Is not this at least one argument why human space/planetary exploration is worthwhile? If there were a person on Mars stepping in the dust, picking up rocks in his/her gloves, then a lot of speculation about the nature of the soil we can only see one-dimensionally from here would be unnecessary. -----Original Message----- From: Joe Bauman [mailto:bau@desnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 12:09 PM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Martian soil Great point. What's strange is that the soil at Spirit's site and that at Opportunity's seem to have different properties. Spirit's looks much more gummy, with those scrape marks. Spirit's seems to take impressions much more strongly, but not to stick to things -- you can see the seams of the airbags in the "lillypad" impressions made when the lander was bouncing along, yet the airbags are not covered with dirt the way Spirit's are. Very odd. -- Joe _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com