They could spend months investigating just the stuff you could throw a stone at from here, but I guess they’ll pack up soon and head away?

There are a few places that come close (Desert areas), but no exact matches. Here are a few that come close

https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-places-where-you-can-visit-mars-on-earth

I used to own a small collection of pebbles that I’d gathered on my travels, each triggered fond memories of places visited. But all were left at my old place when I moved. For whatever reason I failed to start a new collection since moving. You’re right, I am drawn to the polished cobbles, some of them remind me of desert varnish. However if I could only pick one to place on my desk, then it would have be one of the small iron meteorites that have been spotted by the rovers. There are some nice SuperCam’s of this target, but my poor processing skills of those raw images don’t add any value

It’s almost like the DSN is teasing us :)

Can’t wait to see the close-ups :)

Wild for sure, and now they have driven away with that empty tube… Hard to understand what’s going on

It was but a short time later it is missing from the tube when imaged again with the same camera, and it was also seen to be missing from the tube when it was imaged inside the rover at the sample measuring station by CacheCam a short time later.

It’s a probably a delay rather than a problem, as the images we have so far shows they did not cap / seal the empty tube. Empty tubes that have not been capped can be reused many times providing they are not damaged, and this one was apparently not damaged, they just lost the fractured core.

I guess we’ll see them try again to obtain a core at this same location, or move on to a less fractured piece of bedrock that may not break up so easily.

Watch this space :)

Looking at the CacheCam, it appears to be another short core.

We’ll have to wait for the official length when the update the sample page, but it looks fairly deep in the sample tube.

3rd times a charm?

The disapproval could be associated with having being zapped with the rover’s laser (See the 5 small bright spots on its surface)

you want a pet rock?

You know me so well ;)

Very gracious. Many thanks :)

is it made of clay, and can you chew it?

Not clay, it’s an iron-nickel meteorite, that stuff is harder than nails, so chewing it would likely require some special teeth :)

Then I best stick with my first pick from 2016 :)

Probably way beyond my budget LOL

You did a fine job polishing it :) I guess I’ll have to find another one :)

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmgill/54365739221

instead of a royalty free cinema-psychology-emotion-symphony track.

Here an good voice over with some cool observations etc… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMd2A1Wljfc

I hope that we’ll get all that raw data soon

Regular readers will remember the “white rocks”

Peer reviewed paper - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X2500055X

It would seem bigger, but this is imaged with a wide angle lens. The lander has a lot more cameras, I’m sure we’ll get some better shots of Earth and a nice panorama of the lander’s surroundings in the coming days It’s mission will only last 60 days, so they have a lot to do in a short time.