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Overview of the Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover Mission to Meridiani Planum: Eagle Crater to Purgatory Ripple
Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Space Sciences Building, Ithaca, New York, USA
Department Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Space Sciences Building, Ithaca, New York, USA
Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Space Sciences Building, Ithaca, New York, USA
Max Planck Institut für Chemie, Kosmochemie, Mainz, Germany
NASA Ames/SETI Institute, Moffett Field, California, USA
Department of Geological Sciences, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, Nevada, USA
U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, California, USA
Department of Geological Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
Lockheed Martin Corporation, Littleton, Colorado, USA
New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA
Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Toulouse, France
Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Department of Geological Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Department of Physics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Honeybee Robotics, New York, USA
Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., USA
Department of Geological Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA
Max Planck Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany
U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA
Institut für Anorganische und Analytische Chemie, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Germany
Botanical Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Niels Bohr Institute, Ørsted Laboratory, Copenhagen, Denmark
Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, California, USA
Department of Geosciences, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York, USA
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, USA
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, USA
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Department of Geological Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
DLR Institute of Space Simulation, Cologne, Germany
Max Planck Institut für Chemie, Kosmochemie, Mainz, Germany
Institut für Anorganische und Analytische Chemie, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, Germany
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA
U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA
Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Space Sciences Building, Ithaca, New York, USA
Department of Geosciences, State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York, USA
Max Planck Institut für Chemie, Kosmochemie, Mainz, Germany
Department of Physics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
Space Science Institute, Martinez, Georgia, USA
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity touched down at Meridiani Planum in January 2004 and since then has been conducting observations with the Athena science payload. The rover has traversed more than 5 km, carrying out the first outcrop-scale investigation of sedimentary rocks on Mars. The rocks of Meridiani Planum are sandstones formed by eolian and aqueous reworking of sand grains that are composed of mixed fine-grained siliciclastics and sulfates. The siliciclastic fraction was produced by chemical alteration of a precursor basalt. The sulfates are dominantly Mg-sulfates and also include Ca-sulfates and jarosite. The stratigraphic section observed to date is dominated by eolian bedforms, with subaqueous current ripples exposed near the top of the section. After deposition, interaction with groundwater produced a range of diagenetic features, notably the hematite-rich concretions known as “blueberries.” The bedrock at Meridiani is highly friable and has undergone substantial erosion by wind-transported basaltic sand. This sand, along with concretions and concretion fragments eroded from the rock, makes up a soil cover that thinly and discontinuously buries the bedrock. The soil surface exhibits both ancient and active wind ripples that record past and present wind directions. Loose rocks on the soil surface are rare and include both impact ejecta and meteorites. While Opportunity's results show that liquid water was once present at Meridiani Planum below and occasionally at the surface, the environmental conditions recorded were dominantly arid, acidic, and oxidizing and would have posed some significant challenges to the origin of life.
Received 9 June 2006; accepted 10 October 2006; published 15 December 2006.
Citation: (2006), Overview of the Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover Mission to Meridiani Planum: Eagle Crater to Purgatory Ripple, J. Geophys. Res., 111, E12S12, doi:10.1029/2006JE002771.
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