Here's a recent image (just 6 hours ago). Looks like Opportunity is at the "berry bowl." Is that what this is?



If so, maybe the density of berries isn't quite what they had hoped:



Image info for 1F132186603EFF05AMP1214R0M1.jpg
Spacecraft: OPPORTUNITY
Camera: Forward HAZCAM, right
Spacecraft clock: 132186603 (seconds since January 1, 2000, 11:58:55.816 UTC)
Product type: EDR full frame
Site number: 05
Drive number: AM
Command sequence number: P1214 (PMA or remote sensing instrument) HAZCAM
Producer: MIPL/JPL
Acquisition date (Earth): Wed Mar 10 05:17:56 EST 2004
Acquisition date (Mars): Sol 45 13:43:54
Current local Earth time: Wed Mar 10 12:13:58 EST 2004
Current local Mars time: Sol 45 20:20:22
Elapsed time since acquisition: 0 days, 06:47:21

I find it odd they havnt looked at the chunks of rock (there are a few) that appear the same blue as the blueberry bowl. - The bowl is certainly quite empty

Doug

Three headed "blueberry"

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...AMP2937M2M1.JPG

The triple one reminds me of proliferating yeast:

http://www.ifr.bbsrc.ac.uk/ncyc/Default.html

But be careful. Yeast is a few microns across, so it's clearly at a different scale than these marbles.

mate, you need to be carefull, it's bits of rock.

Doug

Where do you know ?

If it were anything else -it would have flagged up in the mossbauer and APXS work that has already seen these things measured, against soil and rock

There is also a proven, geological process that generates forms like this - for which there is plenty of evidence already.

Doug

Hello Doug,

>>If it were anything else -it would have flagged up in the mossbauer and APXS work >>that has already seen these things measured, against soil and rock

What would you expect to flag up for some fossil mables inside the outcrop ?
The mössbauer can only determine iron minerals.
The APX is also very limited regarding the elements it can measure.
(I think it e.g. can't detect carbon but correct me if I'm wrong.)

(By the way I'm a little bit dissapointed that the rovers wouldn't be able to detect larger amounts water inside the soil.)

What makeup do you expect for a marian fossil ?

>>There is also a proven, geological process that generates forms like this - for which >>there is plenty of evidence already.

Well the concretions hypothesis is an option - no doubt - but:

The fossil one can't be ruled out, too.

We've seen them sliced open, in their entirety, broken, merged, falling out of every single bit of outcrop - they're just geology. If - for ONE moment - there was ANY chance they were evidence of past life - do you think for a second that nasa wouldnt be dancing on the streets and waving its hands in the air?

Doug

Hello Doug,

Well, I know that NASA did consider the fossil hypothesis AS AN OPTION (!!!) 3 weeks ago, because I had contact to two NASA members via email.

Since then I had no more contact to them so I don't know what they think about it at the moment (if it's still an option to them or not).

They simply didn't make their "fourth hypothesis" public, because they knew that this would mean the end of "quite science" to them. The public would have watched each of their steps and that wouldn't have been good for the whole mission. (This is also my opinion).

The other reason is:

They have nothing on board of the rovers to test the fossil hypothesis except the cameras. And it't very hard to collect enough evidence to make such a big hypothesis public only based on optical hints.

(sorry, I'm not a native english speaker, but I hope I can make my points clear)

So they choose mainly to go on with their primary mission:

"Look for evidence for past or present water action."

They were very succesful in this as we have seen.

(But why the hell didn't they put an instrument on board that would enable them to detect acutal water on or below the surface directly ?
Thats a pity, because some spots looked really wet to me...)


So:

Why don't they dance on the streets if it could be fossils ?

Because they don't know if this are fossils and they have no possibility to proof/disproof this hypothesis.

But that doesn't affect the possibility that this could be fossils.

Apart from the fact there is a proven geological process behind how they formed.

Give up, honestly, I see no reason to suggest there is a posibility they are fossils - no reason at all. They dont even look like fossils.

Also - given the air pressue and temperature on mars, it's impossible for liquid water to exist on the surface - so there is nothing that could 'look wet'

Doug

Just a few points here:

There are some fossils on earth that are spherical and can have "stems". And how can we guess beforehand what fossils on another planet should or should not look like anyway? That's earth-based chauvinism.

Some concretions are now known to have been created by bacteria (they are still made of minerals, but the creation process is augmented by microbiology). That option is still open also.

Re anything "flagging up", they only just did the Mossbauer measurements, etc. of the spherules in the blueberry bowl within the last day or two, so no results released yet, and so we don't even know yet what has shown up in the results and what hasn't. They also haven't even left the crater yet, for more comparison studies.

I posted the new image of the stemmed blueberry in the other topic 'Marble on Stem' last week, a better view of it than previous images (there are others also). I agree that geology could do that conceivably, but you have to admit it is odd-looking. Has anyone here seen that one yet? These objects are certainly interesting, in any case.

I just think it's too early to say anything definite still. Geology and biology can sometimes mimic each other, and with the instruments we have on these rovers, we may never know for certain. If this area was under standing water (and they are leaning toward that concept now I've heard as opposed to underground water percolating upwards), why is it so inconceivable that life could have been there? I'm not saying these things must be related to biology at all as some do, but the possibility, even if small perhaps(?), still cannot be just dismissed out-of-hand.

Also, re the "rotini" object, JPL has acknowledged being puzzled by it. That thing does have a "fossil-like" appearance to it. It may be or may not be, but again another candidate which cannot just be dismissed too quickly. I too wish these rovers were equipped for organics and biology also!

Re water, other studies have shown that minute amounts of briny water could exist today in the soil, at least near the equator (where temperatures can go above freezing). Perhaps more even just below the surface. Why do some people seem to think this is so impossible?

Chaosman - can you say who your two NASA contacts were?

Finally, contrary to what has been erroneously stated recently sometimes, there _are_ exobiologists / biophysicists involved with the MER team - Andrew Knoll and Benton Clark (who also spoke at the water press conference) at least that I know of, both with extensive backgrounds in these areas. It is just that geology is at the forefront for the public and media as this is a geology mission.

Paul

-"Apart from the fact there is a proven geological process behind how they formed."

Could you please show me the proof that these things formed geologicaly ?
I only heard about a hypothesis jet. So this would interest me a lot.




-"Give up, honestly, I see no reason to suggest there is a posibility they are fossils - no reason at all. They dont even look like fossils."

Just to give you one example that looks very similar to the marbles:

http://www.cretaceousfossils.com/plants/po..._globularis.htm
http://www.iftx.com/oct03.jpg



-"Also - given the air pressue and temperature on mars, it's impossible for liquid water to exist on the surface - so there is nothing that could 'look wet'"

Well have you ever heard of concentrated brines ? Concentrated brines can very well be stable under martian conditions. Even NASA stated it during on of their press briefings.

chaosman,
My hypothesis is that the spherules are mineralized gas bubbles. There was a paper written several years ago bout millimeter sized pyrite concretions forming in gas bubbles in black shales. Perhaps a similar process, but with different minerals, was at work on Mars.

"Chaosman - can you say who your two NASA contacts were?"

Well I won't give the names to the public, because I don't know if they would like it.

But I can give you one original statement:


My email question was:


"Can you tell me:

Why doesn't NASA consider fossils as an option for explaining the spheres ?"


Answer:

"Simply stated, we ARE considering all possible explanations for the spherules. Also, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs".


I also remember a press briefing where one NASA guy said something like:

"...You can bet that we have fun speculating what that things might be...".

But they never used the "F"-word in public.


My best guess:

The dicussions going on in some forums like this pretty much reflect the discussions inside the rover team.
But the majortity inside the rover science team belives that this are concretions.


But as I said:

They will not be able to proff/disproof anything during this mission. :-(

Well it is fun to watch anyway !

To Gray:

That might well be.

I don't know enough about geology to rule out you therory or to give any statement on how likely that would be.

Could that also explain the mables on stems/stalks ?

chaosman,
I've explained that in the 'marbles' thread on Mark Carey's forum. I think there might have been 'microchannels' in the muds parallel to the bedding which also experienced similar secondary mineralization. The 'marble-on-a-stem' was a place where one of the microchannels intersected a spherule.

Interesting theory,

are you a geologist ?

If so:

What do you think:

Did the outcrop form in standing water or groundwater ?

There appear to be cross-beds in some of the rocks. Cross-beds are formed by water flowing parallel to the bedding. If it's flowing parallel to the bedding, it would strongly suggest surficial water as opposed to ground water. They can also be formed by wind.