The decade old Opportunity rover has stumbled upon something really intriguing on the surface of the red planet. No, we are not talking about little green men here. The rover has spotted a rock. I know that doesn't sound very interesting, but on a planet that has not life and no dynamic surface activity, this discovery is baffling.
The rock mysteriously “appeared” a few feet in front of the six wheeled rover a few days ago. The rock was not previously present on that location. The rock has been nicknamed "Pinnacle Island".
News of the errant rock was announced by NASA Mars Exploration Rover lead scientist Steve Squyres of Cornell University at a special NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory “10 years of roving Mars” event at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, Calif., on Thursday night.
“It’s about the size of a jelly doughnut,” Squyres told Discovery News. “It was a total surprise, we were like ‘wait a second, that wasn’t there before, it can’t be right. Oh my god! It wasn’t there before!’ We were absolutely startled.”
The team from NASA has two theories that could explain the event:
The first theory is that a nearby meteor impact could have flung the debri into it's current location, but this theory is unlikely as no impact was recorded.
The second theory is boring. The mars rovers wheel actuator is damaged and causes vibrations while turning. NASA feels that this could have flung the rock to its current location.
It's unfortunate that we would never know the true reason behind the rock's mysterious appearance or maybe NASA did stumble into little green men!
Source : Discovery News.
It's unfortunate that we would never know the true reason behind the rock's mysterious appearance or maybe NASA did stumble into little green men!
Source : Discovery News.
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