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Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 7:41 AM

Picked up this story this morning, about a rock on mars that couldn't be drilled.

https://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-mars-rover-found-a-rock-too-hard-to-drill-into/

Aside from curiosity about the type of rock, I was left wondering about the drill and bit too... surely they would have the hardest possible material bit for this type of work? If there's a 'cheesy drill' explanation, I will be very disappointed.

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#1

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 10:48 AM

Could just be glass...

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#4
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 1:41 PM
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#5
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 2:01 PM

Tektite is only a 5 on the Mohs scale of hardness - you'd need a really wimpy drill bit not to collect from that! Vickers scale makes it even clearer - Mohs 5 is less than a thousand Vickers, compared to 10,000 Vickers for diamond.

We can only assume that a bit intended for mineral collection will be diamond or better. So this material seems to be at least diamond hard.

There is at least one form of carbon that is harder than diamond, iirc.

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#8
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 2:19 PM

You ever try to drill through glass?

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#9
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 2:36 PM

There are drills that look like this one that do it all the time.

Cle-line 3" High Speed Steel, Carbide-Tipped Glass and Tile Drill Bit Model: C20723 $9.75 Grainger Industries

I have to say that I am disappointed that you didn't google first.

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#12
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 5:05 PM

Yes but that doesn't look like the bit they are using....and I'm guessing the're not using any lubricating fluid...I have enough experience drilling glass and tile to know that if you don't cool the bit, your going to have a dull bit rather quickly....

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#13
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 5:48 PM

I'm impressed by your knowledge of glass drilling, but not your ability to read previous threads. In #2 there is a photograph of the actual drill used, as we speak, on Mars.

http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-mars-curiosity-rover-drill-bit-2013-2.

This Drill Bit May Be The Key To Finding Life On Mars

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#14
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 5:53 PM

OK yeah I'm working on my car....

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#19
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 9:00 AM

Yes!....and I have lots of cracked windows to prove it is possible.

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#55
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 4:55 PM

I've drilled through glass.

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#72
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/22/2018 7:25 PM

With no lubrication....?

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#11
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 3:04 PM

Here it is... two materials actually were identified to be harder than diamond due to a structural change that happens under compression. Lonsdaleite is a form of carbon 58% stronger than diamond! Wurzite boron nitride is unrelated but has the same reaction to compression - - makes me wonder whether the drill actually made the stuff harder, it could happen. It could still be an unrelated material that happens to have the same property.

https://phys.org/news/2009-02-scientists-material-harder-diamond.html

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#69
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/21/2018 8:53 AM

I don't understand why anyone is puzzled about this.

It's obviously a piece of a spaceship destroyed during an interplanetary battle.

Haven't you people seen any if those SciFi movies where the drill can't penetrate the 'outer space' material? It's not just a scifi meme, it's scifi dogma.

'Five Million Years to Earth'

'The Day The Earth Stood Still'

'2001: A Space Odyssey'

'Phantom From Space'

I'm sure there are dozens of other movies that could go on this list.

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#70
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/21/2018 9:21 AM

Well splarf my coffee, man. You are spot on!

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#6
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 2:04 PM

Flintstone.

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#7
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 2:19 PM

Fred or Wilma?

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#10
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 2:48 PM

More likely to be Fred’s grandfather...

What a cool name, Rocky Flintstone.

I can’t come up with an image of him, perhaps a better search guy can find one.

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#22
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 9:55 AM

Fred and Wilma had kids so it’s not unreasonable to conclude some drilling occurred ..

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#2

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 11:38 AM

Cheesy? NASA? Nothing NASA does is cheesy.

I've yet to find the materials of construction details

Curiosity’s drill is a percussion instrument that hammers its rotating bit, boring holes 1.6 centimeters wide and up to 6.5 centimeters deep.

Yep, it looks like a hammer drill bit. The original bit is still being used. Not cheesy!

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#3
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 1:03 PM

Nice!!

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#15
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 7:38 PM

Yeah, the bit is even more complicated than that - amazing design that not only powders the rock but also channels the stuff where it has to go.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/20120821-limonadi-sampling-mars-3-drilling-challenges.html

There are more things than a too-hard rock that can interfere with the drill - anything wet like a clay for example would clog the sampling channel - not that that's expected on Mars. And it has a 'nose picker' function in case it does get clogged... A very special sampling tool.

Those guys must have a lot of fun, trying to think of everything that could possibly go wrong and a way to work around it, before sending their creation into the great beyond...

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#30
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 11:07 AM

I was fortunate to be an apprentice machinist at NASA Langley while Viking was in the construction process. In my shop I got to participate in building the stereo cameras and the memory core for both landers.

We did have a lot of fun on those jobs. It was a work in progress from beginning to end with lots and lots of collaboration at all levels of the team. Those of us at the shop level even had input for changes and improvements, not to mention inventing new manufacturing tools and processes as we went as well.

It was a fun time and one of the most satisfying aspects of my career. Somewhere I even have a certificate of appreciation for what we did and we all have our names on microdots on the landers. That's the kind of incentives that were common back then.

I sincerely hope those traditions continue today.

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#46
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 3:56 PM

That's very cool... You know I think that kind of teamwork must still be the rule. I'm a big fan of NASA, and whenever I see their video about one thing or another, the enthusiasm and joy of discovery in their speakers is noticeable. People really seem to love being involved!

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#48
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 4:13 PM

They do love being involved, at least until politics intrudes. And that usually depends on the particular director and the president that appoints him. During Viking, Sagan was invited to participate and he had a tendency to incite politics to get his way.

Most of the rest of the time I was there I worked on stuff that was apolitical. Until Congress mandated that my helicopter projects needed to be moved to Ames Research Center. I declined to move to California with them and resigned.

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#16

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/19/2018 8:21 PM

OK I drilled down on the drill bit, and this is what I found....

http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/etd/ucb/text/Horne_berkeley_0028E_15507.pdf

I think it is possible the drill bit is wearing out...?

Understanding the Hardness of Metals

https://www.designnews.com/materials-assembly/understanding-hardness-metals/206227380631281

https://www.wallcolmonoy.com/

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#21
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 9:29 AM

I work with industrial diamond matrix segments , CBN and PCD (polycrystaline diamond) , all these three will cut rock and hard metals.

the first photo of the drill bit in above posts is not bonded metal / diamond matrix , it “looks like” the style of a tungsten carbide tipped drill only it has a more silvery sheen to it suggesting an exotic proprietary alloy developed by a NASA contractor however I can’t find any reference identifying what it actually is made of unless I missed it somewhere in the fine print.

polycrystaline diamond looks similar except it is a jet black colour and it is never given the type of chisel point as shown in the top photos , in fact while PCD will cut almost any highly abrasive or hard material , it is NOT good with impact resistance.

CBN is the same , it’s lousy with impact but will cut hardened metals with ease.

Post by solar eagle above mentions bonded diamond matrix core drills which again will cut any rock ,glass , quartz and even some metals however that type of diamond segment easily gets clogged by soft alloys such as aluminium , copper , bronze etc and they will just ride over the material being drilled.

the photo of the material they tried to drill matches the shape of the drill bit in the photos so I am guessing it’s what they were using .

It’s still a mystery to me why the drill couldn’t function.

i am guessing if they could have carried a portable spectrometer then they would have , there must be a reason one wasn’t carried.

for anyone not familiar with portable spectrometers , these days they are small and lightweight and can give you a shot and composition printout of any element known to us on earth within 5-10 seconds .

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#28
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 10:55 AM

That table describes core drills. Core drills are hollow, like trepan drills, and their IDs are provided in the table.

The drill tip shown in Lyn's photo isn't hollow, and none of the pictures I saw of rocks drilled for sampling on Mars show the marks that would be made by a hollow drill.

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#33
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 11:48 AM

There are at least 3 different types of interchangeable bits on the rover....

..."A suite of interchangeable bits: coring bits, regolith bit and an abrader."...

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/rover/arm/

This I believe is the one in question....the regolith bit...

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8345/mars-curiositys-labs-are-back-in-action/

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Mars-drill-for-the-Mars-sample-return-mission-with-Zacny-Paulsen/acc35c0368f0589ee671528db4e5eab68503837b

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#59
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 6:54 PM

Look closely at the photo of bit 4 , it actually is a “tungsten type” tipped core drill , it is not a diamond matrix as your chart refers to in your other post so I think the other chart with references to NBR manufacturing is either superseded or wrong.

the post I am replying to is definitely not diamond .

the reason they may not have used industrial diamond matrix on this mission is it would require a two speed drill

diamond tools cut with a surface speed between 20-30 meters per second and low torque.

tungsten carbide tools work best around 2.5 meters per second at high torque.

the photo of the dust producer bit which “looks like” a traditional tungsten masonry drill is I suspect either an exotic as yet unnamed alloy or a derivative of tungsten with modified alloy content and possibly different heat treatment or pressure forming to arrive at a harder material to obtain longer life.

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#17

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 2:48 AM

Maybe the bronze holding the abrasive material in place has failed and thus the drill is no longer capable. Simple test is to try another rock that was previously drilled and compare outcomes. Torque, particle size and composition.

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#24
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 10:08 AM

Just to repeat, the project people said the bit was NOT damaged or worm. They do have spares, if needed.

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#27
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 10:48 AM

If the bit isn't damaged or worm(sic) then how was the determination made that the material being drilled is harder than the bit? If the material is harder the bit should have worn out....If it's not, then the material is slippery....maybe it's soapstone haha

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#18

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 8:05 AM

No doubt they expected a limited life cycle for the bit, so only able to get a certain number of samples before that capability is used up.

I never thought of bonding material as a source of wear, but you could well be right!

I have a few diamond bit type tools but haven't used them enough to know how they wear.

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#35
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 2:11 PM

I have worn out diamond saw blades cutting concrete, that's without water, dry cutting...

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#58
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 6:35 PM

Diamond saw segments are made to lose diamond chips at a designed rate to suit the type of material being cut.

if cutting hard materials like basalt , granite or marble the bonding material will be soft and as the diamond chips wear down or glaze they rip out of the bonding material to expose the next sharp diamond underneath.

if cutting soft materials like sandstone or shale , the bond will be harder because the diamond chips will last longer , they do still wear eventually and are designed to again rip out of the bond to expose the next cutter underneath.

they are meant to be used not just wet but with a flow of water to remove spoil. If you leave spoil in the cut it will act as a wear media , causing wear on the blade and wearing the cutting segments too quickly.

Diamond doesn’t like heat , water also cools the segments to reduce wear rates which should indicate to you why yours “wore out”

wet cutting might give you ~500% longer segment life and stops the dust annoying your neighbours , damaging the paint on your car and filling your nose with cement dust.

:)

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#65
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 8:32 PM

Unfortunately, water cooling is extreeeemely expensive on Mars.

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#20

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 9:03 AM

A little story. About 15 years ago I had a supervisor ask me to drill holes into a plate of Hardox AR steel using a 1/2" corded drill, needed (2) 3/8" holes. told him he was out of his mind that we didn't have any drill bits that we could use for this. But and I quote him "According to me you can do it with a carbide tipped drill bit" my response was that we only have masonry bits that are carbide tipped or a HSS jobber bit. His response to that is that the masonry bit is what he was talking about. So I set him up on a drill press with a 1/4" drill bit and piece of 1/4" mild steel and said show me that it can be done. I went and finished the job using a torch to cut the holes. 2-1/2" hours later a come back to the shop and the smell of something burning was all around. I see him hanging off the arm of the drill press and the bit glowing orange. As I walked up he sprays the bit with some "Tap Magic" which evaporated before it hit the steel. and he says "See I told you it can be done." after 2 hour of drilling he made it into the steel less than a 1/16".

The bit looks like a masonry bit and the hammer action is representative of this as well.

Might be some kind of metal?

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#23
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 10:04 AM

Hardox can easily be drilled with cobalt , titanium coated or stellite drill bits.

the mistake most people make drilling hardox is going too fast . Much lower RPM is required .

those tungsten masonry bits can do it too if you resharpen the end to a conventional 118 degrees but I suggest only trying that with a diamond wheel.

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#32
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 11:37 AM

yes, I have reshaped the end of masonry bits and drilled tool steel.

Don't drop them when sharp - they chip.

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#25

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 10:31 AM

As an former geologist:

1. Obsidian: natural volcanic glass; used by multiple Pre-Columbian North and South American cultures, that when flaked, to make natural razor sharp knives and ax blade inserts.

2. Quartz: naturally formed by multiple processes crystalline silicone dioxide, used to make glass

As for hardness/ impenetrability no matter how hard your bit is it won't cut a very hard smooth surface without a special profile. (Try taking a cobalt surfaced standard drill bit and drilling a pane of ordinary window glass). I would assume that on the Rover they are using a coring bit, but even those come with multiple cutting edge profiles and surfaces. (Remember the profile and surface are chosen for a very long term duty cycle so durability vs hardness/ profile is heavily weighted to durability).

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#26
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 10:44 AM

You said, "I would assume that on the Rover they are using a coring bit."

Look at the photographs here: #2 and here#13 and read the http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-mars-curiosity-rover-drill-bit-2013-2.

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#31
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 11:09 AM

Sideview, maybe a center core, but if or if not the profile could wrong for the material drilled. To be sure I wouldn't want to in my shop try to cut any glass with that profile.

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#29

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/20/2018 10:58 AM

it need not necessarily be harder than the drill bit; it could be slippery, sticky and what not. Not all AI could be nearer to human. There is something fishy out there,

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#34

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Button Maker Bot

07/20/2018 1:59 PM

Button Maker

I had a possibly similar experience while drilling plywood with a steel Forstner bit. Please look at the picture captioned:
"You can see the slight indentation where Curiosity attempted to drill."

You will notice a circular shape which might be a "button" of surface material potentially separated from the substrate. Thermal cycling for millennia of the surface material may have produced a kind of tough skin on the surface which could break free of the underlying material. You see that the potentially laminar surface might form a shield between the cutting material of the bit and the underlying material.

Every time you lift the bit the button remains in the hole. Upon repeated attempts to drill the exact same spot, the button in its hole makes a bearing which spins with the bit and therefore does not get further cut by the bit.

You need a means of removing the button to resume progress. One possible means is to form the button then drill a hole with some amount of overlap with the previous one. The spinning of one button may kick out the first button or the "Dutchman" formed by the circumference overlap of the pair of holes. Further activity can then be planned based on pictures of the holes. Once the buttons are removed, you can proceed with sampling the underlying material or somehow retrieve the button fragments to analyze them.

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#36
In reply to #34

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Button Maker Bot

07/20/2018 2:15 PM

Not likely with a hammer drill....

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#40
In reply to #36

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Button Maker Bot...Regolith Hammer Bit

07/20/2018 3:17 PM

Likely ?

So, SE, how likely is the spoil pattern in the linked picture with a hammer drill and a regolith bit ? It appears that the spoil did not travel much as one might expect using the hammer feature. I see a pile of spoil in the center and a suspiciously round circle of spoil at a plausible coring bit diameter. I would expect more bounce distribution of spoil had a drill been hammering. Looks to me like they tried the regolith bit and the coring bit but were not, on this hole, hammering.

Perhaps you know. Do they ever hammer while coring ? Does software deselect hammering if one loads the coring bit ? Did they enable hammering, try the coring bit which deselected the hammer then try the regolith bit without remembering to turn the hammer back on ? How do you explain the relatively undisturbed (from simple slow rotation distribution in my estimation) of the spoil ? Are there equipment protection means disabling hammering if certain conditions are not met ?

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#41
In reply to #40

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Button Maker Bot...Regolith Hammer Bit

07/20/2018 3:27 PM

I don't know the answers to your 20 questions but, that does not look like a hole drilled by a core drill.

Again, just my observation.

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#37
In reply to #34

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Indentation Picture Link

07/20/2018 2:32 PM

Link to Picture

"You can see the slight indentation where Curiosity attempted to drill."

Oops ! Forgot to link the picture to the caption before posting.

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#39
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Indentation Picture Link

07/20/2018 3:11 PM

It almost looks like the drill stopped short....maybe a malfunction...

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#44
In reply to #37

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Indentation Picture Link

07/20/2018 3:52 PM

Always nice to look at the rock itself!

It actually does look a lot like a jasper or chert with a few white quartz inclusions. If you look in the lower right hand corner of the pic there are some fractured fragments which are suggestive of that type of microcrystalline quartz. Maybe Doorman is right?

If so I do wonder why the drill couldn't sample it though. It looks like the 'dust' blew away out of the dimple. Maybe they broke into 'flakes' instead of fine powder? Is chert or flint really impossible to drill. Or perhaps just difficult to powder drill?? What sort of rocks were they expecting to sample when they designed the drill, I wonder.

signed, Curiosity.

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#49
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Indentation Picture Link

07/20/2018 4:18 PM

...."Mars scientists are wrestling with a problem. Ample evidence says ancient Mars was sometimes wet, with water flowing and pooling on the planet’s surface. Yet, the ancient sun was about one-third less warm and climate modelers struggle to produce scenarios that get the surface of Mars warm enough for keeping water unfrozen.

A leading theory is to have a thicker carbon-dioxide atmosphere forming a greenhouse-gas blanket, helping to warm the surface of ancient Mars. However, according to a new analysis of data from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, Mars had far too little carbon dioxide about 3.5 billion years ago to provide enough greenhouse-effect warming to thaw water ice.

The same Martian bedrock in which Curiosity found sediments from an ancient lake where microbes could have thrived is the source of the evidence adding to the quandary about how such a lake could have existed. Curiosity detected no carbonate minerals in the samples of the bedrock it analyzed. The new analysis concludes that the dearth of carbonates in that bedrock means Mars' atmosphere when the lake existed -- about 3.5 billion years ago -- could not have held much carbon dioxide.

"We've been particularly struck with the absence of carbonate minerals in sedimentary rock the rover has examined," said Thomas Bristow of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. "It would be really hard to get liquid water even if there were a hundred times more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than what the mineral evidence in the rock tells us." Bristow is the principal investigator for the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument on Curiosity and lead author of the study being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."...

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/nasas-curiosity-rover-sharpens-paradox-of-ancient-mars/

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#50
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Indentation Picture Link

07/20/2018 4:30 PM

Well this makes more sense. If the sampling drill is looking for carbonate materials in sedimentary rocks (vs prospecting for diamonds and gold) then it may well not be designed to handle a chert.

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#66
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Indentation Picture Link

07/20/2018 8:51 PM

Looking at the lower-right corner of the original image:

It certainly does look sedimentary, and the layers appear to be nearly horizontal. But if the rock is that hard, then it must be metamorphosed, presumably by heat and/or pressure. but that kind of heat and pressure don't occur at the surface, so considerable material must have been removed over the millennia to expose this rock.

Someone referred to the "crack" that can be seen passing through the drill site. I see no evidence of it in the drill-worn depression, so I don't think it's a crack; I think it is more like someone or something drug a stick through the sand before it was compacted into stone.

I can't tell if the white splotches are inclusions or deposits...

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#67
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Indentation Picture Link

07/20/2018 9:55 PM

What I'm seeing in that lower right corner, I believe is a conchoidal fracture pattern which is typical of chert. The rock looks very similar to 'radiolaran chert' which is actually made of the silicious skeletons of living things, layered in the deep ocean and subjected to temperature and pressure over time.

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-chert-1441025

Not all chert is organic in origin nor deep sea, though.

https://www.thoughtco.com/pictures-of-chert-4122739

Still puzzled that Curiosity's drill wouldn't work on chert... it's something they might have expected to find in a former ocean bed, for sure.

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#57
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Indentation Picture Link

07/20/2018 6:13 PM

Looks like Jasper....

..."Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or chalcedony and other mineral phases,[1][2] is an opaque,[3] impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. The common red color is due to iron(III) inclusions. The mineral aggregate breaks with a smooth surface and is used for ornamentation or as a gemstone."...

Hardness (Mohs hardness scale): 6.5 – 7

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#60
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Indentation Picture Link

07/20/2018 6:54 PM

We have a lot of different colored jaspers here on the beach and other quartz family - agate, carnelian, etc. The jaspers have varying hardness depending on the type of inclusions. A brown one similar to the mars rock shown is not what I think of as the hardest types, mostly because the corners tend to be soft and rounded (ocean tide is a slow tumbler). Chert is on the harder end of their scale - cherts on my beach are mostly green. That stuff is tough!!!!

I wonder what mineral inclusion makes these rocks brown? I thought iron was responsible for much of the red color on Mars terrain.

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#63
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Indentation Picture Link

07/20/2018 7:43 PM

It's hard to tell exact color because of the light, but I was going by the white rock mixed with the reddish brown....reminds me of Jasper....

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#68
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Indentation Picture Link

07/20/2018 10:06 PM

Brown (or reddish brown) color is said to be produced by iron oxides or "clay minerals" .

Veins of white chalcedony or quartz are really typical of chert, jasper and similar around here.

Example from Cave Creek Arizona, could pass for Mars rock. At a distance, anyway... a greeeeaaat distance.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/32132824820

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#38
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?...Button Maker Bot

07/20/2018 2:37 PM

I see no button. I do see drill dust encircling the dimple.

That's my interpretation.

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#42
In reply to #38

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?..Faint Orientation Marks

07/20/2018 3:37 PM

Faint Orientation Marks

Looking at SE's zoom in on the picture, I see faint light lines which continue onto the top of the "button" which do not seem to have angular displacement. If there were a button turning in the hole these would probably not remain aligned so I am abandoning the button theory. I still want a good explanation of the spoil. I am undecided whether downhill is off to the top right and how much of that top right trail is spoil and how much was pre-existing dust.

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#43
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Re: Hard Rock... Painted?

07/20/2018 3:49 PM

Reference your image in #37:

Why is there no discussion regarding the remnants of white paint on the rock? Who would paint this rock in the first place, and why? Is the white paint an indication the rock is hard, so don’t bother trying to drill this one?

There is much to learn about these strange habits of the previous inhabitants of Mars.

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#47
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Re: Hard Rock... Painted?

07/20/2018 4:01 PM

After careful analysis using the LynDoor™ Dynamic Photometric Analyzer® I have concluded that that, and the accompanying gouges in the rock are ancient Martian petroglyphic symbols. I believe it is a graphic message meaning, "send women."

Again, I could be slightly off in the translation. I'm waiting for more samples to build a linguistic database.

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#51
In reply to #47

Re: Hard Rock... Painted?

07/20/2018 4:32 PM

Ah, good.

I did look at the image in #37 with a sort of ‘faces in the clouds’ mindset, and I noticed what seemed to be a pattern but couldn’t quite catch it. Then I held my device (phone) up to a UV source (so the radiation hits the back of the phone and shines through) and POW! Lots of little symbols show up!

Next, I’m placing the device (with the image displayed on the screen) inside the microwave oven, set it to about 30 seconds and energize, to see what can be seen on radar. I can only think of one possible problem with this technique, but I probably worry too much, it will be fine.

More later.

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#54
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Re: Hard Rock... Painted?

07/20/2018 4:47 PM

Genuine Martian....

haha, just kidding....

the real deal....

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#56
In reply to #51

Re: Hard Rock... Painted?

07/20/2018 5:16 PM

Just be glad you don't have to hold the thing to your ear anymore to get the results!

The lack of carbonates on Mars is frankly worrisome. Let us know of you detect any flint-based lifeforms.

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#52
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Re: Hard Rock... Painted?

07/20/2018 4:37 PM

Just a heads up, my tourist brochure says that is the petroglyph for "ladies room". You may still want to send women (I mean, who else is going to explore the ladies' room, right? )

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#53
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Re: Hard Rock... Painted?

07/20/2018 4:46 PM

Interesting theory. I'll add that possibility to my database.

Meanwhile, my associate,Doorman is continuing his radiographic analysis of the evidence and may just create a firestorm with his findings, or his cell phone.

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#61
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Re: Hard Rock... Painted?

07/20/2018 6:56 PM

Okay, back again <coff - sniff - coff>

Well an update on the <wheeze - coff-coff> device in the... just a minute... yeah, okay, the fire is out... the whole cell phone in the microwave oven idea.

I’m gonna go with ‘Optimal results were not realized’, and just leave it there. While it was a pretty good show, no image enhancement (of the Stone Undrillable) was observable.

So once again, LynDoor Industries, with the LDP, comes through with highly questionable and almost certainly contaminated evidence that provides the only incontestable proof of two (or maybe more) sexes of Martian citizens (which we all know will now be eligible to vote in America in 2020) on Mars, which is a different planet than where we live and is really really far away.

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#62
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Re: Hard Rock... Painted?

07/20/2018 7:25 PM

Bummer! Just expense the phone out as failed experiment.

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#64
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Re: Hard Rock... Painted?

07/20/2018 7:53 PM

Already ordered. In addition will need to pencil-whip a microwave/exhaust hood, a 32” electric range, some kitchen casework (hope that stays under a thousand bucks), ummm... about 50 SF of maple floor covering, a 10 pound fire extinguisher... there is talk of repainting and recarpeting the room... oh, and the wet pipe fire suppression needs to be reset... and the disaster recovery guy will be here tomorrow to have a look.

That’s about it for now, I guess. All in the investigative name of science, eh!

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#45
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Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?..Faint Orientation Marks

07/20/2018 3:53 PM

Before/After

If someone out there can find a "before" drilling started picture of the same spot on the rock it might be useful. I am curious about the dark crack running across the circle with no apparent trail on the circle. Did the drilling crack the big rock ? Did they choose a spot with a crack through the target ? Did the drill start to vibrate excessively after the rock cracked from drilling and cause a shutdown ?

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#71

Re: Hard Rock...Any Guesses?

07/22/2018 4:20 PM

How does this compare with Lewisian Gneiss. One of the oldest and hardest rocks on earth?

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