Mars Rover Opportunity reaches Endeavor Crater

[Greybeard]

From Scientific American, 16 Aug 2011

After a long journey, the Mars rover Opportunity has arrived at Endeavour Crater, a giant indentation with some interesting geology. It took Opportunity almost three years to cover the 20 kilometers to Endeavour Crater. That's an average pace well below the crawling speed of an earthworm.

Rover operators on Earth drove Opportunity cautiously and made several stops along the way to check out interesting Martian surface features. And now they have a potential treasure trove in Endeavour Crater. A NASA orbiter has spotted the signature of clays and other hydrated minerals in and around Endeavour. Those materials form in watery environments and presumably trace back to a time when Mars was much warmer and wetter than it is now. Perhaps the Red Planet was even conducive to life. Opportunity's instruments may be able to uncover what Mars was like when those minerals formed.

Whatever work the rover is able to do at Endeavour Crater is a bonus for NASA, which assigned three-month missions to Opportunity and its now defunct twin rover, Spirit. That was more than seven years ago. Slowly but surely, Opportunity keeps rolling along.

[Spiritlite]

:) Nice.......

Spiritlite.

[LadyVirgoxoxo]

Awesome! Thank you for sharing! :hug2: How did they get Opportunity onto Mars? Also, does anyone believe that if Mars once held life, Earth may end up like Mars in the distant future? What do you think happened to Mars?

[Greybeard]

Mars is a good deal smaller than Earth. It lost its atmosphere and water. Mars at one time had rivers and lakes, perhaps even seas. Water, particularly, is the essential to life as far as our understanding goes.

Earth is not going to end up like Mars, any more than you are going to end up like me (a foolish old man with no teeth).

Manilius says it so well: "...and our end is consequent on our beginning."

The Mars rover "Opportunity" was set down on Mars' surface in 2004 I believe in a pinpoint landing: she reached the surface of Mars softly, just 19 miles from her intended landing spot if memory serves me. That ain't bad shooting on the part of the scientists who pulled the trigger -- a moving target millions of miles away. She was designed to complete a three month mission, and here she is still traveling and working, 7 years later.

Ha. A friend of mine, Ed, had to take his DOT physical this month. Ed is 62. They practically gave him the 3rd degree (they asked him the same questions -- several of them -- 4 times) because they could not believe a man his age had no ailments, took no medicines. I'm 69, same story. Old Ed and me, we take a lickin' and keep on tickin', just like Opportunity.

[Greybeard]

P.S.: No. I am not going to talk about my blossoming sexual powers.

[LadyVirgoxoxo]

But how and why do you think Mars lost it? I understand Manilius's quote but I don't understand the relevance? Hehe I hope when I'm an old lady I will have no health problems, what's your secret? Blossoming sexual powers? lol I didn't ask for them.

[Greybeard]

Mars lost its atmosphere because Mars does not have enough gravity to have held it. Over time, there was a gradual loss of the atmosphere, including water, to space...Perhaps Jupiter stole some of it.

The relevance of the quote from Manilius is that Mars began in a certain way (size, distance from the Sun, proximity to Jupiter, chemical composition, etc) that was different from Earth's beginning. Therefore, having a different beginning, the end is also different, being inherent in the beginning.

Our moon has no atmosphere, no water, and is geologically dead. Our planet has a thick atmosphere, huge seas, and is geologically dynamic. Their beginnings were different; the course of their "lives" is therefore different. This also applies to each and every human on Earth.