Opportunity rover finds timber

Opportunity rover finds timber on Mars. Check out the pix for yourself. A must see.

ufo-secret-files.com...

I saw that earlier described as a beam and i didn't see it but your picture is much better. Looks like a railroad tie or an eroded rectangular rock. It looks to be unusual in shape and texture compared to whats around it.

It does look like an old piece of timber, and this would be a phenomonal find in my book, but what really gets my attention is what is that shiny thing across the way? Looks like a light or something is reflecting.

The crater to the left leads me to think the item is layered stone that was ejected from the impact. You can see there are similar shaped objects protruding from the crater.

Looks like slate to me.

Man that really looks like wood to me. Is it just me or does it look like the dirt/sand was washed out alittle around it kinda like what happens at the beach.

Originally posted by space cadet
It does look like an old piece of timber, and this would be a phenomonal find in my book, but what really gets my attention is what is that shiny thing across the way? Looks like a light or something is reflecting.

That is what stood out to me as well. I opened the link and saw that and said "What the hell is that?"

[edit on 16-3-2008 by gimme_some_truth]

As far as the "timber", Im going to have to agree with robwerden... I believe its slate.

Whatever it is, they ran right over it with the rover!



BTW, space cadet, the shiny thing in the distance was mentioned as being the rover's heat shield, the trail of the rover originates from that point.

Now waiting for our resident expert, internos...

reply to post by gimme_some_truth


Hey Gimme, are we the only ones who see that? LOL! I am just wondering, usually on here folks would be lining up to point it out! Where ya'll at?

reply to post by goosdawg


Sorry didn't see that Goosdawg! Does it place the reflector across the way then drive away from it? I have never seen that in any of the other photos.

Very intriguing picture indeed.

Until we can either get some fully fledge probes or actually humans on the planet all the natural geology of Mars is and will remain a mystery.

I'm sure there is so much we don't have a clue about how its formed etc on other planets just by trying to base the theories and ideas we develop from our own planet.

reply to post by space cadet


Not sure, but in the big picture you can follow the trail from the foreground all the way back to the shiny thing.

Maybe that's where it originally landed?

Spacecadet,


It looks like goosdawg saw it too. But I am surprised that only three people mentioned it. I thought others would jump in and say somthing about it. Guess I thought wrong.


Edit to add: I meant to hit "reply to" so I could reply to spacecadets post. for some reason I went all the way to the bottom and just hit post reply. I must be more tired than I thought

[edit on 16-3-2008 by gimme_some_truth]

[edit on 16-3-2008 by gimme_some_truth]

reply to post by goosdawg


Sounds like a good guess to me. I could let my imagination inspire me to think it is a good number of things but alas, as our fellow member pointed out above, until we arrive on Mars in person, we are only speculating.

reply to post by gimme_some_truth


Exactly! Where are they? At least one person should have been here already to claim it a photoshop! Maybe this thread just keeps getting bumped to the bottom and nobody it seeing it? dunno, but I am going to keep checking in here, I am more curious about no one else mentioning it than I am about the dang peice of wood now!

reply to post by goosdawg

Thanks goosdawg, for bringing this one to my attention:
(BTW Our resident FSME for Space Exploration is NGC2736)
This image has been discussed here since 2004:

Pic from Mars rover revealing... a beam of wood!!!

It comes from Opportunity SOL 115 images, and it has been taken in
Meridiani Planum, near Endurance Crater, on May 21, 2004.
The full series can be found here
marsrover.nasa.gov...

On Sol 115 Opportunity drove 11.7 meters (38.4 feet), coming to rest
about 3 meters (10 feet) from the edge of "Endurance Crater," as
intended. Rover planners had commanded Opportunity to go 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) farther, but the rover decided to stop when it "saw" the edge of the crater in the navigation camera images. This was actually a more conservative response than necessary, as it would have been safe to complete the drive. Rover planners are looking into changing the way they send commands to prevent this over-conservatism next time.

www.jpl.nasa.gov...
photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov...

Hi res image



All i can say is that there's not a general consensus about what it
could be: someone stated that it's the texture of the rock, but of
course its appearance is out of the ordinary: i would put this one in
the top ten of the oddities ever spotted by Mars Rovers, if you ask me,
but that's just my humble opinion.

The shiny object is definately Opportunity's Heat Shield:


Astronomy Picture of the Day February 9, 2005


But it seems that the "timber" is not the only oddity of those days:
i quote a very interesting post by QuietSoul, here

Originally posted by QuietSoul

Upon searching, I noticed something odd...
(To have some pity on the dial ups, I chose to link to the pictures in question instead of loading the pics)

In this picture you'll see the object in question just below the horizon. This picture was taken on the 114th SOL (day)..

So I mosey around a little more, and to my amusement, NASA actually spent quite some time around this 'object'...

On the 115th SOL, you'll see the object much closer.. but nothing that we havent seen so far... (notice we're already past the object)

And again, on the 116th SOL you'll see the object, and much more rover tracks around it...

And well, on the 119th SOL you'll noticed we're still right on top of it...

Thats 5 days NASA spent in this area, and all we have to show for it is a handful of pictures out of very many.. what's in those pictures? What pictures were taken on the 117th and 118th SOL (Navcam) that they refused to post? And before you say that perhaps the rover wasnt in operation, you might note its panoramic pictures taken on the 117th and 118th, but not one single navigation and hazcam picture? Hmmmm?

Sorry for not being helpful, but i don't think there's a way to assest what exactly we see in the photo.

reply to post by internos


More as an answer to QuietSoul's post, and to add some more food for thought, I would like to add that Opportunity reached that site on Sol 112 (the first to have the "26" site code on the filenames) and it moved from that site on Sol 115 (the last images with code "26" are from Sol 114), so it was not on the same place on Sols 115 to 119 (in fact, in those Sols it moved once, there are two different site codes for them).

There are no images from Sol 113.

And yes, that "beam" looks like all the other rock slabs on that area, only this one looks less like a slab.

did the rover take any samples of it ????

internos, I may be the FSME here, but you are our resident genius. I'm more an expert for trying to ask the right questions, not because I have all that many answers.

I've seen this "RR tie" before. I was under the impression that the general agreement was that it was LIKELY a rock, but there was some uncertainty. My biggest problem with this item is why there is only one. If it was a rock, then it would seem that there should be more pieces like it laying around.

Does this mean it's an artifact? No, it just means that it is an anomaly. It's something out of the ordinary that cannot really be identified at this time.

At least that is my take on it.

Is that more of them in the background to the right going towards the crater.
And the one poking out of the ground near the main big one looks really perfect in its shape.
Does look a bit like wood at the beach when the tide has been around it.
If I saw a scene like this on the beach on Earth, especially if those in the background are the same, then I would have thought it was an old ship wreck, if I saw them in the desert, then I would conclude maybe remains of an old mine.