NASA's Opportunity Mars rover has come across
an interesting object -- perhaps a meteorite sitting out in the open at Meridiani
Planum. Initial data taken by the robot's Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer
(Mini-TES) is suggestive that the odd-looking "rock" is made of
metal.
The curious-looking object stands out in the
parking-lot like landscape of Meridiani Planum.
"We're curious about it too. We have Mini-TES data on
it now, and they suggest that it may actually be made of metal," said Steve
Squyres, lead scientist on the Mars Exploration Rover mission from Cornell
University.
"So we are beginning to suspect that it may be a
meteorite. I stress that this is very preliminary!", Squyres told
SPACE.com.
Opportunity has been busy at work inspecting entry
debris -- hardware that fell to Mars during the robot's entry, descent, and
landing over a year ago.
Not too distant from the debris field, the
odd-looking rock sits alone atop the sandy terrain.
Squyres cautioned that it is too early to identify
the rock as a meteorite.
The next step by rover scientists is to carefully
examine the object with Opportunity's Instrument Deployment Device, or IDD. This
robot arm is tipped with scientific instruments.
Once extended out to the object, the arm-mounted
devices can study the object's structure in great detail. The instruments on the
IDD are the Microscopic Imager, the Mössbauer Spectrometer, the Alpha Particle
X-Ray Spectrometer, and a Rock Abrasion Tool.
"We're going
to look at it carefully with the IDD instruments next, and that should enable us
to determine for sure what it is," Squyres said.
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