[meteorite-list] eBay ad - Tagish Lake
Hi, there are 7 hours to go for a micro of Tagish for sale... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemrd=1item=2260360590 thanks! dave IMCA #0092 __ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Rocks From Space Picture Of The Day - August 4, 2004
http://www.geocities.com/spacerocksinc/Aug_4.html == __ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Mars Exploration Rovers Update - August 3, 2004
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html SPIRIT UPDATE: The quest for the top of the hills continues - sol 201-204, August 03, 2004 Mars has seasons like the Earth does, but the seasons are twice as long due to Mars' larger orbit around the Sun. Right now, Mars is approaching northern summer. That also means that it's approaching southern martian winter at the same time. So Spirit is headed for winter, being 14 degrees south of the equator. Because martian winter is setting in, solar array energy continues to be a concern for Spirit. If Spirit parks with a northerly tilt, the rover will see between 350 and 380 watt-hours of energy, but if Spirit stops on flat ground or with a southerly tilt, solar energy is as low as 280 watt-hours. So engineers make a concerted effort to find the north-facing islands along Spirit's path. On Sol 201, Spirit was commanded to drive 98 feet (30 meters) across terrain that was pretty steep. Spirit accomplished 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) then stopped due to an excessive tilt angle of 25.6 degrees. Engineers had set the maximum tilt angle limit at 25 degrees. Spirit did complete pre-drive science observations and post-drive imaging. On sol 202, Spirit repeated the drive plan from sol 201 with the maximum tilt angle set to 32 degrees. This time the rover completed the drive as planned, traveling 83.6 feet (25.5) meters up the hill. Spirit then performed post-drive imaging. On sol 203, scientists' hope was to find rock outcropping in this location, but none were found. So the decision was made to continue the drive up the hill to find a better rock outcrop. Spirit performed another six-wheel, 62-foot (19-meter) drive. This drive was completed successfully; however, at the end of the drive, Spirit drove into a small hollow. As a result, Spirit was pitched 15 degrees toward the southwest, and ended up with a southerly tilt. Planning for sol 204 was very exciting due to the late downlink of information from sol 203. Very late in the planning cycle, available power on sol 204 was reduced from 370 watt-hours to 288 watt-hours. Ouch! Pre-drive observations were cut back to 17 minutes, during which the motors were heated for driving. Spirit drove only 0.82 feet (0.25 meters). Because the drive was so short, the power situation is not as bad as it could have been. Total odometry after sol 204, which ended on July 30, is 2.21 miles (3,565.57 meters). Total elevation above the plains of Gusev Crater is estimated to be 30 feet (9 meters). Over the next few sols, scientists and engineers hope to make it to Clovis rock outcrop and to recharge the batteries. OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Opportunity Finishing Up at 'Karatepe' - sol 181-185, August 03, 2004 Opportunity is completing an intensive survey of the Karatepe region that began 50 sols ago when the rover first ventured into Endurance Crater. The rover currently sits about 20 meters (about 66 feet) inside the stadium-sized crater. The investigation at an area dubbed Inuvik at a target called Tuktoyuktuk (named for a small village in the Canadian arctic) will likely be the rover's last in this region. The rover planning team is contemplating the next traverse which will move Opportunity around the interior of the crater, first to some outcroppings dubbed the Arctic Islands, then possibly to Burns Cliff, roughly 80 meters (about 262 feet) from the rover's current position. Opportunity continues to perform very well, a testament to all those who worked so hard to get it to Mars and to those who operate it daily. Some concerns that are being addressed are slippage, an error message from the microscopic imager and pointing errors with the front hazard-avoidance cameras. The drive on sol 185 included a short backup, during which the rover experienced a 40 percent slip. Typical slips when driving uphill have been in the 15- to 20-percent range. More evaluation of what happened on this and other drives will be needed before any general conclusions can be made about traversability in this region. The overall slope in this area is 15 degrees, which is 10 degrees below the general threshold of concern for rocky terrain. Sol 185 ended on Aug. 1. There have been four instances of a warning message in the last ten sols that indicate a problem getting data from the microscopic imager. The messages indicate that the data was corrupted, and that a retry was necessary to receive the data without error. In all cases, the retry succeeded in transferring the data. This problem has not been seen before on either vehicle. The new front hazard-avoidance camera models may need some more tweaking. Pointing errors were greater than expected on two recent placements of the instrument deployment device (robotic arm). The error is such that rover planners can still confidently place the instruments, provided that a 2-centimeter (0.8-inch) offset can be safely tolerated. If more
[meteorite-list] Mars Global Surveyor Images - July 29 - August 4, 2004
MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES July 29 - August 4, 2004 The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available: o Rippled Mars (Released 29 July 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/07/29/index.html o Fresh Crater (Released 30 July 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/07/30/index.html o Meridiani Outcrops (Released 31 July 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/07/31/index.html o Scene from Ius (Released 1 August 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/08/01/index.html o Mesa in Aureum Chaos (Released 2 August 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/08/02/index.html o Mesas on Depression Floor (Released 3 August 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/08/03/index.html o Layered Rocks of Melas (Released 4 August 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/08/04/index.html All of the Mars Global Surveyor images are archived here: http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/index.html Mars Global Surveyor was launched in November 1996 and has been in Mars orbit since September 1997. It began its primary mapping mission on March 8, 1999. Mars Global Surveyor is the first mission in a long-term program of Mars exploration known as the Mars Surveyor Program that is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. __ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] The Finnish meteor...ended up in Sweden
Hello list! Sorry for all Finns running around Vasa hunting for meteorites. The meteor on july 12 that was seen from Finland actually exploded over Västerbotten in Sweden. The meteor were seen from a number of places along the coast up to 100 km south of the fireball. It ended it's flight in three explosions that were detected by the IRF (Institute for Space Physics) infra sound network. http://www.umea.irf.se/ The infra sound detectors are located in four places in Sweden and the positions of the three explosions have been calculated within +/-2 km. The first explosion were smaller than the two later and a witness located between the two westwards explosions have told us he heard two explosions and a hissing sound. What we lack is the height of the explosions. So far no fragments have yet been found in the area but the hunt have only begun. As I live only 50 km south of the area I've been searching with some friends for the last two weekends. During this time we have walked any fields and driven any roads close to the trajectory for the better part of 40km. We are now expanding the search area but we are also thinking of going into the woods. I have searched the web for meteorite impact craters to get a clue of what I'm looking for in possible craters but the only thing I find is pictures of km-sized craters. What I would like to have is a picture of typical craters or damage made from fist sized meteorites. Especially if the meteorite bounced and was found outside of the crater. I'm a beginner on meteorites but I've collected minerals for eight years so my way of looking for meteorites is to find suspicious looking stones and discard any I could explain as local geology. My new interest for meteorites got me all over the web, reading, browsing, looking and even buying... I bought some NWA-meteorites to have something to show when I talk to local residents. But I also want to start a collection. I know that they are unclassified and without locality. But I wonder if there are any official or inoficcial list of NWA-meteorites and their properties? I also wonder which tests needs to be run to classify and register new meteorites? I know I have a lot of questions but I try to restrict my self a bit.. :-) Thanks for any help in advance! Regards, Göran Axelsson, Umeå, Sweden __ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status - August 4, 2004
MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov Guy Webster (818) 354-6278 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Don Savage (202) 358-1727 NASA Headquarters, Washington News Release: 2004-191 August 4, 2004 Mars Exploration Rover Mission Status NASA's Spirit rover has climbed higher into rocky hills on Mars, and its twin, Opportunity, has descended deeper into a crater, but both rovers, for the time being, are operating with some restrictions while team members diagnose unexpected behavior. Both rovers have successfully operated for more than double the span of their three-month primary missions. They have been conducting bonus science in extended missions since April. While Spirit was executing commands on Aug. 1, a semiconductor component failed to power on as intended. The component, a programmable gate array, directly affects usability of the rover's three spectrometer instruments. Subsequent commands for using the miniature thermal emission spectrometer in that day's sequence resulted in repeated error messages. Engineers on the Mars Exploration Rover team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., have determined the most likely cause is a timing issue of one instruction reaching the gate array microseconds before another that was intended to precede it. If that diagnosis is confirmed, a repeat could be avoided by inserting a delay between commands that might reproduce the problem, engineers expect. Until then, the rover science team's daily choices for how to use Spirit do not include using the miniature thermal emission spectrometer, the Moessbauer spectrometer or the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer. While we're being very cautious in how we operate today and tomorrow, we expect to verify the problem and resolve this issue with a relatively easy workaround, said JPL's Jim Erickson, project manager for the twin rovers. Spirit has driven to a bedrock exposure near the top of a spur of the Columbia Hills. The location sits about nine meters (30 feet) above a plain that the rover crossed for months to get from its landing site to the hills. Planners intend for Spirit to spend more than a week at this site, inspecting the rock exposure, dubbed Clovis, and recording the panoramic scene from this viewpoint. Halfway around Mars, Opportunity has driven about 20 meters (66 feet) into Endurance Crater, examining increasingly older layers of bedrock as it advances. If assessments of traversability continue giving positive indications, the rover team plans next to send Opportunity counterclockwise across the inner slope of the crater to study possible targets of dune tendrils, boulders and the base of a cliff. Four times in the past two weeks, Opportunity has sent error messages while successfully taking pictures with its microscopic imager. One theory for the cause is degradation of flexible cabling that runs down the rover's robotic arm to the instrument. As a precaution while undertaking further analysis, the rover team is treating use of the arm as a consumable resource, with cable wear each time the arm is moved decreasing the possible number of future microscopic images. We are being very conservative about this because we certainly don't want to do anything to jeopardize the instruments, said Dr. Ken Herkenhoff of the U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Team, Flagstaff, Ariz., lead scientist for both rovers' microscopic imagers. We are running more diagnostics that we hope will identify the problem. There are potential explanations that would mean we do not have to treat arm use as a consumable. Erickson said, We will no doubt have more issues with them in the future. We'll do everything we can to milk the most value out of them while they are usable, but they won't last forever. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Additional information about the project is available from JPL at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/ and from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., at http://athena.cornell.edu . -end- __ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Ad: Lunar, Martian, Glorieta Mtn, Amgala More!!!
Hello all. We have just recently added some very nice Lunar and Martian specimens to the website along with some incredible Glorieta Mountain slices, Amgala whole individuals and beautiful slices, oriented Gao, etched henbury and Muonionalusta. If you would like to view any of these or other beautiful specimens feel free to click on the link below. Cheers John Dawn Arizona Skies Meteorites http://www.arizonaskiesmeteorites.com __ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
