YAHOO.COM - An odd flower-like feature spotted on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover
continues to perplex researchers, who nevertheless stress that its
origins are not biological.
The object garnered a lot of attention after Curiosity photographed it
last month, with many Internet users quickly dubbing it the "Mars flower."
The feature is actually a rounded, light-colored pebble slightly larger
than a grain of sand, but determining its precise mineralogical makeup
would require more information, researchers said.
"It could be a lot of things, but without some chemical information to
back me up, I'd really hesitate to say what it is," Aileen Yingst, of
the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., told reporters today
(Jan. 15).
"I'm not trying to be cagey," added Yingst, the deputy principal
investigator for Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI. "I'm just
trying to be clear that a light grain could be a lot of different
things."
The so-called Mars flower juts from a rock near an outcrop mission
scientists have named "John Klein," in honor of a former Curiosity
deputy project manager who died in 2011. The car-size rover is preparing
to use its drill for the first time in the area, boring into a John Klein rock over the next two weeks or so.
The outcrop and its environs show many signs of long-ago exposure to
liquid water, including water-deposited mineral veins that fill fissures
in the rock. John Klein is thus a suitable drilling target for
Curiosity, whose main goal is to determine if Mars has ever been capable
of supporting microbial life.
The Mars flower is not a sign of life, but it does add to the site's intrigue, researchers said.
"It does indicate that you have, you know, a relatively diverse set of grains just in this one sample," Yingst said.
The 1-ton Curiosity rover
landed inside Mars' huge Gale Crater on the night of Aug. 5, 2012. NASA
officials have called the six-wheeled robot the most capable planetary
explorer ever launched. It carries 17 different cameras and 10 science
instruments, including gear that can detect organic compounds — the
carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it.
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2013 WorldNow and KHQ. All Rights Reserved. For more information on this site, please read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
