

NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Reveals Geological Mystery - mikeleeorg
http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/NASA_Mars_Rover_Opportunity_Reveals_Geological_Mystery_999.html

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regehr
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.

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goldfeld
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.

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Zenst
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.

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pbhjpbhj
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?

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

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i386
Whenever I think of how long Spirit and Opportunity have been on Mars doing
science beyond their expected lifetimes I think "Now _thats_ engineering!"

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

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mickey11
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.

