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Terra Meridiani
Sinus Meridiani (Latin ''Sinus meridiani'', "Meridian Bay") is an albedo feature on Mars stretching east-west just south of the planet's equator. It was named by the French astronomer Camille Flammarion in the late 1870s. In 1979-2001, the vicinity of this feature (with size about and coordinates of the center ) was named ''Terra Meridiani''. Observational history The name Sinus Meridiani was given to a classic albedo feature on Mars by the French astronomer Camille Flammarion in the late 1870s. Prior astronomers, notably the German team of Wilhelm Beer and Johann Heinrich von Mädler and then the Italian Giovanni Schiaparelli, had chosen a particular point on Mars as being the location of its prime meridian when they charted their observations. Accepting suggestions that dark areas on the surface of Mars were seas or oceans, Flammarion named a dark area at that point "Sinus Meridiani," literally "Meridian Bay," when he worked on his compilation and analysis of all prior obs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars Télescope
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere (less than 1% that of Earth's), and has a crust primarily composed of elements similar to Earth's crust, as well as a core made of iron and nickel. Mars has surface features such as impact craters, valleys, dunes and polar ice caps. It has two small and irregularly shaped moons, Phobos (moon), Phobos and Deimos (moon), Deimos. Some of the most notable surface features on Mars include Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and List of tallest mountains in the Solar System, highest known mountain in the Solar System and Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The North Polar Basin (Mars), Borealis basin in the Northern Hemisphere covers approximately 40% of the planet and may be a la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sulfur
Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula S8. Elemental sulfur is a bright yellow, crystalline solid at room temperature. Sulfur is the tenth most abundant element by mass in the universe and the fifth most on Earth. Though sometimes found in pure, native form, sulfur on Earth usually occurs as sulfide and sulfate minerals. Being abundant in native form, sulfur was known in ancient times, being mentioned for its uses in ancient India, ancient Greece, China, and ancient Egypt. Historically and in literature sulfur is also called brimstone, which means "burning stone". Today, almost all elemental sulfur is produced as a byproduct of removing sulfur-containing contaminants from natural gas and petroleum.. Downloahere The greatest commercial use of the element is the production o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gusev (Martian Crater)
Gusev is a crater on the planet Mars and is located at and is in the Aeolis quadrangle. The crater is about 166 kilometers in diameter and formed approximately three to four billion years ago. It was named after Russian astronomer Matvey Gusev (1826–1866) in 1976. Prior to the exploration of the crater by the Spirit Rover, the crater was postulated to be an ancient lakebed with Ma'adim Vallis draining into it, of volcaniclastic origin, or a combination of both. These interpretations were based on ''Viking'' orbiter imagery, MOC imagery, THEMIS thermal mapping, and MOLA elevation mapping. However, Spirit did not find any lacustrine deposits, instead Spirit found alkaline volcanic rocks, including olivine basalt, comminuted basaltic debris, lavas, and pyroclastic rocks, but no eruption centers. More recently, satellite images showed the trails of dust devils on Gusev's floor. The ''Spirit'' rover later photographed dust devils from the ground, and likely owes much o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olivine
The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface, but weathers quickly on the surface. For this reason, olivine has been proposed as a good candidate for accelerated weathering to sequester carbon dioxide from the Earth's oceans and atmosphere, as part of climate change mitigation. Olivine also has many other historical uses, such as the gemstone peridot (or chrysolite), as well as industrial applications like metalworking processes. The ratio of magnesium to iron varies between the two endmembers of the solid solution series: forsterite (Mg-endmember: ) and fayalite (Fe-endmember: ). Compositions of olivine are commonly expressed as molar percentages of forsterite (Fo) and fayalite (Fa) (''e.g.'', Fo70Fa30). Forsterite's melting temperature is unusually high at atmospheric pressure, almost , while ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnetite
Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula Fe2+Fe3+2O4. It is one of the oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetized to become a permanent magnet itself. With the exception of extremely rare native iron deposits, it is the most magnetic of all the naturally occurring minerals on Earth. Naturally magnetized pieces of magnetite, called lodestone, will attract small pieces of iron, which is how ancient peoples first discovered the property of magnetism. Magnetite is black or brownish-black with a metallic luster, has a Mohs hardness of 5–6 and leaves a black streak. Small grains of magnetite are very common in igneous and metamorphic rocks. The chemical IUPAC name is iron(II,III) oxide and the common chemical name is ''ferrous-ferric oxide''. Properties In addition to igneous rocks, magnetite also occurs in sedimentary rocks, including banded iron formations and in lake and marine sediments ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Titanomagnetite
Titanomagnetite is a mineral containing oxides of titanium and iron, with the formula Fe2+(Fe3+,Ti)2O4. It is also known as titaniferous magnetite, mogensenite, Ti-magnetite, or titanian magnetite. It is part of the spinel group of minerals. The Curie temperature In physics and materials science, the Curie temperature (''T''C), or Curie point, is the temperature above which certain materials lose their permanent magnetic properties, which can (in most cases) be replaced by induced magnetism. The Cur ... for titanomagnetite has been found to have a wide range of 200 to 580°C. It is can be found in association with zircon, fluorapatite, ferro-ferri-katophrite, ulvöspinel, nepheline, chalcopyrite, phyrrotite, pyrite, natrolite, and chevkinite-(Ce). References Minerals Spinel group {{mineral-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eagle (Meridiani Planum Crater)
Eagle is a 22-metre long impact crater located on the Meridiani Planum extraterrestrial plain, situated within the Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle (MC-19) portion of the planet Mars. The ''Opportunity'' rover came to rest inside Eagle crater when it landed in 2004. Scientists were delighted that the rover landed there, as the crater contains rocky outcroppings that helped prove that Meridiani was once an ocean floor. This crater should not be confused with the other, much larger Martian crater ''Eagle'', which was officially named by IAU's Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature in 1976. Name The name is a triple reference: in honor of the first crewed spacecraft to land on the Moon in 1969; in honor of the launching country, the United States, whose symbol is an eagle; and in reference to the golf term ''eagle'', referring to sinking a ball two strokes under par. The third reference extended the golf metaphor begun with a description of landing in the crater as " a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lag Deposit
A lag deposit is the deposition of material winnowed by physical action. Aeolian processes, fluvial processes, and tidal processes can remove the finer portion of a sedimentary deposit leaving the coarser material behind. Lag deposits are found in processes such as central island formation in streams and rivers. One theory of desert pavement formation is that they are an aeolian lag deposit. Armored beaches and inlets can be composed in part by lag deposits of shells or cobbles created when tidal forces strip away the finer sand and silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel .... References {{geology-stub Deposition (geology) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2001 Mars Odyssey
''2001 Mars Odyssey'' is a robotic spacecraft orbiting the planet Mars. The project was developed by NASA, and contracted out to Lockheed Martin, with an expected cost for the entire mission of US$297 million. Its mission is to use spectrometers and a thermal imager to detect evidence of past or present water and ice, as well as study the planet's geology and radiation environment. It is hoped that the data ''Odyssey'' obtains will help answer the question of whether life existed on Mars and create a risk-assessment of the radiation that future astronauts on Mars might experience. It also acts as a relay for communications between the ''Curiosity'' rover, and previously the Mars Exploration Rovers and ''Phoenix'' lander, to Earth. The mission was named as a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, evoking the name of his and Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey''. ''Odyssey'' was launched April 7, 2001, on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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