In Focus
The Pathfinder mission sprung a surprise towards end August when the roving vehicle revealed at least two different kinds of rocks on the planet. Neither resembles the Earth's volcanic rocks or meteorites presumed to originate in Mars. These findings have confused scientists, waiting for moredata on the rocks. They are curious about the formation of these rocks and the information they may have in store with respect to the planet's geologic history. Of the four rocks studied in detail so far, two contain higher amounts of the element silicon found in Martian meteorites, while the other two have more sulphur than is commonly found in the Earth's volcanic rocks.
Thanasis Economou, a member of the Pathfinder team also pointed out that there were extraordinary differences between the composition of the soil and the rocks at the site. The soil was found to contain chromium, not present in the rocks and much higher concentrations of sulphur and chlorine. While the rocks contained abundant quantities of aluminium and silicon.
Possible explanations as to the differences have come pouring in from other geologists. It has been suggested that the rover's spectrometre used for determining surface chemistry is perhaps detecting only the dust covering the rocks and is not able to penetrate any further. The dust
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