NASA’s Opportunity rover, older brother to the Curiosity rover that landed on Mars last month, has made a new discovery that geologists find both puzzling and exciting, the US space agency said Friday.<\/p>\n
Opportunity, which has been on the Red Planet since 2004, has come across an outcrop of tiny spheres — up to around an eighth of an inch (three millimeters) in diameter — the likes of which scientists have never seen before.<\/p>\n
“This is one of the most extraordinary pictures from the whole mission,” said Opportunity’s principal investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.<\/p>\n
“We never have seen such a dense accumulation of spherules in a rock outcrop on Mars,” he added, in a statement.<\/p>\n
At first glance, the researchers thought the objects resembled iron-rich spheres, nicknamed “blueberries,” discovered near the Opportunity landing site.<\/p>\n
The so-called Martian blueberries are formed when minerals separate from water and become hard masses inside sedimentary blocks — they’re part of the evidence Mars used to be wet.<\/p>\n
But closer investigation revealed the new discoveries are “different in concentration. They are different in structure. They are different in composition. They are different in distribution,” Squyres said.<\/p>\n
“It’s going to take a while to work this out, so the thing to do now is keep an open mind and let the rocks do the talking.”<\/p>\n
Opportunity found the spheres at an outcrop called Kirkwood, in the Cape York segment of Endeavour Crater’s western rim.<\/p>\n
Although Opportunity’s prime mission was completed more than eight years ago, the rover has continued on “bonus” missions since then.<\/p>\n
Fellow Mars rover Spirit, also launched in the summer of 2003, continued working until March 2010.<\/p>\n
The most recent Mars lander, Curiosity, is on a two-year quest to explore Mars geology. The $2.5 billion robot is currently in the Gale crater, trundling towards Mount Sharp.<\/p>\n
Curiosity is running “flawlessly”<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The tech behind Curiosity<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Curiosity ready to test robotic arm<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n