Adirondack (Mars)
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 (Above) An approximate true-color view of "Adirondack" rock, taken by Spirit's pancam.
(Right) Digital camera image (from Spirit's Pancam) of "Adirondack" rock after a RAT grind (Spirit's rock-grinding tool) |
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| Feature type | Rock |
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| Coordinates | 14°36′S 175°30′E / 14.6°S 175.5°ECoordinates: 14°36′S 175°30′E / 14.6°S 175.5°E |
Adirondack is the nickname for Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's first target rock. Scientists chose Adirondack to be Spirit's first target rock after considering another, called Sashimi, that would have been a shorter, straight-ahead drive. Spirit traversed the sandy martian terrain at Gusev Crater to arrive in front of this football-sized rock on January 18, 2004, just three days after it successfully rolled off the lander.
Scientists named the angular rock after the Adirondack mountain range in New York.
The name "Adirondacks" is an Anglicized version of the Mohawk ratirontaks, meaning "they eat trees", a derogatory name which the Mohawk historically applied to the Algonquian-speaking tribes of the Adirondack Mountains; when food was scarce, the Algonquians would eat the buds and bark of trees.
The rock was selected as Spirit's first target because its dust-free, flat surface was ideally suited for grinding. Clean surfaces also are better for examining a rock's top coating. Spirit also returned microscopic images and Mössbauer spectrometer readings of Adirondack taken the day before the rover developed computer and communication problems on January 22, 2004. Both are unprecedented investigations of any rock on another planet. The microscopic images indicate Adirondack is a hard, crystalline rock. The peaks large and small in Adirondack's electromagnetic spectrum reveal that the minerals in the rock include olivine, pyroxene and magnetite - a common composition in volcanic basalt rocks on Earth.
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