Slashdot Mirror

if any are interested here is the MRO site ( with Phoenix landing photos taken by HIRISE ) http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/ hirise site ( with Phoenix landing photos taken by HIRISE ) http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php --------- home page for the Phoenix Mars lander http://jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/main.php

if any are interested here is the MRO site ( with Phoenix landing photos taken by HIRISE ) http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/ hirise site ( with Phoenix landing photos taken by HIRISE ) http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php --------- home page for the Phoenix Mars lander http://jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/main.php

Try a more recent ice survey from the same source. NASA Provides New Perspectives on the Earth's Changing Ice Sheets

Try a more recent ice survey from the same source. NASA Provides New Perspectives on the Earth's Changing Ice Sheets

Not all the world's ice shelves are melting

A thorough mapping of the moon is about to be done by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/ in preparation for NASA return to the moon to establish a permanent base via Constellation http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/multimedia/aresV_orbit.html.

A thorough mapping of the moon is about to be done by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/ in preparation for NASA return to the moon to establish a permanent base via Constellation http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/multimedia/aresV_orbit.html.

or is it something NASA arbitrarily adds to impress viewers with notions about "the red planet"

It's a fairly accurate representation of what Mars would look like to the human eye.

The thing is none of the cameras on board the rovers or Phoenix take pictures in a "conventional" manner. Instead the imaging devices have a series of filters designed to focus on a specific range of wavelengths (ultraviolet, infrared, etc.). Those black and white images you see are the results of a picture being taken through one of those filters. This is why some images of the same scene will appear darker than others.

NASA can then take these images and composite them together to give a representation of what the surface would look like to the human eye.

Phoenix and the American Flag on Mars
This image, released on America's Memorial Day, May 26, 2008, shows the American flag and a mini-DVD on the Phoenix's deck, which is about 3 feet above the Martian surface. The mini-DVD from the Planetary Society contains a message to future Martian explorers, science fiction stories and art inspired by the Red Planet, and the names of more than a quarter million Earthlings.

Phoenix and the American Flag on Mars
This image, released on America's Memorial Day, May 26, 2008, shows the American flag and a mini-DVD on the Phoenix's deck, which is about 3 feet above the Martian surface. The mini-DVD from the Planetary Society contains a message to future Martian explorers, science fiction stories and art inspired by the Red Planet, and the names of more than a quarter million Earthlings.

The experiment of exposing an unpressurized hand to near vacuum for a significant time while the pilot went about his business occurred in real life on Aug. 16, 1960. Joe Kittinger, during his ascent to 102,800 ft (19.5 miles) in an open gondola, lost pressurization of his right hand. He decided to continue the mission, and the hand became painful and useless as you would expect. However, once back to lower altitudes following his record-breaking parachute jump, the hand returned to normal.

Part of the descent was filmed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080527.html

Not quite what you want, but close.

Heck, I don't think this is a troll - it's an interesting question. So I looked, and found this:

Abandoned Spaceships on the Moon

Basically, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will get some 0.5 meter resolution pictures of the Apollo landing sites. It launches sometime after November 28th of this year (which really is 2008 - the government's telling the truth on that one). Enjoy!

I didn't see any link to the NASA site with the complete set of pictures: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/index.html

It appears that there is some kind of toilet on the Soyuz module, though I would guess that it probably doesn't have as much capacity or functionality.

I'm not so sure about a rover like the ones we've already sent. But a little bulldozer would sure be cool. My biggest WTF? moment learning the details of this mission was when I found out that the robotic arm could only dig down about 3 feet. 3 feet? What if it finds the beginning of something interesting just as it's reaching maximum depth? With a little robotic bulldozer, it could just keep digging deeper. With the arm, we're pretty much stuck designing a new craft and waiting for it to get there.

On a side note, I found this picture and caption interesting. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/images.php?fileID=9353

Does anyone know the criteria that was used to pick out the quarter million names that they put on the DVD? Seems like too many to choose them individually, at some point they almost certainly had to resort to a "pick random names from the phonebook" methodology. Would be interesting if the list was available online somewhere so we could all go and see if our name made it to Mars.

Here's a graphic of where it is on the Martian globe:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/multimedia/ra1-gloabal.html

It could be the metallic glint from the heat shield or the backshell. They are detached at, oh, I think it was a kilometre or so off the ground, and impact onto the surface quite some distance from the lander. That was the case for Spirit and Opportunity, the latter of which even drove up to the heat shield and took a closer look.

They will probably be able to tell if that is what it is when the MRO orbiter takes pictures from orbit. If it is the heat shield or backshell it will be in the direction from which the Mars entry occurred.

This will show you location and local (Mars) time for Spirit, Opportunity, and now Phoenix.

Yeah, they didn't stick a scale on it. The latitude/longitude grid helps, but only if you remember that Mars is smaller than Earth and do the calculation. Here's something more tangible, assuming you know how big Long Island, New York is. According to the text on that page the landing ellipse is 70km long.

Apparently they were able to image the thing from orbit while on its way down on the chute:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html

They mentioned giving it a try at a press conference, but gave it really small odds because the image size is much smaller than the potential landing range drift. Lucky hit.

"This is an approximate-color image taken shortly after landing by the spacecraft's Surface Stereo Imager, inferred from two color filters, a violet, 450-nanometer filter and an infrared, 750-nanometer filter."

And I can't just remember what the other stuff is called, but it ain't dirt.

Situated atop an extended mast, SSI will provide images at a height two meters above the ground, roughly the height of a tall person. SSI simulates the human eye with its two optical lens system that will give three-dimensional views of the arctic plains. The instrument will also simulate the resolution of human eyesight using a charged-coupled device that produces high density 1024 x 1024 pixel images. But SSI exceeds the capabilities of the human eye by using optical and infrared filters, allowing multispectral imaging at 12 wavelengths of geological interest and atmospheric interest.

My Nikon D50 captures some of the UV and IR as well. That's the other reason everyone uses a UV filter on their lenses (the first being, it's a cheap way to protect the camera lens that might well be worth more than the camera). With a special filter, I can take IR pictures with my Nikon. Even your eyes pick up a bit of the UV -- if you look at a blacklight bulb, it's hard to focus on -- the lenses in your eyes focus visible light and don't do as good a job on the UV.

Because with that particular camera, taking an RGB photo involves making three separate exposures with different filters, transmitting the result back to Earth, and combining them. Given that the lander has been on the ground for less than 24 hours so far, they're still at the quick-glance-around-to-see-where-we-are stage and don't want to waste bandwidth taking the same picture three times. Give them time. Given the PR value of RGB images I'd expect some to start showing up within a few days.

(In fact a two-colour image has shown up already, but it's not true RGB and probably isn't what you're looking for.)

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/images-all.php

That seems to have just about everything, plus some earth comparisons that should give you an idea of where on Mars it landed.

Maybe a dust devil?

I had no idea the Air Force was involved in this mission. It's clear they are because of the green blobs in the right lower corner of the map which are apparently a golf course adjusted for lower gravity and reduced atmosphere.

There is a repeated error on http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/images.php: The caption used for many images should read Team Members Celebrate and not Team Members' Celebrate

(Unless they really meant to write Team Members' Celebration?)

Let's just hope there are no misplaced apostrophes in any of the wee beastie's code. Especially in the firmware update upload controller. That would be delightfully ironic....

Here. The blue ellipse was the intended landing zone, the red the actual, and the green box was... umm... a Martian football field? I dunno.

here looks like the start of a BSG Episode. It's almost as if Moore has directed it - I expected number Six to turn up any minute, laughing, and invading our computer systems only to begin a sneak attack on the 13th colony.

Oh wait... this is reality ? In that case, I have another beer - make that five please.... And some peanuts.

SEPTEMBER 30, 1999 Likely Cause Of Orbiter Loss Found The peer review preliminary findings indicate that one team used English units (e.g., inches, feet and pounds) while the other used metric units for a key spacecraft operation.

They're 2-filtered. Violet 450-nanometer filter and an infrared, 750-nanometer filter. (As stated here.)

I watched the landing live via NASA TV on the web - http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html - and they did an AWESOME job. Why didn't you just tune in to that? I don't have cable TV or anything, but was able to watch the exact same thing my father was watching on his TV at home (he was watching the NASA TV channel via DirectTV satellite). Funny thing is that I called him to make sure he wasn't missing it, and it appeared that the webcast was about 40 seconds delayed compared to the satellite TV broadcast.

Did I call it "Lander?" Dang, that's embarrassing. It's actually called "Mars Science Laboratory." Was in a bit of a hurry earlier, sorry.

Like the Astronomy Picture of the Day from April 1, 2005?

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050401.html

Look! Water on Mars!

it's at http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx

which gets me to

mms://63.250.197.126/bcpenc252181?StreamID=63028387&pl_auth=260dc337232994e3effab4ac6815cac2&ht=30&pl_b=00448ED8EB43295F2A427EA386483A2A83&CG_ID=1369080&Segment=149773

(you can open that in VLC, quicktime player, or just in your browser)

But I wasn't able to find anything that could save it properly. VLC was able to save it but it wasn't in a format i could play.

Knowing some of the engineers that work on and manage these programs I am very happy with landing and everything it represents. More so I am looking forward to other robots, not the rover type but different task oriented machines like Robonaut and Chariot to make it off of Earth!

Knowing some of the engineers that work on and manage these programs I am very happy with landing and everything it represents. More so I am looking forward to other robots, not the rover type but different task oriented machines like Robonaut and Chariot to make it off of Earth!

Interesting the diffence in the types of images each school tries to capture
Arizona - Images of Mars
Arizona State - Images of Girls

Maybe try this? Its the link to the windows media stream. Not sure if its compatible with your ps3 though. http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx

Here's some light reading for you..
TCP Extensions for Space Communications
TCP/IP Router for Space Applications

I ran into problems getting the NASA TV streams to work under Firefox in Linux. Here are the direct links if you're in the same boat or don't want to go through javascript infested pages. I only tested the Windows Media one.

Windows Media

Real Media

Quicktime

I ran into problems getting the NASA TV streams to work under Firefox in Linux. Here are the direct links if you're in the same boat or don't want to go through javascript infested pages. I only tested the Windows Media one.

Windows Media

Real Media

Quicktime