Mars Rover Opportunity Discovers Mysterious Ancient Spheres On Mars (PICTURES)
Posted: 17/09/2012 09:50 BST Updated: 16/11/2012 10:12 GMT Small spherical objects fill the field in this mosaic combining four images from the Microscopic Imager on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity | Nasa Share
The Mars rover Opportunity has discovered mysterious spheres on the surface of the Red Planet, Nasa has said.The images of the spherical objects were described as a "mystery" and are said to be "puzzling researchers".Opportunity had found similar objects in 2004, which were rich in iron and nicknamed "blueberries".
But the new objects do not have the same iron content, and measure about an eight of an inch in diameter."This is one of the most extraordinary pictures from the whole mission," said Opportunity's principal investigator, Steve Squyres. "Kirkwood is chock full of a dense accumulation of these small spherical objects. "Of course, we immediately thought of the blueberries, but this is something different.""They seem to be crunchy on the outside, and softer in the middle," he added.The "blueberries" found elsewhere on Mars were formed by mineral-laden water interacting with rocks, indicating the dry, dusty planet was once rich with water.But the new spheres are different in structure and composition to the older "blueberries", and researchers are still scratching their heads about what they could be.Some have partially eroded away, revealing their structure underneath."We have a wonderful geological puzzle in front of us," Squyres said. "We have multiple working hypotheses, and we have no favourite hypothesis at this time. It's going to take a while to work this out, so the thing to do now is keep an open mind and let the rocks do the talking."The Opportunity rover is still functioning on the surface of the planet, even as the Curiosity rover takes the headlines after landing in July for a two-year mission. The older rover is still investigating an outcrop ('Kirkwood') in the Cape York area of the Endeavour Crater, and is still turning up interesting science.
59 Incredible Space Photos of
This image shows the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy in infrared light as seen by the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency-led mission with important NASA contributions, and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. In the instruments' combined data, this nearby dwarf galaxy looks like a fiery, circular explosion. Rather than fire, however, those ribbons are actually giant ripples of dust spanning tens or hundreds of light-years. Significant fields of star formation are noticeable in the center, just left of center and at right. The brightest center-left region is called 30 Doradus, or the Tarantula Nebula, for its appearance in visible light.
This enhanced-color image shows sand dunes trapped in an impact crater in Noachis Terra, Mars. Dunes and sand ripples of various shapes and sizes display the natural beauty created by physical processes. The area covered in the image is about six-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer) across.
Sand dunes are among the most widespread wind-formed features on Mars. Their distribution and shapes are affected by changes in wind direction and wind strength. Patterns of dune erosion and deposition provide insight into the sedimentary history of the surrounding terrain.
This image obtained by the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta.
Scientists are discussing whether the circular structure that covers most of this image originated by a collision with another asteroid, or by internal processes early in the asteroid's history. Images in higher resolution from Dawn's lowered orbit might help answer that question.
The image was recorded with the framing camera aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft from a distance of about 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers). The image resolution is about 260 meters per pixel.
This undated photo shows a classic type 1a supernova remnant. Researchers Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess of the United States and US-Australian Brian Schmidt won the 2011 Nobel Physics Prize on October 4, 2011 for their research on supernovae.
A quartet of Saturn's moons, from tiny to huge, surround and are embedded within the planet's rings in this Cassini composition.
Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is in the background of the image, and the moon's north polar hood is clearly visible. See PIA08137 to learn more about that feature on Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers across). Next, the wispy terrain on the trailing hemisphere of Dione (698 miles, or 1,123 kilometers across) can be seen on that moon which appears just above the rings at the center of the image. See PIA10560 and PIA06163 to learn more about Dione's wisps. Saturn's small moon Pandora (50 miles, or 81 kilometers across) orbits beyond the rings on the right of the image. Finally, Pan (17 miles, or 28 kilometers across) can be seen in the Encke Gap of the A ring on the left of the image.
The image was taken in visible blue light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 17, 2011. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.3 million miles (2.1 million kilometers) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 27 degrees. Image scale is 8 miles (13 kilometers) per pixel on Dione.
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Resembling looming rain clouds on a stormy day, dark lanes of dust crisscross the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. Hubble's panchromatic vision, stretching from ultraviolet through near-infrared wavelengths, reveals the vibrant glow of young, blue star clusters and a glimpse into regions normally obscured by the dust. (NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage)
A bubbling cauldron of star birth is highlighted in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Infrared light that we can't see with our eyes has been color-coded, such that the shortest wavelengths are shown in blue and the longest in red. The middle wavelength range is green.
Massive stars have blown bubbles, or cavities, in the dust and gas--a violent process that triggers both the death and birth of stars. The brightest, yellow-white regions are warm centers of star formation. The green shows tendrils of dust, and red indicates other types of dust that may be cooler, in addition to ionized gas from nearby massive stars.
This composite image shows the central region of the spiral galaxy NGC 4151. X-rays (blue) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are combined with optical data (yellow) showing positively charged hydrogen (H II) from observations with the 1-meter Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope on La Palma. The red ring shows neutral hydrogen detected by radio observations with the NSF's Very Large Array. This neutral hydrogen is part of a structure near the center of NGC 4151 that has been distorted by gravitational interactions with the rest of the galaxy, and includes material falling towards the center of the galaxy. The yellow blobs around the red ellipse are regions where star formation has recently occurred. (NASA / CXC / CfA / J. Wang)
"These tidal tails are thin, elongated streams of gas, dust and stars that extend away from a galaxy into space. They occur when galaxies gravitationally interact with one another, and material is sheared from the outer edges of each body and flung out into space in opposite directions, forming two tails. They almost always appear curved, so when they are seen to be relatively straight, as in this image, it is clear that we are viewing the galaxies side-on."
This image provided by NASA shows the Solar Dynamic Observatory's ultra-high-definition view of Venus, black dot at top center, passing in front of the sun on Tuesday, June 5, 2012. The next transit of Venus won't be for another 105 years. (NASA/Solar Dynamic Observatory/AP)
WISE, NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, has a new view of Barnard 3, or IRAS Ring G159.6-18.5, that is awash in bright green and red dust clouds. Interstellar clouds like these are stellar nurseries, where baby stars are being born. (UCLA / JPL-Caltech / NASA)
Feel like you are being watched? This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Helix nebula, a cosmic starlet notable for its vivid colors and eerie resemblance to a giant eye. In visible light, the star-forming cloud known as NGC 281 in the constellation of Cassiopeia appears to be chomping through the cosmos, earning it the nickname the "Pacman" nebula after the famous Pac-Man video game of the 1980s.
This undated handout image provide by NASA combines data from four different space telescopes to create a multi-wavelength view of all that remains of the oldest documented example of a supernova, called RCW 86. NASA announced the findings Monday, Oct. 24, 2011, and said the exploded star was observed by the ancient Chinese in the year 185, and visible for eight months. This image provided by NASA shows a night time image photographed by the Expedition 29 crew from the International Space Station on Oct. 16, 2011. It features airglow, Earth's terminator, Rocky Mountains, Denver-Colorado Springs (center-right), Santa Fe-Albuquerque (low-center-right), US Great Plains cities: Dallas-Oklahoma City, Kansas City and Chicago. This image provided by NASA shows the image captured by Hinode on June 5, 2012 of the transit of Venus -- the last instance of this rare phenomenon until 2117. Hinode is a joint JAXA/NASA mission to study the connections of the sun's surface magnetism, primarily in and around sunspots. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages Hinode. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., is the lead U.S. investigator for the X-ray Telescope. (JAXA NASA/AP)
The silhouette of the space shuttle Endeavour appears over Earth's colorful horizon in this image photographed by an Expedition 22 crew member on Feb. 9, 2010. Messier 78 Nebula brings into focus a murky region of star formation. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope exposes the depths of this dusty nebula with its infrared vision, showing stellar infants that are lost behind dark clouds when viewed in visible light. Messier 78 is easily seen in small telescopes in the constellation of Orion
An image released on October 3, 2011 show the Antennae Galaxies (also known as NGC 4038 and 4039) are a pair of distorted colliding spiral galaxies about 70 million light-years away, in the constellation of Corvus (The Crow). This view combines Atacama large milllimetre/submillimetre array (ALMA) observations, made in three different wavelength ranges during the observatory's early testing phase, with visible-light observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Most of the ALMA test observations used to create this image were made using only twelve antennas working together -- far fewer than will be used for the first science observations. The first phase of operations at the ALMA complex in Chile's Atacama desert are underway on October 3, 2011 following ten years of construction. Alma's purpose is to study processes occurring a few hundred million years after the formation of the Universe when the first stars began to shine. Alma consists of an array of linked giant antennas on top of the highest plateau in the Atacama desert.
AFP PHOTO/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) (Photo credit should read -/AFP/Getty Images)
A swirling a landscape of stars known as the North America Nebula. In visible light, the region resembles North America, but in this image infrared view from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the continent disappears. In this undated image taken by the WISE telescope a massive star is shown plowing through space dust. The result is a brilliant bow shock, seen here as a yellow arc.
At 5:20 a.m. EDT on March 29,2011, the Messenger probe captured this historic image of Mercury. The image is the first ever obtained from a spacecraft in orbit of the solar system's innermost planet. (NASA)
The full moon rises near the Lincoln Memorial on March 19 in Washington. The full moon was called a "Super Perigee Moon" since it was at its closest to Earth in 2011. The last full moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March 1993. (Bill Ingalls, NASA / AFP / Getty Images)
This image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, features a region of star birth wrapped in a blanket of dust, colored green in this infrared view. Designated as LBN 149.02-00.13, this interstellar cloud is made up of a shell of ionized gas surrounding a void with an extremely hot, bright star in the middle. (UCLA / JPL-Caltech / NASA)
This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows portions of the Martian surface in unprecedented detail. The photo shows many channels from 1 meter to 10 meters wide (approximately 3 feet to 33 feet wide) on a scarp in the Hellas impact basin. Some larger channels on Mars that are sometimes called gullies are big enough to be called ravines on Earth. (NASA / AFP / Getty Images)
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The space shuttle Discovery is seen from the International Space Station as the two orbital spacecraft accomplish their relative separation. During a post undocking fly-around, the crew of each vessel photographed the opposing craft. (NASA)
This NASA image shows what the Hubble Space Telescope revealed in a majestic disk of stars and dust lanes in the spiral galaxy NGC 2841. A bright cusp of starlight marks the galaxy's center. Spiraling outward are dust lanes that are silhouetted against the population of whitish middle-aged stars. Much younger blue stars trace the spiral arms. NGC 2841 lies 46 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear). (Hubble Heritage / ESA / NASA)
This image obtained by NASA's Stardust spacecraft shows Comet Tempel 1 at 11:39 p.m. EST on Feb. 14, 2011. The NASA spacecraft's flyby of the comet showed erosion on Tempel 1's surface since it skimmed by the sun in 2005 and revealed the first clear pictures of the crater made by a Deep Impact probe. (Cornell / JPL-Caltech / NASA)
A pair of active regions on the sun were captured in extreme ultraviolet light from the Solar Dynamic Observatory spacecraft over a three-day period. The magnetic field lines above the regions produced fluttering arcs waving above them, as well as a couple of flares. Another pair of smaller active regions emerges and trails behind the larger ones. (Solar Dynamics Observatory / NASA)
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This image shows a dramatic view of the spiral galaxy M51, dubbed the Whirlpool Galaxy. Seen in near-infrared light, most of the starlight has been removed, revealing the Whirlpool's skeletal dust structure. This image is the sharpest view of the dense dust in M51. The narrow lanes of dust revealed by Hubble reflect the galaxy's moniker, the Whirlpool Galaxy, as if they were swirling toward the galaxy's core. While searching the skies for black holes using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers discovered a giant supernova that was smothered in its own dust in this image released on Jan. 14. In this artist's rendering, an outer shell of gas and dust -- which erupted from the star hundreds of years ago -- obscures the supernova within. This event in a distant galaxy hints at one possible future for the brightest star system in our own Milky Way. Mars' two moons have been photographed in the same frame for the first time. The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter snapped this image, which was released Dec. 11, 2009. The larger moon is Phobos. The much smaller one is Deimos. Scientists said Dec. 8, 2009, that the Hubble Space Telescope spotted several thousand never-before-seen galaxies that were formed 600 million years after the Big Bang. Here, a photo shows some of them. They appear in the image as the faintest and reddest objects. This is one of the most detailed images to date of the heart of the Milky Way. The galaxy's center is within the white spot near the right edge of the photo. NASA released the image Nov. 10 to mark the 400th anniversary of the telescope. It is a composite of images from three observatories: the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. This Hubble Space Telescope image shows an object known as both NGC 2623 and Arp 243, which was formed by a collision of two galaxies. The galaxies' cores have merged into one; the tails streaming from the object are full of young stars. NGC 2623 is about 250 million light-years away in the constellation of Cancer. This portrait of Barnard's Galaxy, one of the Milky Way's closest neighbors, was taken by a telescope at the European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile. The red features in the photo are nebulae where new stars are being born. The galaxy has about 10 million stars; the Milky Way has an estimated 400 billion. The Cassini spacecraft became the first to photograph an equinox on Saturn, a 15-year event that took place Aug. 11. This photo is a composite of images that Cassini shot over eight hours. New equinox images of the planet show strange formations in its rings and suggest that in some places, the rings are much thicker than expected.
Clumps of debris cast shadows that are visible in the middle of this image of Saturn's A ring. The shadows suggest that the clumps are about 2,000 feet tall. Scientists have believed for years that the rings were about 30 feet thick, but based on the new images, scientists now think that they're more than 2 miles deep in some spots. "Isn't that the most outrageous thing you could imagine? It truly is like something out of science fiction," said Carolyn Porco, leader of the Cassini imaging team. This composite image of Arp 147, a pair of interacting galaxies located about 430 million light-years from Earth, shows X-rays from the NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (pink) and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, blue) produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute. Arp 147 contains the remnant of a spiral galaxy, right, that collided with the elliptical galaxy on the left. This collision has produced an expanding wave of star formation that shows up as a blue ring containing an abundance of massive young stars. These stars race through their evolution in a few million years or less and explode as supernovas, leaving behind neutron stars and black holes. A new photo released in July from the Hubble Space Telescope is the clearest yet of what astronomers are calling a scar on the surface of Jupiter. An object, possibly a comet, struck the planet recently, creating the strange dark patch. It happened on the 15th anniversary of another comet strike. This planetary nebula, named Kohoutek 4-55, was photographed May 4 by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. The nebula, dubbed a "giant eye," contains the outer layers of a red giant star that died. The camera, which is the size of a baby grand piano, has captured several memorable images since it was installed in 1993. In this sequence of photos released in April, a jet of gas spews from a massive black hole in the center of the M87 galaxy. The gas fades and brightens, with a peak that even outshines the galaxy's core. The outburst is coming from a blob of matter, dubbed HST-1, and scientists are so far at a loss to explain its weird behavior. This photo was snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope after winning a public competition to determine what the next space portrait should be. It shows Arp 274, a system of three galaxies -- two larger ones on the right, and a smaller and less intact one on the far left. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of three galaxies playing a game of gravitational tug-of-war that could destroy one of them. The galaxies -- NGC 7173, middle left, NGC 7174, middle right, and NGC 7176, lower right -- are about 100 million light-years away. The photo was released March 3. Our solar system is in the middle of a cosmic dust storm, and some astronomers said they've zeroed in on the possible source: the Red Rectangle nebula, which is 2,300 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros. A double star system there is spewing the dust, according to findings announced in February.
After transmission problems on the Hubble Telescope weren fixed, NASA in October 2008 provided this undated photograph showing the aftermath of galaxies colliding. In the pair known as Arp 147, a reddish-colored galaxy has passed through an O-shaped galaxy glowing blue. Photographs taken of Mercury by the spacecraft Messenger in January 2008 were analyzed in the journal Science seven months later. Images like the one above show that volcanic activity played a part in forming plains on the planet. Even galaxies get bullied. Here, a so-called "death star galaxy" blasts a nearby galaxy with a jet of energy. Scientists said that if this happened in the Milky Way, it would likely destroy all life on Earth. In 2005, NASA's Hubble Telescope captured this image of the Crab Nebula, a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers witnessed this violent event in 1054. US National Reconnaissance Office unexpectedly transferred control of two Hubble-quality satellites to NASA in June of 2012.
Astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt roam the Moon's surface in December 1972.
Elder  with 10" Newtonian in central BC, Canada
Elyas Fraenkel  density causes rotation. The resultant forces create matter streams which eventually coalesce to stellar bodies.
 by Marty Swinney. 800mm (35mm equivalent 400mm), 1/6000 @ f22
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