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NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Reveals Geological Mystery (marsdaily.com)
55 points by mikeleeorg on Sept 16, 2012 | hide | past | favorite | 8 comments


When these show up on Earth they're often called "moqui marbles." Lots of them are found in Utah and other parts of the American southwest:

http://blog.regehr.org/archives/703

In the top pictures you can see them embedded in the canyon walls. In the pics lower down they've eroded out and are just sitting around.

Correction: moqui marbles are analogous to "blueberries." It doesn't seem clear yet what these new concretions are.


They say it's different, which I assume means different from any geological formation they have ever seen, including on Earth, but I fail to understand what makes them so mysterious.

Obviously, it wasn't meant for my absolute layman knowledge, but I wish I could have felt a bit of their geological excitement.


The mystery is that on earth these types of structures are the byproduct of a type of bacteria, these are slightly different though the atmosphere of Mars is also not the same as Earth so in that whilst that in some ways point towards a sign of life we still don't know for sure and until we work out with complete confiedience if they were made the same kind of way then we have a wonderful mystery.


Wikipedia says "Evidence suggests that microbial metabolism may have contributed to the formation of some of these concretions".

Yet you state it as fact that these forms "are the byproduct of a type of bacteria" [my emphasis]. How come you're so certain?


It's so neat to see Opportunity making discoveries and advancing science years after its arrival. High hopes for Curiosity's future.


Whenever I think of how long Spirit and Opportunity have been on Mars doing science beyond their expected lifetimes I think "Now _thats_ engineering!"


And they've got nothing on the Voyager probes. I have a sense of awe and significant respect every time I think of them.


This looks like a field of variety sized bubbles in different stages of erosion by sandwind. The large ones across middle path seem to have thinner walls thus faster to grind down than the smaller ones with relatively thicker walls.




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