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February 14, 2004 Tempe, Arizona - The NASA/JPL rover called Opportunity has been rolling along the light-colored bedrock in the Meridiani Planum taking spectrometer measurements of the rocks and stopping here and there to examine closely the soil through its microscopic imager (MI).
On Thursday, February 12, the microscope image was taken and is among images at JPL/NASA..
Paul Anderson, Director of the Canadian Crop Circle Research Network (CCCRN) in Vancouver, B. C., Canada, has been studying Opportunity and Spirit raw images as they are released at the NASA Mars Exploration Rover Mission website. Yesterday he sent me the e-mail below with text he had superimposed on the microscopic image questioning what the hair-like filament is.
02/13/04
" Hi Linda,
I was looking at the newest micro images posted from Opportunity (yesterday, Sol 19), and noticed something similar to a long thin hair-like "filament" apparently lying on the soil next to one of the larger spherules. I've attached two zoomed crops from this (one as is, and one with text). The original (one of several, but about the clearest one) is here blown up at
JPL/NASA.
It seems to have a sharp downward bend towards the left end and maybe another "hook-like" bend at the end of that (but fainter so more subjective). Must be very tiny and thin if the larger spherules are about 2-4 mm in size or so.
Not sure what the explanation may be - dust from the rover? Volcanic ash? Biology?
Another day, another puzzle...
Paul"
SEE FULL TEXT
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