‘Twitter has revealed its favourite tweets, trends and pictures of 2012.
One day after looking back in a different way by adding vintage filters to its photo service, Twitter reminisced about the year (almost) gone by.
Writing on its blog the social network highlighted the reelection of President Barack Obama, Hurricane Sandy and Tweets from Mars sent by Nasa‘s Curiosity Rover as among the most significant events of the year.
Rover is reported to have found Rat/Rat hole and NASA seems to be keeping quiet as it would of UFOs.
The following image is from NASA. Rat Hole in Mars?
There is speculation that this could be Mouse and that NASA is keeping mum.
Story:
This microscopic imager mosaic taken by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows the rock dubbed “Diamond Jenness.” It was taken on sol 177 (July 23, 2004) after the rover first ground into the rock with its rock abrasion tool, or “Rat.” The rover later ground into the rock a second time. A sliced spherule, or “blueberry,” is visible in the upper left corner of the hole. Opportunity has bored nearly a dozen holes into the inner walls of “Endurance Crater.” On sols 177 and 178 (July 23 and July 24, 2004), the rover worked double-duty on Diamond Jenness. Surface debris and the bumpy shape of the rock resulted in a shallow and irregular hole, only about 2 millimeters (0.08 inch) deep. The final depth was not enough to remove all the bumps and leave a neat hole with a smooth floor. This extremely shallow depression was then examined by the rover’s alpha particle X-ray spectrometer.
“A friend emailed this in to me today and its really amazing and strange. I guess thats why I love this one so much. Its a cute rodent on Mars. Note it’s lighter color upper and lower eyelids, it’s nose and cheek areas, its ear, its front leg and stomach. Looks similar to a squirrel camouflaged in the stones and sand by its colors. Hey, who doesn’t love squirrels right? That doesn’t look like a squirrel you say? Then have a look at the photo below of similar squirrel in the same position on Earth. This might have been the big historical announcement that NASA was suppose to make, however they decided life on Mars was a secret worth keeping since they don’t want China or Russia to beat America to Mars. So they shut up about it and can take their time to Mars this way. The scientist jumped the gun and told the public about a major historical discovery on Mars…this must be what he was talking about. SCW’
Earlier reported that there was evidence of water in the atmosphere, later it they found what was presumed to be traces of ice having been melted on the ground.
Now comes the proof that water indeed existed in Mars.
Water, being the essential ingredient of Life as we know, must have been available in Mars aplenty.
Riverbed . Mars
A Riverbed which once would have been a -flush with water was found.
” NASA’s Mars rover, Curiosity, dispatched to learn if the most Earth-like planet in the solar system was suitable for microbial life, has found clear evidence its landing site was once awash in water, a key ingredient for life, scientists said Thursday.
Curiosity, a roving chemistry laboratory the size of a small car, touched down on August 6 inside a giant impact basin near the planet’s equator. The primary target for the two-year mission is a three-mile (five-km) -high mound of layered rock rising from the floor of Gale Crater.
Scientists suspect the mound, known as Mount Sharp, is the remains of sediment that once completely filled the crater. Analysis of a slab of rock located between the crater’s north rim and the base of Mount Sharp indicate a fast-moving stream of water once flowed there.
Those in which the outer layer has been eroded contain concentric internal structure.
Story:
Small spherical objects fill the field in this mosaic combining four images from the Microscopic Imager on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. The view covers an area about 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) across, at an outcrop called “Kirkwood” in the Cape York segment of the western rim of Endeavour Crater. The individual spherules are up to about one-eighth inch (3 millimeters) in diameter.
The Microscopic Imager took the component images during the 3,064th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity’s work on Mars (Sept. 6, 2012). For a color view of the Kirkwood outcrop as Opportunity was approaching it two weeks earlier, see PIA16128 .
Opportunity discovered spherules at its landing site more than eight-and-a-half years earlier. Those spherules were nicknamed “blueberries.” They provided important evidence about long-ago wet environmental conditions on Mars because researchers using Opportunity’s science instruments identified them as concretions rich in the mineral hematite deposited by water saturating the bedrock. A picture of the “blueberries” from the same Microscopic Imager is PIA05564 .
The spherules at Kirkwood do not have the iron-rich composition of the blueberries. They also differ in concentration, distribution and structure. Some of the spherules in this image have been partially eroded away, revealing concentric internal structure. Opportunity’s science team plans to use the rover for further investigation of these spherules to determine what evidence they can provide about ancient Martian environmental conditions.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./ USGS/Modesto Junior College. NASA write up.
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