Posted on by Fraser Cain

Mars Express Radar Boom to Be Deployed in May

MARSIS on board ESA’s Mars Express will employ ground-penetrating radar to map underground water. Image credit: ESA. Click to enlarge.
Following green light for the deployment of ESA?s Mars Express radar, given in February this year, the radar booms are now planned to be deployed in the first half of May.

Once the deployment is successful, the Mars Express MARSIS radar will enable the first European spacecraft to orbit Mars to complement its study of the planet?s atmosphere and surface.

MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument) is the first antenna of its kind which was also designed to actually look below the surface of Mars at the different layers of material, most notably for water.

The deployment of the three MARSIS radar booms is an operation which will take place in three phases, in a window spanning from 2 to 12 May 2005. These operations will be initiated and monitored from ESA?s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.

Each boom will be deployed separately, with the two 20-metre ?dipole? booms to be unfurled first and the 7-metre ?monopole? boom to follow a few days later.

Before each deployment, the spacecraft will be placed in a ?robust? attitude control mode, which will allow it to tumble freely while the boom extends before regaining standard pointing to the Sun and Earth.

After each deployment, the control team will conduct a full assessment of the spacecraft status before a decision is taken to proceed with the next phase.

The result of each deployment can be assessed only after a series of tests, each taking few days. After the deployment of the three booms, ESA engineers will start the analysis of the complete behaviour of the satellite to be able to confirm the overall success of the operation.

The current schedule is subject to changes, because the timing of the complex series of operations cannot be all fixed beforehand. A status report will follow in due course.

Once the deployment is complete, MARSIS will undergo three weeks of commissioning before the start of actual science investigations, ready for when one of the prime regions of interest for radar observations comes into the right position through the natural evolution of the spacecraft?s orbit.

The MARSIS instrument was developed by the University of Rome, Italy, in partnership with NASA?s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, USA.

Original Source: ESA News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Tithonium Chasma on Mars

Tithonium Chasma, a major trough at the western end of the Valles Marineris canyon on Mars. Image credit: ESA. Click to enlarge.
This image, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA?s Mars Express spacecraft, shows part of Tithonium Chasma, a major trough at the western end of the Valles Marineris canyon on Mars.

The image was taken during orbit 887 with a ground resolution of approximately 13 metres per pixel.

The displayed region is located at the beginning of the canyon system at about latitude 5? South and longitude 280? East. North is to the right of the image.

Tithonium Chasma extends roughly from east to west and runs parallel to Ius Chasma. It ranges from approximately 10 to 110 kilometres wide, narrows in an easterly (top to bottom) direction and has a maximum depth of about 3.5 to 4 kilometres.

The colour image covers the eastern part of Tithonium Chasma. Along the slopes of the trough (centre), linear features due to erosion are visible. At the base of the northern wall (on the right of the black and white image), an apron of material has a longitudinal ridge pattern and may have been caused by a large landslide (see close-up, right).

Dune fields are scattered throughout the trough, including the north-east portion of a crater. A string of depressions on the plains in the south-west of the image may be caused by surface collapse. These features are common to this region and extend parallel to Valles Marineris.

Nearby, prominent linear features are visible and may be faults associated with the formation of the Tharsis Rise, located to the west of Valles Marineris and extending to a height of 8 to 10 kilometres. Some of these faults can be seen faintly extending into the trough.

In the eastern part of the trough, an interesting hill exhibits linear features. These structures are highlighted in the following close-up and perspective views and could have been caused by fluvial or ‘aeolian’ (wind-related) erosion. The darker material to the south of this hill is thought to be underlying material that has been exposed by wind erosion.

By cutting deep into the Martian surface, this area of Valles Marineris provides a window into geological and climatic history of the planet. Valles Marineris has had a complex evolution and has been shaped by tectonic, volcanic and glacial processes, as well as possibly fluvial or aeolian erosion.

Data from the HRSC, coupled with information from the other instruments on ESA?s Mars Express and other missions, will provide new insights into the geological evolution of the Red Planet and also pave the way for future missions.

Original Source: ESA News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Deep Impact Has Its Target in View

Deep Impact’s first view of Comet Temple 1 from a distance of 64 million kilometers (39.7 million miles). Image credit: NASA/JPL. Click to enlarge.
Sixty-nine days before it gets up-close-and-personal with a comet, NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft successfully photographed its quarry, comet Tempel 1, from a distance of 64 million kilometers (39.7 million miles).

The image, the first of many comet portraits it will take over the next 10 weeks, will aid Deep Impact’s navigators, engineers and scientists as they plot their final trajectory toward an Independence Day encounter. “It is great to get a first glimpse at the comet from our spacecraft,” said Deep Impact Principal Investigator Dr. Michael A’Hearn of the University of Maryland, College Park, Md. “With daily observations beginning in May, Tempel 1 will become noticeably more impressive as we continue to close the gap between spacecraft and comet. What is now little more than a few pixels across will evolve by July 4 into the best, most detailed images of a comet ever taken.”

The ball of dirty ice and rock was detected on April 25 by Deep Impact’s medium resolution instrument on the very first attempt. While making the detection, the spacecraft’s camera saw stars as dim as 11th visual magnitude, more than 100 times dimmer than a human can see on a clear night.

“This is the first of literally thousands of images we will take of Tempel 1 for both science and navigational purposes,” said Deputy Program Manager Keyur Patel at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “Our goal is to impact a one-meter long (39-inch) spacecraft into about a 6.5-kilometer wide (4-mile) comet that is bearing down on it at 10.2 kilometers per second (6.3 miles per second), while both are 133.6 million kilometers (83 million miles) away from Earth. By finding the comet as early and as far away as we did is a definite aid to our navigation.”

To view the comet image on the Internet, visit http://www.nasa.gov/deepimpact or http://deepimpact.jpl.nasa.gov/.

Deep Impact is comprised of two parts, a “flyby” spacecraft and a smaller “impactor.” The impactor will be released into the comet’s path for a planned high-speed collision on July 4. The crater produced by the impact could range in size from the width of a large house up to the size of a football stadium and from 2 to 14 stories deep. Ice and dust debris will be ejected from the crater, revealing the material beneath.

The Deep Impact spacecraft has four data collectors to observe the effects of the collision – a camera and infrared spectrometer comprise the high resolution instrument, a medium resolution instrument, and a duplicate of that camera on the impactor (called the impactor targeting sensor) that will record the vehicle’s final moments before it is run over by comet Tempel 1 at a speed of about 37,000 kilometers per hour (23,000 miles per hour).

The overall Deep Impact mission management for this Discovery class program is conducted by the University of Maryland. Deep Impact project management is handled by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The spacecraft was built for NASA by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colo.

For more information about Deep Impact on the Internet, visit NASA Deep Impact.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

ESA Astronaut Will Visit Station for Months

ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter from Germany, will be the first to do a long-duration spaceflight. Image credit: ESA. Click to enlarge.
This July, ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter from Germany is about to become the first European to live and work on the International Space Station (ISS) on a long-duration mission.

ESA Director of Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration, Daniel Sacotte, recently signed an agreement on the mission with the Head of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), Anatoli Perminov. “The agreement covers the ESA astronaut?s flight in a crew position originally planned for a Russian cosmonaut”, explained Sacotte, “and he will perform all the tasks originally allocated to the second Russian cosmonaut on board the ISS and, in addition, an ESA experimental programme.”

The agreement forms part of a set of bilateral understandings between Roscosmos and NASA and between ESA and NASA, enabling the implementation of the mission.

Thomas Reiter, the astronaut assigned to the mission, is a member of the European Astronaut Corps, based at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany. L?opold Eyharts, from France, a member of the same Corps, will be the back-up for this mission.

Reiter will reach the ISS on Space Shuttle flight STS-121 currently planned for next July, and return to Earth on flight STS-116 in February.

This will be Reiter’s second long-duration mission on board a space station, following his six-month stay on the Russian Mir, ten years ago, during the ESA Euromir 1995 mission.

“With the maiden flight of the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and the launch of the European laboratory Columbus, both in 2006, ESA is making important contributions to the ISS and its scientific capabilities and, consequently, we are assuming significant operational responsibilities in this programme. I am confident that this mission will give Europe a lot of operational experience and scientific results which will further prepare us for the exciting and challenging times ahead,” said Thomas Reiter.

“Moreover,” L?opold Eyharts pointed out, “as the back-up astronaut for this mission, I am receiving the same training as Thomas Reiter, which will be an excellent preparation for my tasks as prime astronaut for a future ESA mission to the ISS in connection with Columbus.”

Both astronauts are already in training for the mission in the various ISS training facilities at Houston, Moscow and Cologne, together with their Russian and American astronaut colleagues.

“For the first time, and as a test for later European long-duration missions to the ISS, mission preparation, training, operations and multilateral coordination will be carried out as far as possible through the multilateral decision-making and management structures established for ISS exploitation,” underlined ESA’s Mission Manager Aldo Petrivelli.

“This will be an excellent opportunity for testing coordination and cooperation between ground control and support centres like the Houston and Moscow Mission Control Centres, the Columbus Control Centre in Oberpfaffenhofen, near Munich (*), the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne and the various User Support and Operations Centres throughout Europe that will be involved in the mission. The operational teams from ESA, national space agencies, industry and research institutions in Europe will thus gain very useful operational experience, also for future Columbus system, subsystems and payload operations.”

Original Source: ESA News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Chandra Sees a Bridge Between Stars

Chandra X-Ray view of Mira AB; a red giant star probably orbiting a white dwarf. Image credit: Chandra. Click to enlarge.
For the first time an X-ray image of a pair of interacting stars has been made by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The ability to distinguish between the interacting stars – one a highly evolved giant star and the other likely a white dwarf – allowed a team of scientists to observe an X-ray outburst from the giant star and find evidence that a bridge of hot matter is streaming between the two stars.

“Before this observation it was assumed that all the X-rays came from a hot disk surrounding a white dwarf, so the detection of an X-ray outburst from the giant star came as a surprise,” said Margarita Karovska of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and lead author article in the latest Astrophysical Journal Letters describing this work. An ultraviolet image made by the Hubble Space Telescope was a key to identifying the location of the X-ray outburst with the giant star.

X-ray studies of this system, called Mira AB, may also provide better understanding of interactions between other binary systems consisting of a “normal” star and a collapsed star such as a white dwarf, black hole or a neutron star, where the stellar objects and gas flow cannot be distinguished in an image.

The separation of the X-rays from the giant star and the white dwarf was made possible by the superb angular resolution of Chandra, and the relative proximity of the star system at about 420 light years from Earth. The stars in Mira AB are about 6.5 billion miles apart, or almost twice the distance of Pluto from the Sun.

Mira A (Mira) was named “The Wonderful” star in the 17th century because its brightness was observed to wax and wane over a period of about 330 days. Because it is in the advanced, red giant phase of a star’s life, it has swollen to about 600 times that of the Sun and it is pulsating. Mira A is now approaching the stage where its nuclear fuel supply will be exhausted, and it will collapse to become a white dwarf.

The internal turmoil in Mira A could create magnetic disturbances in the upper atmosphere of the star and lead to the observed X-ray outbursts, as well as the rapid loss of material from the star in a blustery, strong, stellar wind. Some of the gas and dust escaping from Mira A is captured by its companion Mira B.

In stark contrast to Mira A, Mira B is thought to be a white dwarf star about the size of the Earth. Some of the material in the wind from Mira A is captured in an accretion disk around Mira B, where collisions between rapidly moving particles produce X-rays.

One of the more intriguing aspects of the observations of Mira AB at both X-ray and ultraviolet wavelengths is the evidence for a faint bridge of material joining the two stars. The existence of a bridge would indicate that, in addition to capturing material from the stellar wind, Mira B is also pulling material directly off Mira A into the accretion disk.

Chandra observed Mira with its Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer on December 6, 2003 for about 19 hours. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Northrop Grumman of Redondo Beach, Calif., was the prime development contractor for the observatory. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Mass.

Additional information and images are available at:

http://chandra.harvard.edu and http://chandra.nasa.gov

Original Source: Chandra News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Close View of Epimetheus

Cassini view of Saturn’s moon Epimetheus, taken from 74,600 kilometers (46,350 miles) away. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSI. Click to enlarge.
With this false-color view, Cassini presents the closest look yet at Saturn’s small moon Epimetheus (epp-ee-MEE-thee-uss).

The color of Epimetheus in this view appears to vary in a non-uniform way across the different facets of the moon’s irregular surface. Usually, color differences among planetary terrains identify regional variations in the chemical composition of surface materials. However, surface color variations can also be caused by wavelength-dependent differences in the way a particular material reflects light at different lighting angles. The color variation in this false-color view suggests such “photometric effects” because the surface appears to have a more bluish cast in areas where sunlight strikes the surface at greater angles.

This false color view combines images obtained using filters sensitive to ultraviolet, polarized green and infrared light. The images were taken at a Sun-Epimetheus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 115 degrees, thus part of the moon is in shadow to the right. This view shows an area seen only very obliquely by NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. The scene has been rotated so that north on Epimetheus is up.

The slightly reddish feature in the lower left is a crater named Pollux. The large crater just below center is Hilairea, which has a diameter of about 33 kilometers (21 miles). At 116 kilometers (72 miles) across, Epimetheus is slightly smaller than its companion moon, Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across), which orbits at essentially the same distance from Saturn.

The images for this color composite were obtained with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 30, 2005, at a distance of approximately 74,600 kilometers (46,350 miles) from Epimetheus. Resolution in the original images was about 450 meters (1,480 feet) per pixel. This view has been magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . For additional images visit the Cassini imaging team homepage http://ciclops.org .

Original Source: NASA/JPL/SSI News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Dust Devils Spotted on Mars

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is taking movies of dust devils — whirlwinds carrying dust — scooting across a plain on Mars.

Clips consisting of a few frames of two different dust devils are available online at http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/mer_main.html and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov. These were taken on April 15 and April 18, and capture more movement as seen from the surface than any previous imaging of martian dust devils.

“This is the best look we’ve ever gotten of the wind effects on the martian surface as they are happening,” said Dr. Mark Lemmon, a rover team member and atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University, College Station.

Spirit, operated from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has been using its navigation camera to routinely check for dust devils. It began seeing dust devils last month in individual frames from the camera. Lemmon said, “We’re hoping to learn about how dust is kicked up into the atmosphere and how the wind is interacting with the surface. It’s exciting that we now have a systematic way of capturing dust devils in movies rather than isolated still images.”

Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, successfully completed three-month primary missions in April, 2004, and have been exploring at increasing distances from their landing sites since then.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Space Elevator Group to Manufacture Nanotubes

LiftPort Group, the space elevator companies, today announced plans for a carbon nanotube manufacturing plant, the company’s first formal facility for production of the material on a commercial scale. Called LiftPort Nanotech, the new facility will also serve as the regional headquarters for the company, and represents the fruition of the company’s three years of research and development efforts into carbon nanotubes, including partnering work with a variety of leading research institutions in the business and academic communities.

Set to open in June of this year, LiftPort Nanotech will be located in Millville, New Jersey, a community with a history in glass and plastics production. Both the City of Millville and the Cumberland County Empowerment Zone are partnering to provide $100,000 in initial seed money for the new facility.

LiftPort Nanotech will make and sell carbon nanotubes to glass, plastic and metal companies, which will in turn synthesize them into other stronger, lighter materials (also known as composites) for use in their applications. Already being used by industries such as automotive and aerospace manufacturing, carbon nanotube composites are lighter than fiberglass and have the potential to be up to 100 times stronger than steel.

“We are pleased that LiftPort has selected Millville as the location for its new manufacturing facility and regional headquarters,” said Sandra Forosisky, Executive Director of the Cumberland Empowerment Zone. “Millville has a strong history in manufacturing, and we believe it is ideally suited for the emerging carbon nanotube industry.” Mayor James Quinn from the City of Millville added, “LiftPort’s presence will give Millville a competitive advantage in the emerging use of nanotube composites within our existing manufacturing base and its ability to attract additional manufacturing companies resulting in the creation of many new well paying jobs for our community.”

“We selected Millville due both to its central location to key business centers on the East Coast, as well as its experienced workforce,” said Michael Laine, president of LiftPort Group. “In addition, we selected the area because of its growing reputation for supporting the development of cutting edge technologies in a variety of arenas, such as low-cost, green energy.”

Today’s announcement represents the second major facility and first East Coast presence to be established by LiftPort Group, the Seattle-based company dedicated to the development of the first commercial elevator to space. The company was founded by Laine, one of the pioneers of the modern Space Elevator concept and the creator of the modern business model for building a commercial space elevator.

“We see the development of carbon nanotubes as critical to the building of the space elevator,” said Laine. “Opening a commercial production facility enables us to generate revenues in the shorter term by meeting the growing market need for this material. At the same time, it enables us to conduct research and development in this arena for our longer term goal of a commercial space elevator.”

A revolutionary way to send cargo into space, the space elevator (as proposed by LiftPort) will consist of a carbon nanotube composite ribbon stretching some 62,000 miles from earth to space. The elevator will be anchored to an offshore sea platform near the equator in the Pacific Ocean, and to a small counterweight in space. Mechanical lifters will move up and down the ribbon, carrying such items as satellites and solar power systems into space. More information can be obtained at the company’s web site at www.liftport.com.

Original Source: Liftport News Release

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Strange Dust Cloud Found Around Enceladus

The Cassini spacecraft has discovered intriguing dust particles around Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The particles might indicate the existence of a dust cloud around Enceladus, or they may have originated from Saturn’s outermost ring, the E-ring.

“We are making measurements in the plane of the E-ring,? said Dr. Thanasis Economou, a senior scientist at the University of Chicago’s Enrico Fermi Institute. Economou is the lead researcher on the high rate detector, part of a larger instrument on Cassini called the cosmic dust analyzer. “It will take a few more flybys to distinguish if the dust flux is originating from the E-ring as opposed to a source at Enceladus.”

Enceladus is rapidly becoming a very interesting target for Cassini. So much so that scientists and engineers are planning to revise the altitude of the next flyby to get a closer look. Additional Cassini encounters with Enceladus are scheduled for July 14, 2005, and March 12, 2008. The July 14 flyby was to be at an altitude of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), but the mission team now plans to lower that altitude to about 175 kilometers (109 miles). This will be Cassini’s lowest-altitude flyby of any object during its nominal four-year tour.

Earlier this year Cassini completed two flybys of Enceladus. On February 17, Cassini encountered Enceladus at an altitude of 1,167 kilometers (725 miles). On that date, the cosmic dust analyzer with its high rate detector recorded thousands of particle hits during a period of 38 minutes. Cassini executed another flyby of Enceladus on March 9 at an altitude of 500 kilometers (310 miles). “Again we observed a stream of dust particles,” said Economou. The largest particles detected measure no more than the diameter of a human hair — too small to pose any danger to Cassini.

Scientists have speculated that Enceladus is the source of Saturn’s E ring, the planet’s widest, stretching 302,557 kilometers (188,000 miles). It’s possible, the scientists say, that tidal interactions between Enceladus and Mimas, two other moons of Saturn, have heated Enceladus’ interior causing water volcanism.

“These measurements are extremely important in order to understand the role of Enceladus as the source of the water ice particles in the E ring,” said Dr. Ralf Srama, of the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg, Germany. Srama is principal investigator of the cosmic dust analyzer science team. This study requires precise measurements of dust densities near the Enceladus region, “but without the high rate detector this would not be possible,” said Srama.

Another of Cassini’s instruments, the magnetometer, recently discovered water ions which could be part of a very thin atmosphere around Enceladus. Enceladus is a relatively small moon. The amount of gravity it exerts is not enough to hold an atmosphere very long. Therefore a strong, continuous source is required to maintain the atmosphere.

Enceladus measures 500 kilometers (310 miles) in diameter and reflects nearly 100 percent of the light that hits its ice- covered surface. It orbits Saturn at a distance of approximately 237,378 kilometers (147,500 miles), about two-thirds the distance from Earth to the Moon.

The cosmic dust analyzer provides direct observations of small ice or dust particles in the Saturn system in order to investigate their physical, chemical and dynamical properties. It is made up of two detectors. The University of Chicago built the high rate detector, which made these observations. With further analysis, the cosmic dust analyzer might be able to determine whether the particles are made of ice or dust.

For images and information on the Cassini mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

Original Source: NASA/JPL News Release

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Has Spirit Found Bedrock in Columbia Hills?

In December of 2004, the mission scientists for the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit spied a ridge near the top of Husband Hill, one of the seven Columbia Hills located near the middle of Mars? Gusev Crater. Steve Squyres, Principal Scientific Investigator for the MER Mission, started calling the ridge ?Larry?s Lookout? and the mission team decided to send Spirit to that ridge to determine what it was and use it as a ?perch? to take a panorama of the valley that it overlooked. They knew it would be a challenge given the sand, steep slope, and rocks in the area, but the scientists are now discovering that the arduous climb was well worth it. According to one geologist, what Spirit is finding at Larry?s Lookout could turn out to be one of the highlights of the MER mission.

The ?Larry? of Larry?s Lookout is Dr. Larry Crumpler; field geologist, volcanologist, and Research Curator at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is also a mission scientist for MER.

Spirit had originally approached and climbed Larry?s Lookout from the rear, and from that perspective the Lookout appeared to be just a knob on the hill.

But then the rover moved around to the side of Larry?s Lookout, and took a picture that caught the immediate attention of Squyres and other mission scientists. The image looks north along the ridge of the Columbia Hills with Spirit sitting on Husband Hill, and the camera pointed at Clark Hill. The hills are strewn with rocks, and in the foreground are two tilting rocks. The big outcrop just behind the rocks is Larry?s Lookout.

Dr. Crumpler explained the image and the questions it provoked: ?From this perspective, we can see that the outcrop has a tilted look. The two boulders in front of the outcrop appear to be orientated in the same direction. And in the hill in the distance to the right you can see layers that appear to be oriented at the same angles. And to the left, there are outcrops that are oriented at exactly the same angle. The overall impression is that there is some sort of organized layering or structure to the hills. Our big question is, is it just something draped over top of the hills, like ash fall draped over it like snow, or is it an indication of the internal arrangement of the bedding planes in the hills? Did the hills originally form by bulging up, and were the beds originally horizontal? Or did some sort of weathering occur? Any of those interpretations are interesting because it says something has happened subsequent to the original formation of the rocks and hills themselves.?

Crumpler said that this is one of the most interesting areas that Spirit has yet encountered, and the first indication of extensive bedrock. ?For the first time we have started to feel hopeful that we can make sense of the Columbia Hills,? he said. ?I think it is going to be a highlight of the mission.?

Crumpler says they are seeing evidence of finely bedded materials in the rocks, with very fine laminations that signify bedded, sediment-like materials. ?This all indicates that we?re not just looking at volcanic rocks or old broken up rocks, but there is some sort of organized layering,? he said. ?We?re going to do a full scale campaign to try to understand all of these things.? Although the MER science team still has a plethora of unanswered questions about this area of the Columbia Hills, from the evidence so far, water is likely to be at least part of the final equation.

Spirit is just about to begin studying the rock outcrop informally dubbed ?Methuselah,? just to the left of the rover tracks in the image. ?Spirit is looking at this outcrop that is dipping to the northwest and looks like it is laminated with bedding planes,? said Crumpler. ?It is a foot-high outcrop with an odd angle that indicates structure or a deposition that took place on a slope.?

Over the weekend of April 23-24, Spirit was ordered to take a panoramic image of the outcrop in order to give the scientists an overview of the overall pattern and layout of the area.

Crumpler noted that there is a considerable age difference between the Columbia Hills and the lava plain that Spirit crossed to reach the Hills. He likened the Hills to a sandstone butte surrounded by fresh, young lava flows, similar to the landscape that is found in the United States? Southwest. ?The Hills are much, much older,? Crumpler said. ?You can actually see the contact between the two where the lava flows sort of lapped up on the edges of the Hills. When you cross that boundary you go from the basalts which show only small amounts of weathering and alteration to the rocks on the Columbia Hills that are totally ?grunged-up? and altered, and basically water-soaked at some time in their history.?

?We?re still trying to figure out what?s going on here,? Crumpler added, ?but the outcrop we are looking at is giving us some good clues.?

Crumpler has had extensive experience in field geology, and said he has spent a lot of his time walking across New Mexico?s lava flows, just as Spirit trekked across the lava flow in Gusev Crater. He?s always had an intense interest in the geologic exploration of other planets and has been involved in some of the mapping programs of Mars, Venus and Io. But he says the MER program is the most exciting mission of which he?s been a part.

?Everyday there has been something different that we hadn?t seen the day before, or some new perspective of the terrain, so I always say that ?today? is the most exciting part of the mission.?

?When you?re in the field,? he continued, ?you keep moving because you?re always curious about what you?re going to find at the next outcrop that will tell you more about what you are trying to figure out. But we are very likely to be here (at Larry?s Lookout) for a long time giving this outcrop our full attention.?

So, it appears Larry?s Lookout will be keeping Spirit and the MER scientists busy for awhile, as they try to unravel the mysteries of the Columbia Hills.

Written by Nancy Atkinson