give the complete information. If you go under the thread about this mystery rock appearing - I believe the last page, there is a link in there that will take you to a good article on a more complete version of their conclusions. Perhaps you can link that here. I would do it for you but am in a rush. It shows the journal it will be published in but we won't all have access to that without payment or links so the article is the next best thing IMO.

It tells us there are minerals within this rock that "may" point to water - they intend to turn the rover around in spring I believe to examine the pile it came from more thoroughly. The only explanation for it being there is it being flung by the wheel so that makes sense, but the make up of the rock is the truly interesting part.

reply to post by Dianec


If it truely is a rock that was flung up by one of the rover wheels (and why not?) there may be evidence of it, perhaps even a positive image of this particular rock on the front Hazard avoidance camera images...after all, these cameras are always scanning the areas ahead of the rover to find..well, hazards.

Here's NASA's article, with photo of the previous location of rock.

Mars Rover Heads Uphill After Solving 'Doughnut' Riddle

jaffo
Searched and did not see it anywhere. Looks like the Mars Mystery Rock has been figured out. See, this is what it looks like when people keep using science and logic to work at a problem rather than jumping to unfounded conclusions.

sploid.gizmodo.com... do_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

The conclusions were not completely unfounded. I often find it peculiar, a million threads pop up with pictures of mars and rocks, and claim spaceship, skeletons, secret base, giraffe, etc., But this particular incident, was a mystery. And the first explanations given were rather dismissive.

The publicity was started by a Rhawn Joseph, who filed a lawsuit. My initial comments were on the stupidity of the whole thing. His logic and bias aside, I did notice however it was worth much more than half of the stuff people spend their time on.

Part of the petition, was that they had to investigate the rock and disclose the findings. So… Seems like it worked, whether or not Joseph was off his rocker in his hypothesis.

Actually a pretty interesting story.

reply to post by jaffo


The explanation I guess I can buy, however it would of been nice to have some rover wheel tracks in picture as it would make the explanation more convincing. I believe its Nasa role to make sure the public never see extraterrestrial life, even if it was a jellysandfish

boncho
...Part of the petition, was that they had to investigate the rock and disclose the findings. So… Seems like it worked, whether or not Joseph was off his rocker in his hypothesis...

I think they were going to investigate its composition anyway, because they saw it looked "overturned", which would give them a free glimpse into what is under the surface without the need to dig (and Opportunity is not equipped to dig, especially dig rock).

In fact, NASA did an analysis on the rock right away, and told us about that preliminary analysis (that it had higher concentrations of manganese and sulfur than other rocks sampled) right away -- at the same time they told us about the rock at all, and before the lawsuit.

AthlonSavage
reply to post by jaffo

 

The explanation I guess I can buy, however it would of been nice to have some rover wheel tracks in picture as it would make the explanation more convincing. I believe its Nasa role to make sure the public never see extraterrestrial life, even if it was a jellysandfish

But the image DOES show wheel tracks and a broken piece of rock with a similar white color. In fact, it looks like a place the tracks did a "turn in place", which could have caused a grinding motion that broke the rock.



Image Source:
solarsystem.nasa.gov...

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


That's not the same images I have seen. The ones I have seen have no tracks. Here we Fnkn go...

AthlonSavage
reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

 

That's not the same images I have seen. The ones I have seen have no tracks. Here we Fnkn go...

The image I posted was also in the article in the OP.

The picture is also in the NASA article about the "mystery solved":
Mars Rover Heads Uphill After Solving 'Doughnut' Riddle

MysterX
reply to post by Dianec

 

If it truely is a rock that was flung up by one of the rover wheels (and why not?) there may be evidence of it, perhaps even a positive image of this particular rock on the front Hazard avoidance camera images...after all, these cameras are always scanning the areas ahead of the rover to find..well, hazards.

Opportunity's left wheel has lost the ability to turn, and if the rover turns it's quite likely that the wheel will 'shimmy' (a bit like taking your dead dog out for 'draggies') that's why Steve Squyres.... yep that his surname, put forward the likely explanation in January and that seems to now stand, and that included both a tiddlywink effect, and a bit of a roll downhill. I know some ATS'ers had mentioned something rolling downhill as an explanation back then. Squyres also mentioned that it was clearly a rock under microscope, elsewhere there is mention of Magnesium and Manganese and Gypsum in the makeup.

Could be another "face on Mars" cover-up by NASA. You can't believe everything you see, than again you can't believe every photo NASA puts out.

boncho


The publicity was started by a Rhawn Joseph, who filed a lawsuit.

Not really, the mystery was entirely a NASA publicized event because they had a WTF moment and said so, * "News of the errant rock was announced by NASA Mars Exploration Rover lead scientist Steve Squyres"
Innocent enough for most people and, as another poster, (Dianec) has said, it is the composition of the rock that turned out to be the most interest for NASA.

A suit from Rhawn Joseph, (more funny names) would need to explain why the story came from NASA in the first place.

*news.discovery.com...

I just don't see it looking like a jelly donut myself. I think those guys at NASA must see what they know. I wonder if they have donuts delivered every day at NASA.

reply to post by jaffo


Well; the explanation is fine as far as it goes. Given the photo showing Curiosities tracks and the rocks NASA say were broken by Curiosity, it would reasonable to think some of the damp ground would have also stuck to the rovers tracks in which case it would be equally reasonably to expect that some of that mud would have fallen off the tracks on to the rocks the stone fell onto.

Just wondering why there is no mud on the rocks as well?

The piece that they say was left behind when the rock we are talking about jumped DOES look (at this range) like the other half of the rock, so it is possible that they are correct. The ground usually is not that solid as to cause a jumping rock to skip a metre or so, however, maybe we have to take their word for it this time.

What I would like to point out is in the official image - if you look at the top arrow and where the shaft joins the arrowhead, at the 6 o'clock position, there are two small tubes facing to the right poking out of another piece. At the tip of that same arrow, at the 6 o'clock position there is a brown round disk-like or coin structure too. Those are interesting.

If anyone wants a picture without the arrows, there are quite a few on Sol 3567. An example is here.

Damn it!
I was hoping it was proof that aliens were coming to destroy all life on Earth.
Even puppies and kittens.

smurfy

boncho


The publicity was started by a Rhawn Joseph, who filed a lawsuit.

Not really, the mystery was entirely a NASA publicized event because they had a WTF moment and said so, * "News of the errant rock was announced by NASA Mars Exploration Rover lead scientist Steve Squyres"
Innocent enough for most people and, as another poster, (Dianec) has said, it is the composition of the rock that turned out to be the most interest for NASA.

A suit from Rhawn Joseph, (more funny names) would need to explain why the story came from NASA in the first place.

*news.discovery.com...

edit on 14-2-2014 by smurfy because: Link.

NASA's original publicity was this:

It's like nothing we've ever seen before,' he said.
'It's very high in sulphur, it's very high in magnesium, it's got twice as much manganese as we've ever seen in anything on Mars.
'I don't know what any of this means. We're completely confused, and everyone in the team is arguing and fighting (over what it means).'


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Then there wasn't much on it until Joesphs antics. I'm not giving him credit. And I should rephrase what I said, the publicity was not started by him but he did add quite a bit of attention to it, when the media picked up on his lawsuit. (Something I mocked when I first saw it.)

My point was, that it took a month to come to this conclusion:

www.jpl.nasa.gov...

And just as NASA speculated (educated guess) others did as well. And for once, I can't blame them. As it was an interesting mystery.

Whether or not it was the best form of publicity, it's nice that more attention came to the program… And the initial interest does not seem unreasonable.