Martian Spherules
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Martian Spherules
Martian spherules (also known as hematite spherules, blueberries, & Martian blueberries) are small spherules (roughly spherical pebbles) that are rich in an iron oxide (grey hematite, α-Fe2O3) and are found at Meridiani Planum (a large plain on Mars) in mind-bogglingly large numbers. These spherules were discovered for sure on the sol (Martian day) that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover ''Opportunity'' landed at Meridiani Planum. (At NASA's Mission Control building that was January 24th, 2004.) They are grey but look bluish next to the ubiquitous rusty reds on Mars, and since the first spherules found in Eagle Crater were 3-6 mm in diameter, the ''Opportunity'' team quickly called them "blueberries". Martian blueberries are either embedded or loose. That is, Martian blueberries are either embedded in the large body of sediments of Meridiani Planum, or they are loose blueberries that lie directly on outcrops of the sediments or lie on top soils spread over the Meridiani sediment ...
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Hematite
Hematite (), also spelled as haematite, is a common iron oxide compound with the formula, Fe2O3 and is widely found in rocks and soils. Hematite crystals belong to the rhombohedral lattice system which is designated the alpha polymorph of . It has the same crystal structure as corundum () and ilmenite (). With this it forms a complete solid solution at temperatures above . Hematite naturally occurs in black to steel or silver-gray, brown to reddish-brown, or red colors. It is mined as an important ore mineral of iron. It is electrically conductive. Hematite varieties include ''kidney ore'', ''martite'' (pseudomorphs after magnetite), ''iron rose'' and ''specularite'' (specular hematite). While these forms vary, they all have a rust-red streak. Hematite is not only harder than pure iron, but also much more brittle. Maghemite is a polymorph of hematite (γ-) with the same chemical formula, but with a spinel structure like magnetite. Large deposits of hematite are found in ...
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Magnesium Sulfate
Magnesium sulfate or magnesium sulphate (in English-speaking countries other than the US) is a chemical compound, a salt with the formula , consisting of magnesium cations (20.19% by mass) and sulfate anions . It is a white crystalline solid, soluble in water but not in ethanol. Magnesium sulfate is usually encountered in the form of a hydrate , for various values of ''n'' between 1 and 11. The most common is the heptahydrate , known as Epsom salt, which is a household chemical with many traditional uses, including bath salts. The main use of magnesium sulfate is in agriculture, to correct soils deficient in magnesium (an essential plant nutrient because of the role of magnesium in chlorophyll and photosynthesis). The monohydrate is favored for this use; by the mid 1970s, its production was 2.3 million tons per year. The anhydrous form and several hydrates occur in nature as minerals, and the salt is a significant component of the water from some springs. Hydrates Magnesi ...
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Endeavour Crater
Endeavour is an impact crater located in the Meridiani Planum extraterrestrial plain within the Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle (MC-19) region of the planet Mars. Endeavour is about in diameter. Using ''Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter'' data, phyllosilicate-bearing outcrops have been detected along its rim. These minerals may have formed under wet conditions in a low-acidic environment during the early history of Mars. There are raised rim segments to the north, east, and southwest. The rim has become worn, rounded and degraded, with infilling of plains material in a manner similar to the Victoria crater. When compared to the surrounding plains, the crater floor shows an enhanced spectral signature of basalt and hematite. The interior contains two groups of dune fields. Images taken since 2008 show evidence of changes in some of the associated formations, which may be evidence of active erosion by the martian wind over a period of two to three years. The plains surrounding the rim ...
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Victoria Carter
Victoria Mary Carter is a former New Zealand politician. She is now a professional company director and businesswoman. Early life Carter, born in England, came to New Zealand with her mother, journalist Valerie Davies. Her stepfather was journalist, Pat Booth. Education and early career Carter holds a law degree from the University of Auckland and has a varied background in public relations, marketing, and governance. Carter has served on the boards of Kidicorp, Turner’s Auctions, New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing, Auckland Racing Club, and JUCY group. She was extensively involved with the Auckland Kindergarten Association from 1995 to 2005, as Chair (4 years), Deputy-Chair (3 years), and Councillor (3 years), ending up as the President of the Association. Political career Carter was elected as an Auckland City Councillor in 1998 for the Hobson ward. Carter was the first independent trustee to be elected to the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust in 1997, but had to resign f ...
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Naturaliste (crater)
''Opportunity'' is a robotic rover that was active on the planet Mars from 2004 to 2018. Launched on July 7, 2003, ''Opportunity'' landed on Mars' Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, at 05:05 Ground UTC (about 13:15 Mars local time), three weeks after its twin ''Spirit'' (MER-A), also part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission, touched down on the other side of the planet."Spirit" landed on January 4, 2004. While ''Spirit'' became immobile in 2009 and ceased communications in 2010, ''Opportunity'' exceeded its planned 90 sol (Martian days) duration of activity by 14 years 46 days (in Earth time). ''Opportunity'' continued to move, gather scientific observations, and report back to Earth until 2018. What follows is a summary of events during its continuing mission. ''Opportunity'' started in Eagle crater in 2004, literally landing inside on the crater basin, then it travelled outward making its way to Endurance crater. After this it went to Victoria crater, all the way m ...
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Rock Abrasion Tool
The Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) is a grinding and brushing installation on NASA’s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, ''Spirit'' (MER-A) and ''Opportunity'' (MER-B), which landed on Mars in January 2004. It was designed, developed and continues to be operated by Honeybee Robotics LTD, a developer of specialized robots, automated technologies and related systems. The RAT was the first machine to gain access to the interior of rocks on another planet. The RAT has a mass of , is in diameter and long, about the size of a soda can. It uses a diamond dust and resin wheel spinning at 3000 rpm to drill a 45 mm diameter by 5 mm deep bore hole in martian rocks. The RAT then uses two brushes to sweep dust from the bore holes for closer scientific inspection. Its average power consumption is 30 watts. There are five other instruments aboard both rovers, these are the Pancam (a camera), Mini-TES (an infrared spectrometer) for sensing targets at a distance, a microscopic imager, a Möss ...
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Victoria Crater
Victoria is an impact crater on Mars located at 2.05°S, 5.50°W in the Meridiani Planum extraterrestrial plain, lying situated within the Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle (MC-19) region of the planet Mars. This crater was first visited by the Mars Exploration Rover ''Opportunity''. It is roughly wide, nearly eight times the size of the crater Endurance, visited by ''Opportunity'' from sols 951 to 1630. It is informally named after ''Victoria'' – one of the five Spanish ships of Ferdinand Magellan and the first ship to circumnavigate the globe – and formally named after Victoria, Seychelles. Along the edges of the crater are many outcrops within recessed alcoves and promontories, named for bays and capes that Magellan discovered. ''Opportunity'' traveled for 21 months to Victoria before finally reaching its edge on September 26, 2006 (sol 951), at the newly named "Duck Bay". Around the rover were features dubbed "No Name", "Duck Crater", " Emma Dean", "Maid of the Cany ...
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Endurance (crater)
Endurance is an impact crater lying situated within the Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle (MC-19) region of the planet Mars. This crater was visited by the ''Opportunity'' rover from May until December 2004. Mission scientists named the crater after the ship ''Endurance'' that sailed to the Antarctic through the Weddell Sea during the ill-fated 1914-1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, considered to be the last expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration organized by Ernest Shackleton. The rover entered the crater interior on its 134th mission sol (June 15), and exited on the 315th sol (December 14). During this time it traversed various obstacles, steep inclines, and overcame large wheel slippage when driving over fine sand. __TOC__ Exploration by ''Opportunity'' After arriving at the crater, ''Opportunity'' performed a survey of the crater to plan the further steps in exploring the local geology. A site dubbed "Karatepe" was chosen to enter the crater and i ...
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Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer
:''APXS is also an abbreviation for APache eXtenSion tool, an extension for Apache web servers.'' An alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS) is a spectrometer that analyses the chemical element composition of a sample from scattered alpha particles and fluorescent X-rays after a sample is irradiated with alpha particles and X-rays from radioactive sources. This method of analysing the elemental composition of a sample is most often used on space missions, which require low weight, small size, and minimal power consumption. Other methods (e.g. mass spectrometry) are faster, and do not require the use of radioactive materials, but require larger equipment with greater power requirements. A variation is the alpha proton X-ray spectrometer, such as on the Pathfinder mission, which also detects protons. Over the years several modified versions of this type of instrument such as APS (without X-ray spectrometer) or APXS have been flown: Surveyor 5-7, Mars Pathfinder, Mars 96, Mars ...
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Xpe Pubeng Approved 032304 Color Berry Bowl-B060R1 Br
Windows XP, which is the next version of Windows NT after Windows 2000 and the successor to the consumer-oriented Windows Me, has been released in several editions since its original release in 2001. Windows XP is available in many languages. In addition, add-ons translating the user interface are also available for certain languages. Home and Professional The first two editions released by Microsoft are Windows XP Home Edition, designed for home users, and Windows XP Professional, designed for business and power users. Windows XP Professional offers a number of features unavailable in the Home Edition, including: * The ability to become part of a Windows Server domain, a group of computers that are remotely managed by one or more central servers. * An access control list, access control scheme that allows specific permissions on files to be granted to specific users under normal circumstances. However, users can use tools other than Windows Explorer (like cacls or File Manage ...
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Astrobiology Magazine
''Astrobiology Magazine (exploring the solar system and beyond)'', or ''Astrobiology Mag'', was an American, formerly NASA-sponsored, international online popular science magazine that contained popular science content, which referred to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. The magazine reported on missions of NASA and other space agencies, as well as presents news of relevant research conducted by various institutions, universities, and non-profit groups. In addition, the magazine provided a forum through which researchers and the general public could oversee the progress made in fields of study that were associated with the science of astrobiology. The magazine was created by Helen Matsos, who was the chief editor and executive producer. It began publication in 1999. and as of 2021 is now offline. See also * Abiogenesis * ''Astrobiology'' journal * ''Astronomy'' * ''Discover'' * Earliest known life forms * ''National Geographic'' * ''Popul ...
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