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Curiosity's First Scoopful of Mars


Waspie_Dwarf

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Curiosity's First Scoopful of Mars

This video clip shows the first Martian material collected by the scoop on the robotic arm of NASA's Mars Curiosity rover, being vibrated inside the scoop after it was lifted from the ground on Oct. 7, 2012. The clip includes 256 frames from Curiosity's Mast Camera, taken at about eight frames per second, plus interpolated frames to run at actual speed in this 32-frames-per-second version. The scoop was vibrated to discard any overfill. Churning due to vibration also serves to show physical characteristics of the collected material, such as an absence of pebbles. The scoop is 1.8 inches (4.5 centimeters) wide, 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) long.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS › Curiosity's mission site

Source: NASA - Multimedia

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Damn I will have to wait to get home to check the video out ....

I have high hopes that we will find something " wonderfull " on Mars ( Dave Bowman anyone ? )

Maybe not with the first scoop but as they say .... We have to start some where !

TiP

Edited by tipotep
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I also hope we find something of real importance on Mars to make it worth all the money spent. Just hope it isn't some kind of bacteria that kills us all.

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Just hope it isn't some kind of bacteria that kills us all.

If it's on Mars how is it going to kill us all?

In the highly unlikely event that there is deadly bacteria on Mars wouldn't it be for the best if it was discovered now BEFORE we return samples to the Earth?

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If it's on Mars how is it going to kill us all?

In the highly unlikely event that there is deadly bacteria on Mars wouldn't it be for the best if it was discovered now BEFORE we return samples to the Earth?

I was wondering about his the other day , how are they going to bring the samples back home ?

Do they have a return rocket ??

TiP.

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? return ? :no:

For the samples :tu: Unless they are going to email them back ?

I may have had a man moment ........ Waspie might have been talking about in the future not the samples they are looking at now . :whistle:

TiP.

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I was wondering about his the other day , how are they going to bring the samples back home ?

Do they have a return rocket ??

TiP.

They aren't going to return the samples. There is a reason why Curiosity is also known as the Mars Science Laboratory, it will analyse the samples itself.
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I dont believe that they will find life in a Crater,that has been blasted out eons ago,or due to a volcanic eruption. There may be life on Mars but they are looking in the wrong place.

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I dont believe that they will find life in a Crater,that has been blasted out eons ago,or due to a volcanic eruption. There may be life on Mars but they are looking in the wrong place.

They are not looking for life on mars. More-so evidence that suggests that there was once life on Mars, or at least the environment to support it.

And we are talking microbial life here ;)

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They are not looking for life on mars. More-so evidence that suggests that there was once life on Mars, or at least the environment to support it.

And we are talking microbial life here ;)

ok Oz,microbes or whatever,I wouldnt expect them to find a fossil, or some other Martian creature ,but to examine a crater blasted out long ago doesnt look right to me,because an impact would cause everything to be atomised by the heat generated, within that area,and nothing would be left alive or dead.So once they've convinced themselves that there's nothing there, they might move on to somewhere like a dry river bed,which could be more successfull.I would like to see something positive come out of this.
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are there any 'caves' on mars?

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ok Oz,microbes or whatever,I wouldnt expect them to find a fossil, or some other Martian creature ,but to examine a crater blasted out long ago doesnt look right to me,because an impact would cause everything to be atomised by the heat generated, within that area,and nothing would be left alive or dead.So once they've convinced themselves that there's nothing there, they might move on to somewhere like a dry river bed,which could be more successfull.I would like to see something positive come out of this.

Actually the very reason they are in a crater is because it is a hole that has been blasted in the ground. If you want to look back in geological time you can not do it by looking at the top few centimetres of soil.

By examining the walls or central peak of the crater you can examine ancient rock layers and determine the conditions on Mars in the past.

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
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ok Oz,microbes or whatever,I wouldnt expect them to find a fossil, or some other Martian creature ,but to examine a crater blasted out long ago doesnt look right to me,because an impact would cause everything to be atomised by the heat generated, within that area,and nothing would be left alive or dead.So once they've convinced themselves that there's nothing there, they might move on to somewhere like a dry river bed,which could be more successfull.I would like to see something positive come out of this.

Actually, on impact craters on earth, they have found dead single-celled life preserved within the melted-sand turned glass... o.O so...it might not be the wrong place to look after all

Edited by Bavarian Raven
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do they know what the shiny thing is yet?

Object Likely Benign Plastic from Curiosity Rover

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 07:49:45 PM GMT

Curiosity's main activity in the 62nd sol of the mission (Oct. 8, 2012) was to image a small, bright object on the ground using the Remote Micro-Imager of the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument.

The rover team's assessment is that the bright object is something from the rover, not Martian material. It appears to be a shred of plastic material, likely benign, but it has not been definitively identified.

To proceed cautiously, the team is continuing the investigation for another day before deciding whether to resume processing of the sample in the scoop. Plans include imaging of surroundings with the Mastcam.

A sample of sand and dust scooped up on Sol 61 remains in the scoop. Plans to transfer it from the scoop into other chambers of the sample-processing device were postponed as a precaution during planning for Sol 62 after the small, bright object was detected in an image from the Mast Camera (Mastcam).

A Sol 62 raw image from ChemCam, at http://1.usa.gov/R1fZHt, shows the object in question just to left of center of the image.

Sol 62, in Mars local mean solar time at Gale Crater, will end at 12:23 a.m. Oct. 9, PDT (3:23 a.m., EDT).

arrow3.gifSource

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I had my doubts on finding life in the crater myself. Now I have other doubts. If this crater is a supposed 3.5-3.8 BILLION years old.. after looking up a bunch of old craters on earth. Anything that old is completely covered up due to wind and water erosion, and tectonic activity. If we surmise the Martian crater is that old, we also have to guess that Mars has been pretty quiet for 3.5 years. On earth 3.5 billion years ago, it was the Hadean time. Heavy bombardment time, and since that was a system wide time, Mars was also heavily bombarded. I think the chances of finding life are extremely small at this point. And water on Mars? It's there, but there never has been enough to do anything. It had 3.5 billion years to fill a crater, something 50 MILLION years can do easily on Earth.

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"Image credit: NASA

NASA's Curiosity rover has used its robotic arm to pick up a scoop of soil from the Martian surface.

It's the first time the rover has collected some of the soil, a video has also been released showing the sample being vibrated inside the scoop to determine its texture and to even off the amount collected. While the initial sample won't be used for analysis, NASA will later pick up another scoop of soil and deliver a small amount to the rover's on-board instruments.

Officials have also detected what appears to be a small bright object on the ground which could potentially be part of the rover itself. An investigation is being carried out to determine if something may have broken off before the mission continues.

Wonder what they will say if it is not something broken off curiosity ????

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They aren't going to return the samples. There is a reason why Curiosity is also known as the Mars Science Laboratory, it will analyse the samples itself.

Are you trying to confuse me or something :whistle:

If they aren't going to return any samples to earth why did you write ...

In the highly unlikely event that there is deadly bacteria on Mars wouldn't it be for the best if it was discovered now BEFORE we return samples to the Earth?

TiP.

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Are you trying to confuse me or something :whistle:

If they aren't going to return any samples to earth why did you write ...

TiP.

I read it as him referring to possible samples being returned on future missions?

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I read it as him referring to possible samples being returned on future missions?

Yes i read it the same way. - but to be fair to tipotep the reply could lead to confusion if people dont understand the abilities of Curiosity. it only becomes clear without reference waspie was referring to future missions if you understand the abilities of the rover in the first place. :tu:

all cleared up now so confusion over :clap: well played timonthy.

im looking forward to see what curiosity discovers. the findings cannot come soon enough. this is the only downside to space exploration, it takes to long.

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Let's hope the "object" is benign if it came from the rover. As far as bringing samples back is concerned, it would not be a big jump from where we are now.

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