I lose enough money in the company lottery pool on odds much worse than this, so I’m betting asteroid 2007 WD5 will slam into Mars on jan 30th even though NASA is only laying odds at something under 4% right now that it will. The Near Earth Object Program has the details. Even if it doesn’t hit, it’s worth keeping an eye on the red planet if weather allows…
The Mars rover Opportunity will descend into Victoria crater despite the very real risk that it might not be able to get back out of it again. Rolling down into the crater should allow scientists to investigate progressively older rock strata, an opportunity 
whose benefits far outweigh the risks. Nothing in the rovers’ original mission plan allowed for more than a few months of scratching about on the surface, so for Geologists everywhere, this is really a dream come true. Opportunity should begin the trek into the crater sometime in early July.
Back in 2004 I wrote about the evidence scientists were finding for water on ancient Mars, and the arguments for and against it on the surface of Mars today. Now we’ve got some great pics that could settle the question? While the pics certainly show a flow of some kind that has happened since 2001, not all scientists are convinced that they are evidence of flowing water. Read More for these less sensational viewpoints.
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It’s almost sad that the next mission to Mars brought to you by Lockheed Martin will be called ‘Phoenix’. You’ll recall with regret, that for some reason the engineers on the Mars Climate Orbiter project in 1999 weren’t aware that NASA used the metric system and lost that $125 million dollar spacecraft months before the ill-fated Polar Lander was set to rendevous with it. The Polar Lander was subsequently lost as well. Read on for links to the new project…
Its funny how easily the media can be hyped to a frenzy about the certainty of some scientific finding, yet when I actually read the press release on the NASA site, it isn’t all that definitive.Evidence of Jarosite by the onboard spectrometer is pretty good evidence since it normally forms (on Earth) by the reaction of sulfuric acid in ground water.
The rest of the release concentrates on the rock’s “appearance” which is surely much more subjective an issue. Regarding the observed spherules distribution, the release states “Opportunity’s observations that the spherules are not concentrated at particular layers in the outcrop weigh against a volcanic or impact origin, but do not completely rule out those origins.”
Regarding the crossbedding thought to be made by water action, the release states that the crossbedding might have been due to the action of wind, and that “The images obtained to date are not adequate for a definitive answer”
Don’t forget that Mars Global Surveyor found “large expanses” of Olivine which appears to be plentiful on Mars. Olivine wears away in the presence of water!
Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait till we find evidence of life on Mars (its my new blog tag line after all!), but enough with the hype already.
