Curiosity spots a corroded weathered rock
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 29, 2024 by the close-up camera mounted at the end of the robot arm of the rover Curiosity on Mars.
This is a small rock, less than three inches across. It is embedded in the sand and soil of Mars, its surface clearly weathered and smoothed by some process. The holes and gaps in the rock could have occurred prior to that smoothing, getting exposed by it. Or possibly the holes developed during the smoothing, with sections breaking off because the material was like sandstone, easily friable.
What caused the smoothing? The data from Curiosity as it climbs Mount Sharp suggests some water process, either flowing water or glacial ice. The scientists at present tend to prefer the liquid explanation, but that requires the Martian atmosphere to have once been much thicker and warmer, conditions that no model has yet demonstrated convincingly was ever possible.
The rock is also likely another example of sulfur, part of the sulfate-bearing unit of geology that Curiosity is presently traversing.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 29, 2024 by the close-up camera mounted at the end of the robot arm of the rover Curiosity on Mars.
This is a small rock, less than three inches across. It is embedded in the sand and soil of Mars, its surface clearly weathered and smoothed by some process. The holes and gaps in the rock could have occurred prior to that smoothing, getting exposed by it. Or possibly the holes developed during the smoothing, with sections breaking off because the material was like sandstone, easily friable.
What caused the smoothing? The data from Curiosity as it climbs Mount Sharp suggests some water process, either flowing water or glacial ice. The scientists at present tend to prefer the liquid explanation, but that requires the Martian atmosphere to have once been much thicker and warmer, conditions that no model has yet demonstrated convincingly was ever possible.
The rock is also likely another example of sulfur, part of the sulfate-bearing unit of geology that Curiosity is presently traversing.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Sulfur is fairly soft, so I’m thinking it could be wind (or more likely wind-blown dust). Even softer portions weathered out entirely, thus the pockmarked appearance. Geology term “ventifact”.