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NEW SCIENTIST
Tantalising new images are cascading back from NASA's Mars rovers now that they have reached their long-awaited geological sites.
Spirit is now at the edge of the Columbia Hills facing what appears to be an easily-accessible hilltop straight ahead. The hilltop should offer vistas of the surrounding plain that is believed to be an ancient lakebed.
The headland also appears to have an abundance of geologically interesting rocks and formations. Most startlingly, there are rounded pebbles reminiscent of the ubiquitous "blueberries" seen at the rover landing site, Meridiani Planum, halfway around the red planet, says geologist Larry Soderblom, of the US Geological Survey, and a member of the rover science team.
As scientists watched the latest images arrive from Spirit's Gusev crater site at the base of the hills, their reaction was: "Are you sure that's not Meridiani?"
Though similar in size, the spheres in Gusev seem to be more varied in shape, ranging from spherical to egg-shaped. And, as at Meridiani Planum, they seem to be weathering out of layered rocks.
Here, some of those rocks look like "a loaf of bread that's under a state of decay," with thin crusts remaining as the interior weathers out, Soderblom said on Tuesday at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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