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A Bowl of Hematite-Rich ‘Berries’

This graph shows spectra of outcrop regions near NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's landing site. Blue line shows data which contains a handful of sphere-like grains dubbed 'blueberries'; yellow line represents an area devoid of berries.
PIA05587
Credits: NASA/JPL/Cornell/University of Mainz
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Description

This graph shows two spectra of outcrop regions near the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's landing site. The blue line shows data for a region dubbed "Berry Bowl," which contains a handful of the sphere-like grains dubbed "blueberries." The yellow line represents an area called "Empty" next to Berry Bowl that is devoid of berries. Berry Bowl's spectrum still shows typical outcrop characteristics, but also exhibits an intense hematite signature, seen as a "magnetic sextet." Hematite is an iron-bearing mineral often formed in water. These spectra were taken by the rover's Moessbauer spectrometer on the 46th (Empty) and 48th (Berry Bowl) martian days, or sols, of its mission.