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| AP Photo Archive |
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| This photo released by NASA Sunday, Feb. 12, shows a close-up of the rocks on the northern edge of a plateau called Home Plate Feb. 5. |
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The Mars Rover Spirit has hit a Martian home run, rounding the bases and landing on “home plate,” the name for the plateau the six-wheeled Spirit reached last week. Although this is a victory for the Mars Rover mission, scientists are now trying to make sense of Mars’ geology.
After four months of climbing down a Martian hill the size of the Statue of Liberty, Spirit has finally reached the northern edge of the broad mesa known as home plate.
So far, scientists are puzzled by the discovery because home plate consists of tall layered rocks, coarse on the bottom and fine near the top.
“It’s stunning … by far the best layering we’ve ever seen,” said principal investigator Steve Squyres of Cornell University in a post on his Web site.
Many scientists, including Squyres, believe home plate holds important clues to Mars’s past. The layers can be formed in several ways such as volcanic eruptions, impact craters and deposits of sediment.
“The bottom line, for now, is that we’ve got a spectacular mystery in front of us, and far more questions than we have answers,” Squyres said.
Two Mars Rovers, Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, have been exploring both sides of Mars since 2004. Directed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., the solar-powered robots have outlasted the required time and are working on overtime.
Each rover uses rock abrasion tools, RATs, to drill and brush Martian rocks and discover geological clues. Engineers from Manhattan direct the RATs.
“I think everyone is very grateful for how long they’ve lasted and how they’re still going strong,” said Alastair Kusack, a project engineer at Honeybee Robotics.
Honeybee Robotics designed, devoloped and now operate the RATs.
