The Mars Rovers

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The Mars Rovers

• Spirit and Opportunity

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The Mars Science Strategy Follow the Wate r
Common Thread
W A T E R
Determine if Life ever arose on Mars
Characterize the Climate of Mars
Characterize the Geology of Mars
When Where Form Amount
Prepare for Human Exploration
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Facts About Mars

• Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, the next
  beyond Earth
• It revolves around the Sun once every 687 Earth
  days
• The length of a Martian day 24 hours, 39 min.,
  35 sec.
• The atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide (95.3
  percent), nitrogen (2.7 percent), and argon (1.6
  percent)
• The surface winds go up to 40 meters per second
  (80 miles per hour)
• The surface temperature averages -53C
• Its gravity is only 38 percent as strong as
  Earth's
• Mars has two irregular moons, each only a few
  kilometers wide Phobos (larger moon) and Deimos
  (smaller)
• Its average diameter is about 4,212 miles about
  half the size of Earth, but twice the size of
  Earth's Moon

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The Robotic Geologists

• Like human geologists on Earth, Spirit and
  Opportunity use the same type of tools on the
  surface of Mars to explore the geologic history
  of the planet.

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Pancam
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Mini-TES

• The Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer, or
  Mini-TES, is an instrument that sees infrared
  radiation emitted by objects. The instrument is
  located at the bottom of the rover's mast, and
  scanning mirrors reflect light down to it. It
  sees the terrain around the rover from the same
  vantage point as Pancam. The Mini-TES will
  determine the mineral composition of martian
  surface features and selects which rocks and
  soils should be investigated in detail.

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APXS

• Athena's Alpha-Particle-X-Ray Spectrometer will
  determine the elemental chemistry of rocks and
  soils accurately in order to complement and
  constrain the mineralogical analyses of the other
  instruments. The APXS works by emitting
  curium-244 and measuring the backscattered apha
  particles.

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RAT

• Like a rock hammer is used on Earth to see the
  interior of rocks, the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT)
  is used to do the same on Mars. The RAT is
  positioned against a rock by the rover's
  instrument arm, and uses a grinding wheel to
  remove dust and weathered rock, exposing fresh
  rock underneath. The RAT exposes an area nearly 2
  inches in diameter, and grinds down to a depth of
  about 0.2 inches.

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Mössbauer Spectrometer

• Because many of the most important minerals on
  Mars contain iron, the Mössbauer Spectrometer is
  designed to determine with high accuracy the
  composition and abundance of iron-bearing
  minerals that are difficult to detect. The
  Mössbauer uses cobalt-57 as a source of gamma
  particles and measures the backscattered
  radiation.

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The Microscopic Imager

• The Microscopic Imager is a combination of a
  microscope and a camera. It will produce extreme
  close-up views of rocks and soils examined by
  other instruments on the instrument arm,
  providing information to determine what minerals
  and elements are a part of the data collected.

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Deep Space Network
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First View of Eagle Crater
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Mini-TES Spectra

• This overlay of Mini-TES hematite data on the
  Pancam image of the Eagle Crater outcrop shows
  areas of highest and lowest abundance of hematite.

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Hematite at Meridiani

• The first outcrop rock Opportunity examined up
  close was finely-layered, buff-colored and in the
  process of being eroded by windblown sand.
  Embedded in it and on top of it like blueberries
  in a muffin were little spherical grains. Black
  and white microscopic images like this one taken
  on Opportunitys 14th sol on Mars show the gray
  spheres which have weathered out of the rock and
  are resting in the darker soil.

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Evidence of Water

• This image, taken by the panoramic camera on the
  Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, shows a close
  up of the rock dubbed "El Capitan," located in
  the rock outcrop in "Eagle Crater" at Meridiani
  Planum, a bit right of center, in the upper
  portion of the outcrop. El Capitan was named
  after the most dramatic peak inside Guadalupe
  National Park in Texas. El Capitan was a
  significant find on Mars due to the multiple ways
  it provided clues to lead scientists to believe
  the entire outcrop in Eagle Crater was once
  covered in water.

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Bromine vs. Chlorine
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1 cm
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Leaving Eagle Crater

• This approximate true-color panorama, dubbed
  "Lion King," shows "Eagle Crater" and the
  surrounding plains of Meridiani Planum. It was
  obtained by the Mars Exploration Rover
  Opportunity's panoramic camera on sols 58 and 60
  using infrared (750-nanometer), green
  (530-nanometer) and blue (430-nanometer)
  filters.   This is the largest panorama obtained
  yet by either rover. It was taken in eight
  segments using six filters per segment, for a
  total of 558 images and more than 75 megabytes of
  data. Additional lower elevation tiers were added
  to ensure that the entire crater was covered in
  the mosaic.   This panorama depicts a story of
  exploration including the rover's lander, a
  thorough examination of the outcrop, a study of
  the soils at the near-side of the lander, a
  successful exit from Eagle Crater and finally the
  rover's next desination, the large crater dubbed
  "Endurance".

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Southward to Endurance

• Opportunity stops to take a look at the interior
  of Endurance Crater while the science and
  engineering team determine the best path to
  proceed.

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Burns Cliff

• NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity
  captured this view of "Burns Cliff" after driving
  right to the base of the southeastern portion of
  the inner wall of "Endurance Crater." The view
  combines frames taken by Opportunity's panoramic
  camera between the rover's 287th and 294th
  martian days

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A Trail of RAT Holes
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View of the dune field

• Cresting enticingly are dunes on the floor of
  Endurance Crater. The mission team had to resist
  the temptation, as the dunes proved to be too
  slippery for the rover to drive on.

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• It was once wet at Meridiani Planum.
• Rocks are a mixture of chemical and siliciclastic
  sediments with a complex diagenetic history.
• Uppermost strata are water-lain lowest strata
  have undergone eolian reworking.
• Environmental conditions recorded include
  episodic inundation by shallow surface water,
  evaporation and desiccation.
• Conditions were habitable, but could have posed
  significant challenges to the origin of life
• Highly oxidizing?
• Highly acidic?
• Highly saline?
• Arid and only intermittently wet?
• Aqueous precipitates (particularly concretions)
  might be good at preserving fossil evidence of
  microbial life.

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The Road South

• NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used
  its navigation camera to take the images combined
  into this stereo, 360-degree view of the rover's
  surroundings on March 6, 2005. Opportunity had
  completed a drive of 407 feet across the rippled
  flatland of the Meridiani Planum region on the
  previous sol, but did not drive on this sol. This
  location is catalogued as Opportunity's site 48.

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James Caird
S411
S412
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James Caird
S411
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Today
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Opportunity

• Slow Progress in Dune (Left Front Wheel)The
  left front wheel of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover
  Opportunity makes slow but steady progress
  through soft dune material in this movie clip of
  frames taken by the rover's front hazard
  identification camera over a period of several
  days. The sequence starts on May 10, 2005 and
  ends 11 days later. In eight drives during that
  period, Opportunity advanced a total of 10 inches
  while spinning its wheels enough to have driven
  151 feet if there were no slippage. The motion
  appears to speed up near the end of the clip, but
  that is an artifact of individual frames being
  taken less frequently.

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Opportunity

• Looking Back at Purgatory DuneThe wheels of
  NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity dug
  more than 4 inches deep into the soft, sandy
  material of a wind-shaped ripple in Mars'
  Meridiani Planum region during the rover's 446th
  martian day, or sol (April 26, 2005). Getting the
  rover out of the ripple, dubbed "Purgatory Dune,"
  required more than five weeks of planning,
  testing, and carefully monitored driving.
  Opportunity used its navigation camera to capture
  this look back at the ripple on June 11, 2005, a
  week after the rover drove safely onto firmer
  ground. The ripple that became a sand trap is
  about one foot tall and 8 feet wide.

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Opportunitys Path
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Victoria on the Horizon
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Whats Next?
Mars Science Lab, 2009
Phoenix Lander, 2007
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The Team
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More Information

• www.athena.cornell.edu
• http//marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov

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