My pareidolia knows no bounds.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Marsevidence01</i>
<br />I estimate between 8cm t0 15cm in OD

Malcolm Scott
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">That makes sense. Here's an article that calls it "fist size, or about the size of a jelly donut."

They also discuss how it might have been flipped there by the rover wheel during a turning manuever by a mechanism analogous to "tiddlywinking."

news.discovery.com/space/mystery-rock-ap...ars-rover-140117.htm

rd
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Btw, food for thought. If the wheel moving at 0.05 mph "tiddlywinked" the thing, then it would not have moved that far. So where is the thing in the preceeding image laying on its back?

Malcolm Scott

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Marsevidence01</i>
<br />If the wheel moving at 0.05 mph "tiddlywinked" the thing, then it would not have moved that far. So where is the thing in the preceeding image laying on its back?

Malcolm Scott
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I don't think we know, but this sounds reasonable for starters:

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Each wheel on the rover has its own actuator. Should an actuator jam or otherwise fail, the robots mobility can suffer. In the case of this wheel, it can no longer turn left or right. So if you do a turn in place on bedrock, continued Squyres, as you turn that wheel across the rock, its gonna kinda chatter. This jittery motion across the bedrock may have propelled the rock out of place, tiddlywinking the object from its location and flipping it a few feet away from the rover.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

rd

"tiddlywinking" may be a possible explanation for how it got there, but it seems like the coloration is unlike anything seen so far. Nobody seems to have addressed that aspect yet.

Shando, the obvious explanation is that we're seeing the under side of a Martian rock freshly turned over. Perhaps for the first time.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br />Shando, the obvious explanation is that we're seeing the under side of a Martian rock freshly turned over. Perhaps for the first time.
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That does seem plausible, but it rests on the tiddlewinking theory, which seems (to me) somewhat implausible.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by shando</i>
<br />the tiddlewinking theory, which seems (to me) somewhat implausible.
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More implausible than - Martians did it?[]

rd