My Awe towards a Spectrum, a Martian One

I had never been awed by anything, not even the most beautiful and weirdest creatures in the Monterey Aquarium. However, I was completely speechless the moment I first saw, about one and a half years ago, the above Mossbauer spectra taken by a NASA robotic geologist, opportunity, on Mars. Mossbauer spectroscopy is good at deciphering the finest details of iron-containing compounds (minerals). And the above graph compares the Mossbauer spectra of two spots scores of centimeters apart on a Martian rock, hundreds of millions of miles away from Earth! One spot, which holds much of the little rounded pebbles, is much richer in hematite, than the other. On Earth, hematite formation mainly involved water and thus the above spectrum is one of the most convincing evidence of past liquid water on Martian surface!

The Mossbauer spectrometer that made this discovery was built by a group of German scientists. This reminded me of a German post-doc in our lab, who failed to correct our spelling of the word Mossbaur. Anyway, good job!