Initial Opportunity Rover Results from Noachian Materials at Endeavour Crater, Mars

Details Initial Opportunity Rover Results from Noachian Materials at Endeavour Crater, Mars Initial Opportunity Rover Results from Noachian Materials at Endeavour Crater, Mars

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufm.p34c..04s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #P34C-04

Physics

[5410] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Composition, [6225] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Mars

Scientific paper

The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has been traversing across sulfate-rich sedimentary rocks at Meridiani Planum for more than seven years. For most of the past three years, the goal of that traverse has been the rim of Endeavour Crater. Endeavour is more than 20 kilometers in diameter, and is formed in the Noachian terrain that underlies the Meridiani sediments. The sediments surround Endeavour, partially fill it, and drape portions of its rim. However, at some locations Noachian material is exposed in rim materials. The rim materials are seen in orbital and rover Pancam images to be topographically rugged, with some similarities to the terrains investigated by the rover Spirit in the Columbia Hills of Gusev Crater. Infrared spectra obtained from orbit by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter CRISM instrument show the signature of phyllosilicate minerals in several locations along Endeavour's rim. We expect, then that Endeavour rim materials may preserve evidence of an ancient aqueous epoch not investigated to date by Opportunity. As of the writing of this abstract, Opportunity is less than 300 meters from Spirit Point, the first place where it will make contact with Endeavour rim materials. The rover is in good health, as are most of the instruments on its payload. The talk will present the initial results from investigation of Noachian materials at Spirit Point, including morphology, physical properties, fine-scale texture, elemental chemistry, and inferred mineralogy.

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