PIA05174: Adirondack's Inner Self


Adirondack’s Inner Self

Caption:

This spectrum - the first taken of a rock on another planet - reveals the different iron-containing minerals that makeup the martian rock dubbed Adirondack. It shows that Adirondack is a type of volcanic rock known as basalt. Specifically, the rock is what is called olivine basalt because in addition to magnetite and pyroxene, two key ingredients of basalt, it contains a mineral called olivine. This data was acquired by Spirit's Moessbauer spectrometer before the rover developed communication problems with Earth on the 18th martian day, or sol, of its mission.

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target Mars
System
Target Type Planet
Mission Mars Exploration Rover (MER)
Instrument Host Spirit (MER-A)
Host Type Rover
Instrument Moessbauer Spectrometer (MB)
Detector
Extra Keywords Color, Volcano
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2004-01-30
Date in Caption
Image Credit NASA/JPL/University of Mainz
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA05174
Identifier PIA05174