21 September 2010

Meteorite Ahead!

Posted by Ryan Anderson

There has been a flurry of emails going around among the MER team about a certain rock ahead of the Opportunity rover that looks like it may be yet another meteorite.  It certainly doesn’t look much like the local meridiani rocks, which are the light-toned patches in the photo above. Meteorites are interesting because they provide information about the weathering environment on mars. We know that Mars is all rusty, but iron meteorites are nice and fresh when they fall, so by studying how rusted they are we can learn about the martian atmosphere.

Another thing that strikes me in the photo above is how close Endeavor’s rim looks! I’ve been a bad martian and haven’t looked at the photos from Opportunity for a while, so it’s great to see those distant hills looking not-so-distant. Of course, they’re still a long way off, they’re just really big. It’s like driving toward a mountain range here on earth. You can see your destination long before you get there, and then it seems to taunt you as you creep closer and closer.

For more information about the meteorite sighting, check the NASA press release.