More than four years after Mars rover Spirit visited the Comanche outcrop in Gusev Crater's Columbia Hills, scientists armed with a new instrument calibration have discovered the rocks are rich in long-sought carbonate minerals.
Comanche (left) and Comanche Spur (right) appear reddish-brown in this false-color image from Spirit's Pancam. (The bluish-wite rocks in the foreground belong to an unrelated outcrop.) Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell University
It's amazing what cleaning your glasses can reveal. A mineral-scouting instrument developed at ASU's Mars Space Flight Facility has found an outcrop of rock rich in carbonate minerals in the Columbia Hills of Gusev Crater on Mars. The instrument is onboard NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit.
What makes the discovery unusual is that Spirit visited the outcrop, dubbed Comanche, back in December 2005. Yet the data pointing to the discovery languished since then because one of the instruments that detected the carbonate minerals was partly blinded by dust.
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