Roving Mars Page #5
01:
09:47,746 -- 01:09:51,273but what we found was lava -
volcanic rock,
303
01:
09:51,350 -- 01:09:55,411The sedimentary rock must be there,
but it's been buried under the lava,
304
01:
09:55,487 -- 01:09:58,217and we couldn't get to it,
305
01:
09:58,290 -- 01:10:01,487When we realized that we hadn't landed
on the stuff we came for,
306
01:
10:01,560 -- 01:10:03,960we decided
we had to go someplace else,
307
01:
10:04,029 -- 01:10:07,260A mile and a half away,
there's this spectacular range of hills
308
01:
10:07,332 -- 01:10:09,493called the Columbia Hills,
309
01:
10:09,568 -- 01:10:14,972You gotta remember ''Spirit'' was designed
to go only 600 yards over its lifetime,
310
01:
10:15,407 -- 01:10:20,208so we set out for those hills
not knowing if we'd ever make it,
311
01:
10:21,446 -- 01:10:26,907Meanwhile, on the other side of Mars,
''Opportunity'' was about to land,
312
01:
10:51,343 -- 01:10:53,470When ''Opportunity'' landed
at Eagle Crater,
313
01:
10:53,545 -- 01:10:58,107it was a 300 million-mile
interplanetary hole in one,
314
01:
10:59,885 -- 01:11:03,377We rolled to a stop
right in front of layered bedrock,
315
01:
11:03,455 -- 01:11:05,821Bedrock is geologic truth,
316
01:
11:05,891 -- 01:11:10,328''Opportunity'' landed
in front of a Martian history book,
317
01:
11:16,101 -- 01:11:19,161When we drove off the lander
and looked at the soil in front of us,
318
01:
11:19,237 -- 01:11:23,173we saw that it was littered with
what looked like little round beads,
319
01:
11:23,241 -- 01:11:27,177an uncountable number
of little round things,
320
01:
11:27,245 -- 01:11:31,682We took out our microscope, we reached
out and looked at the soil in detail,
321
01:
11:31,750 -- 01:11:34,446and the picture that came down
was astounding,
322
01:
11:34,519 -- 01:11:37,010They were perfect spheres,
323
01:
11:37,088 -- 01:11:40,148l will remember for the rest of my life
324
01:
11:40,225 -- 01:11:43,626how l felt when l saw that first picture,
325
01:
11:50,435 -- 01:11:52,699When we got to the outcrop
and looked at it up close,
326
01:
11:52,771 -- 01:11:56,400we realized that the spheres
are embedded in the rock
327
01:
11:56,475 -- 01:11:58,636like blueberries in a muffin,
328
01:
11:58,710 -- 01:12:03,079The rock erodes away and the blueberries
fall out and roll down into the soil,
329
01:
12:06,218 -- 01:12:08,277The blueberries are made of hematite,
330
01:
12:08,353 -- 01:12:12,813a mineral that on Earth
is often formed in liquid water,
331
01:
12:12,891 -- 01:12:16,327Next we found jarosite, which is a mineral
that couldn't have formed
332
01:
12:16,394 -- 01:12:22,094unless there'd been water in the rocks,
so there was water underground here,
333
01:
12:22,167 -- 01:12:26,228Our most extraordinary discovery came
when we found ripples in the rocks,
334
01:
12:26,304 -- 01:12:31,901ancient ripples formed when water flowed
over sand on Mars billions of years ago,
335
01:
12:31,977 -- 01:12:34,241So there wasn't just
water underground here,
336
01:
12:34,312 -- 01:12:37,304there was water at the surface,
337
01:
12:41,119 -- 01:12:44,520''Opportunity'' discovered that
at this place billions of years ago,
338
01:
12:44,589 -- 01:12:47,649Mars was most likely a habitable world,
339
01:
12:47,726 -- 01:12:52,459A place that, for some interval of time,
was suitable for some forms of life,
340
01:
12:52,531 -- 01:12:56,023Decades of work paid off
with this discovery,
341
01:
12:57,536 -- 01:13:01,996Billions of years ago, there were
shallow occasional pools of water,
342
01:
13:02,073 -- 01:13:05,133Don't think an ocean,
Think of salt flats,
343
01:
13:05,210 -- 01:13:07,610And the water may not have been
a pretty blue,
344
01:
13:07,679 -- 01:13:11,046ln fact, it may have been so acid,
it dissolved iron out of the rocks
345
01:
13:11,116 -- 01:13:15,177and made wine-red pools
under a pink Martian sky,
346
01:
13:31,503 -- 01:13:34,267All the discoveries that ''Opportunity''
made about water
347
01:
13:34,339 -- 01:13:37,103happened in the first six weeks
of the mission,
348
01:
13:37,175 -- 01:13:39,541Everything went right for that rover,
349
01:
13:39,611 -- 01:13:42,171l call ''Opportunity''
''Little Miss Perfect,''
350
01:
13:42,247 -- 01:13:45,239''Opportunity'' lands
where the evidence is right there,
351
01:
13:45,317 -- 01:13:49,014The driving is like a parking lot,
Everything is perfect,
352
01:
13:52,223 -- 01:13:55,624''Spirit,'' our kind of tough,
hard-working, blue-collar rover,
353
01:
13:55,694 -- 01:13:59,130lands in this awful, rocky,
rugged place on a lava plain
354
01:
13:59,197 -- 01:14:02,223a mile and a half from
the nearest interesting rocks
355
01:
14:02,300 -- 01:14:07,203and has to struggle for five months
just to begin her mission,
356
01:
14:08,974 -- 01:14:14,412''Spirit'' had to work for everything,
literally had to climb a mountain on Mars,
357
01:
14:16,281 -- 01:14:18,408We use the power
that comes from the sun
358
01:
14:18,483 -- 01:14:20,917to operate the vehicle
and to charge the batteries,
359
01:
14:20,986 -- 01:14:23,648so the solar arrays are essential,
360
01:
14:23,722 -- 01:14:28,091On the way to the Columbia Hills,
''Spirit's'' solar arrays got coated with dust,
361
01:
14:28,159 -- 01:14:32,255We were getting to the point
where ''Spirit'' was simply gonna die,
362
01:
14:32,330 -- 01:14:36,528Then, one wonderful day, we climbed up
onto the crest of a ridge,
363
01:
14:36,601 -- 01:14:39,695where we were hit by not one
but several gusts of wind
364
01:
14:39,771 -- 01:14:42,331that just cleaned the solar arrays off,
365
01:
14:42,407 -- 01:14:46,036lt was like having a brand-new rover,
366
01:
14:46,111 -- 01:14:48,272''Spirit'' got high up in the Columbia Hills
367
01:
14:48,346 -- 01:14:51,941and started to find stuff that was different
from anything we'd seen,
368
01:
14:52,017 -- 01:14:57,011There were salt deposits in the hills
and rocks that had been altered by water,
369
01:
14:57,088 -- 01:15:00,546lt took months of work and struggle,
but ''Spirit'' finally showed us
370
01:
15:00,625 -- 01:15:03,185there had been water
on both sides of the planet,
371
01:
15:03,261 -- 01:15:05,889She gave us exactly what we needed,
372
01:
15:09,768 -- 01:15:12,601These rovers were designed
to last only 90 Mars days,
373
01:
15:12,671 -- 01:15:14,935and they've already
done many times that,
374
01:
15:15,006 -- 01:15:18,305They've developed personalities,
They're workhorses, They say:
375
01:
15:18,376 -- 01:15:21,709''Push us, Ask us to do more,
We can go further, We can go faster,''
376
01:
15:21,780 -- 01:15:24,715So we ask so much more
than they were ever intended to,
377
01:
15:24,783 -- 01:15:27,377and to our amazement, they do it,
378
01:
15:30,722 -- 01:15:34,590
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