That rock is relatively far away, and looks significantly larger than BI to me.

Wow... look at that... that looks like a BIG meteorite to me, with a very dramatic cavity on one side...

Click to view attachment

Meanwhile, Oppy is edging around Shelter Island, and the other side of this meteorite appears to have some absolutely fascinating structure...

Click to view attachment

What a wonderful place Meridiani is...

Oppy's playing shadow puppets again..

http://twitpic.com/kl8jo/full

The best we can do until we pin down its location on the map is to make a comparison like this:
Click to view attachment
I've enlarged the new rock image until the rock appears the same distance below the horizon as BI does in the right frame. Then, assuming the land is flat and level (not a bad guess for Meridiani), both frames must be to the same scale. So you can see that the new rock is a bit larger than BI, especially in height.

In terms of colour, it's not clear to me yet if the light upper part is a reflection off of shiny metal, or bright rock.

And just for the record Ustrax first posted this new rock in this post.

I'm thinking........how plausible is it to find other rock types around this area which were blasted off following the formation of Endeavour crater....is there a chance that we could find phylosilicates before we even get to the crater itself..will such rocks survive the blast which formed the crater??

Great work fredk - as usual! - and yep, congrats to our Eagle Eye Ustrax who spotted it first. I have very high hopes for this object, I don't mind admitting, especially if it's bigger than Block Island.

I think I see light reflecting off cubical crystals in the picture in post 202, and in the picture in post 203 seems to show hollow regions where hexagonal and cubical crystals have melted out.

Steve

You're not taking into account the curvature of the Martian surface , but I guess you can safely ignore it.

Does anyone know where the approximate location of 'new rock' is on the route map?

(based on the pancam / 09-10-01 / 1P307514406EFFA700P2418L6M1.JPG )

I guess the better question is how do you compare the pose of the camera image to a direction?

Nooooo - not another rock!

Phil

The direction is to the WNW. Distance is much harder to pin down. Staring at the images and trying to match patches of bedrock I'd guess 100 or 150 metres. That agrees roughly with a distance estimate based on a size of around 2/3 metre.

Any candidates in the hirise imagery out there?

I share your pain, Phil. Remember when I posted this?

I was wrong. I admit it, I was wrong, Doug was right. Perhaps not for the exact reason he gave, but he was right. It is painful. Made even more so by having the World's Biggest Meteorite Fan in here cheerleading.

Brian

We can only speculate on the new rock's shape in three dimensions, but it could easily be twice the volume of Block Island.

Almost any Martian rock type is possible, but remember that Endeavour crater is older than the bedrock Opportunity is driving on, so impact ejecta from Endeavour's formation lies below these Meridiani sediments. Of course, subsequent impacts could have blasted pieces of Endeavour's rock or it's original ejecta onto the top of the younger sediments.

I think Block Island had some holes with similar geometry.

Oh No ! NO more rocks please ! Let's go
Please, listen to the opinions coming from the "Endeavour Party" !

That gives me the right to name it...
Gardiners Island, why? Because there may be an hidden treasure there...
"The pirate/privateer Captain Kidd buried treasure on the island in June, 1699. Kidd stopped at the island while sailing to Boston to attempt to clear his name. With the permission of the proprietor, Mrs. Gardiner, he buried $30,000 in treasure in a ravine between Bostwick's Point and the Manor House. For her troubles he gave her a piece of gold cloth (a piece of which is now at the East Hampton library) captured from a Moorish ship off Madagascar, as well as a bag of sugar. Kidd warned that if the treasure was not there when he returned, he would kill the Gardiners, which was an idle threat. Kidd was to be tried in Boston and Gardiner was ordered by Governor Bellomont to deliver the treasure as evidence. The booty included gold dust, bars of silver, Spanish dollars, rubies, diamonds, candlesticks, and porringers. Gardiner kept one of the diamonds which he gave to his daughter. A plaque on the island marks the spot but it is on private property."

Yes. This too is (was?) the overall strategy as stated in past MER updates:

After 5 years on Mars, do the accumulated, say, 50 days of checking out 10 interesting rocks along the way really matter?

I still do not like the very orange ambience though, but it seems to be true color. Here my guess how the view toward the new rock could look like:

http://www.greuti.ch/oppy/SOL20271PL256++.jpg

Through all the image "processing", the rock keeps bluish in sunlight like parts of the other iron meteorite. So it may be another one - time will tell...


Edit: sry it is Sol2027 http://www.greuti.ch/oppy/SOL20271PL256++.jpg

When I look at the rock that Ustrax spotted on the horizon what I see is an inclined flat surface:

http://www.greuti.ch/oppy/SOL20471PL256++.jpg

This makes me think that it is a sedimentary rock. The local sedimentary rocks seem very weak and poorly cemented. I wonder if this is a strongly cemented sedimentary rock from far away.

Opportunity is a robot geologist, not a tourist bus. The need to reverse direction and travel back to BI seems a good example of the penalty paid when daily distance driven becomes more important than analysis of surroundings at the end of a drive.

From a reliability point of view Opportunity is living on borrowed time. I for one applaud the practical approach of the Rover team in accumulating data where possible rather than putting the pedal to the metal.

Everything's good! Driving and looking at rocks, all good. But one can have a preference... I just want to see new territory, a new kind of surface after several years of dusty drifts.

Phil

I could not say it better than Phil !
...And just imagine the global view on Endeavour we will have a few km south from here once we are over the crest and starting going down the (gentle) slope

I'm on board (if I can say so) Phil & Olivier. I recognise that stopping at "rocks" is even good for RF, plenty of science, etc.
But I'm a Climber (not joking) and I'd like to leave flatness as soon as we can and not taking the "Long and Winding Road" (that leads (to) Endeavour).
As Phil say, this is just a preference...

Think how much more boring the "years of dusty drifts" would be if not punctuated by finds like these meteorites.

Quite true, but to some of us, driving on Mars is like sentence construction. If, you punctuate too... often; reading(?) is, less, "enjoyable".

SI in color on Sol 2029

This is turning into a great Onion article:

Scientists Worry that Mars Rover is Making too Many Discoveries

Stung by complaints from space enthusiasts, NASA scientists sought ways to reduce the number of new discoveries being made by the Mars rover, Opportunity. "It's annoying," said one, referring to multiple discoveries of iron meteorites on the Meridiani plain, "we were getting used to week after week of monotonous terrain, and now there are just too many things to look at." A colleague agreed, "the first time or two we ran across an iron meteorite on Mars it was interesting, even exciting. But we've now come to dread the sight of those blasted things."

A solution may be at hand however. "We're reprogramming the cameras to ignore any future meteorites," said one rover driver. "A program has been written and will be sent to the rover on Mars," he said. From this point on, all images will be analyzed on board and those containing meteorites will be deleted from the memory and not transmitted to Earth. "You can't be distracted by what you can't see," said the driver. Both scientists nodded in agreement.

That is way better than the actual Mars rover related Onion ones I have seen so far and yet totally in the same style - a classic!

Airbag

Watching LCROSS impact and lack of immediate evidence of it I was thinking that Opportunity is may be the only Spacecraft in the history discovering what we're asking her to discover!
Do you want sedimental rocks? First shot shown them
Do you want hematite? First month shown them
More sediments? Go to this crater nearby... and here they are
A bigger one? What? Too far away? Here I come Victoria
Even a much Bigger one, let's go for it
Whaoua this is a meteroid! What about many more?
This little Lady is incredible and yes, unique.

...and imagine, she could identify that sometime a larger iron meteorite is broken apart in the ancient Mars atmosphere!

I bet Dan will see a dinausor's head on this one...

Too late. You already did.

Yep, that's going in the top 10 Space pics of the year!

The goal of Reaching Endeavor was set by the Rover Lead neither for sightseeing nor as a mere end in itself ("Selbstzweck") but the idea is to use those powerful wheels as our robot geologist's "seven-league boots" for reaching a far away place where she can do the greatest geology science there. So it's always about science and geology of course. The great new vistas are a very welcome by-product but the primary goal is for the science to be done at Endevaour with as much remaining working science instruments as possible - to study an entirely new realm of possible scientific wonders waiting for our lucky robot geologist there



Yes. and that's the reason why it is unlikely that Oppy can fully fulfill both of the two conflicting goals: many extensive rock studies *and* reaching Endeavor. So a priority must be set for preferring one of the two goals. And it has been my understanding from the press updates (but correct me if I'm wrong or missed a recent change in strategy) that the priorities as stated by the Rover Lead are: 1. Reaching Endeavour and 2. Do regular stops along the way only for a) sparse routine sampling and new interesting and unexpected discoveries along the way.

So this seems to be the most sensible approach that gives the chance to reach the main goal while at the same time not totally neglect intermediate science stops ...

Click to view attachment

That is, like, the coolest picture ever.

(Adding: referring to both Ant's and Stu's versions.)

Now that I've checked the raws I have to agree. At first I thought it was creative artwork that Astro0 did as a play on Stu's hand-puppet comment from last week. So after three versions of it popped up I went back and checked and holy smokes, that IS a real shadow, If I didn't know better, I'd even suggest that someone arranged it on purpose.

Look out Oppy! There is a Marsasaurus rex sneaking up behind you!

That's an awesome image & caption on so many levels. One of your best, Stu!

"Oppy, back away from the Marsosaur..."

Oppy says, "It belongs in a museum!"

cue Indy Jones theme

I'm wondering why is it taking so long for one of you guys to do a Jurassic Mars version out of this...

So, here we go

(with apologies to Ant103)

Perfect!

That would have been the right logo for the early weeks in Gusev as some people saw everywhere fossilized bones.

Ahh no kidding. More mummies in Gusev than in Egypt.

I think the picture is clear to me now, and it's so terrifying my fingers are almost frozen as I type out this message.

Why have we seen this Marsosaur only now?

That's not a meteorite.

That's an egg.

That's right, an iron-armoured egg of the Marsosaur.

Oppy, get the &%#@ out of there. Fast!

As good a reason as any to put the pedal to the metal and get to Endeavour.

Oddly appropriate - one wonders if Shelter Island has been quietly sitting there since the Martian equivalent of the Jurassic period.

That's exactly what I was talking about...great work!

here is my 'best guess' as to the location of the 'new rock':

Click to view attachment

your mileage may vary...

Cheers,