Slashdot Mirror

Here is a link to a high-res mosaic, 3498x3851, TIFF format, 40.4MB:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/tiff/PIA04995.tif

And the same picture as a 1.1 MB JPG (still full resolution):

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA04995.jpg

Here is a link to a high-res mosaic, 3498x3851, TIFF format, 40.4MB:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/tiff/PIA04995.tif

And the same picture as a 1.1 MB JPG (still full resolution):

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA04995.jpg

The caption says that

This is the first color image of Mars taken by the panoramic camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. It is the highest resolution image ever taken on the surface of another planet.

Any pointers?

On the chance that this gets slashdotted (it's been slow for a while), I'll mirror the high-res panoramic image here: http://nccs.nasa.gov/~lsherida/PIA04995.jpg

Well, I'm no expert, but this sure looks like it was staged to me... ;)

this is somehow a reverse-engineered date/time format?...i mean, clearly, humans knew mars existed well before 1873, after all....

The Mars epoch of 1873 was chosen for its precedence to a cosmic Martian event in 1877. Read the Mars time technical notes. for more info.

I think it's safe to say all epochs are "reverse-engineered" by being placed in the past. You don't see any ancient documents dated "1066 B.C.", do you? :)

Notice how the inflated air bags even look red inside the lab on Earth. What's up with that?

Go have a look at:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpegMod/

Notice the dates on the files? Makes you wonder doesn't it? And why are they all modest? I want something bold and/or spicy!

Perhaps all those oxides in the soil get whipped up into the air by the intense winds on the surface, coloring the sky kinda butterscotch?

Check out this pic There's a line of rocks that starts at the middle left edge of the picture and goes up and to the right. In addition, there's a line of rocks that intersects the first in the upper/center. Finally, there's a "wind trail" in the sand that intersects both rock lines, forming a triangle.

In the center of the triangle are two triangular rocks.

Isn't that interesting?

Please mod this down as -1 Offtopic

BBC News is reporting that Spirit has sent back the first color images taken from the surface of Mars. You can get all the images from the NASA web site.

I think it's better to say Skylab wasn't resupplied, rather than it couldn't be.

Trash was definatly a problem, because there wasn't really a way to empty the trash containers. However, that doesn't mean that they couldn't have shifted to the Mir/ISS technique of using uncrewed cargo modules which are filled with trash before being released.

AU: Astronomical Unit, defined as the radius of the Earth's orbit, appprox 93M miles. Used for convenience and because when you get such large values that change all the time, people get sloppy. :)

Mars' orbit is ~1.6 AU from the sun. (See Bode's Law.) This means that Mars can be as little as 0.6 AU's or as much as 2.6 AU's depending on where the planets are in their orbits relative to one another. Communication times therefore would range from about 4-5 mins to 20+, one-way.

The spacecraft are relatively slow to travel, since they coast the whole way. The path they take is a long leisurely curve so that less rocket fuel is required. There's a good animation of the path at Nasa (MPG, MOV.) So the timing of the launches is chosen for when the locations of Mars and Earth give the easiest launch (least energy required) and communications is secondary.

Hope this helps.

AU: Astronomical Unit, defined as the radius of the Earth's orbit, appprox 93M miles. Used for convenience and because when you get such large values that change all the time, people get sloppy. :)

Mars' orbit is ~1.6 AU from the sun. (See Bode's Law.) This means that Mars can be as little as 0.6 AU's or as much as 2.6 AU's depending on where the planets are in their orbits relative to one another. Communication times therefore would range from about 4-5 mins to 20+, one-way.

The spacecraft are relatively slow to travel, since they coast the whole way. The path they take is a long leisurely curve so that less rocket fuel is required. There's a good animation of the path at Nasa (MPG, MOV.) So the timing of the launches is chosen for when the locations of Mars and Earth give the easiest launch (least energy required) and communications is secondary.

Hope this helps.

The light distance to Mars is currently only 9 minutes and 40 seconds. That's usually about the same lag I get these days due to all the spam and worm traffic hear on Earth.

Mars24 utility

"to optimise launches from KSC"...

And how, exactly, would USA reach ISS? With this? Maybe this instead?

"to optimise launches from KSC"...

And how, exactly, would USA reach ISS? With this? Maybe this instead?

Here's a couple more for you...
A picture taken while Spirit was descending..
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/e/001 /2E126462405EDN0000F0006N0M1.JPG
Note the pattern of craters...

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/mer2003/ mocs/region15.html
Is an overview of the Gusev Crater landing zone and
imagery from Mars Global Surveyer.

I found that this set has a crater pattern that matches the view from Spirit.
R07-01606
Look at the bottom frame.

Here's a couple more for you...
A picture taken while Spirit was descending..
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/e/001 /2E126462405EDN0000F0006N0M1.JPG
Note the pattern of craters...

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/mer2003/ mocs/region15.html
Is an overview of the Gusev Crater landing zone and
imagery from Mars Global Surveyer.

I found that this set has a crater pattern that matches the view from Spirit.
R07-01606
Look at the bottom frame.

Here's a couple more for you...
A picture taken while Spirit was descending..
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/e/001 /2E126462405EDN0000F0006N0M1.JPG
Note the pattern of craters...

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/landingsites/mer2003/ mocs/region15.html
Is an overview of the Gusev Crater landing zone and
imagery from Mars Global Surveyer.

I found that this set has a crater pattern that matches the view from Spirit.
R07-01606
Look at the bottom frame.

Engines failing is one thing, and sure this turbine can help with that.. But what if the hydralic lines themselves fail? or the control cylinders for the rudder or ailerons.

That said, I cant imagine anyway around this. The forces involved would be far too much to try anything mechanical, assuming they could even come up with some sort of wire rope and pulley system..

Well if the hydraulic lines and the engines fail you are pretty much out of luck. However if the engines are working by you lose hydraulic pressure; i.e. something breaks all the hydraulic lines, it is possible to control the aircraft using engine thrust alone.

The DHL cargo plane that was hit with a missile on takeoff at Baghdad airport a few weeks ago managed to land without any hydraulics using this method. And NASA did some experimentsto build this emergency ability directly into flight control computers.

Retrieving genuine comet dust: $200 million .

Space exploration can be expensive. Thats the nature of the game.

But the rewards from the information that little teaspoon of starstuff might contain, well, thats beyond measure. You can't put a price tag on how valuable that is.

Consider the size of the universe. Then consider all of your knowledge of the universe. Now consider how likely intelligent life exists. The fact of the matter is, we are a very small and insignificant on the grand scheme of things. How can you, with any confidence, "doubt there is another intelligent lifeform out there". I would think that an assertion like that would require more knowledge than any of us have currently.

When considering the size of the universe, consider these figures:
Size of the sun: 1,299,400 Earths

Size of Jupiter: 1316 Earths

(scroll to bottom, look at volume)

Speed of Light: 186,000 mi/per sec

Diameter of our Galaxy = 90,000 light years or 5,865,696,000,000 (almost 6 trillion) miles across

Number of stars in the Milky Way: 200 - 600 Billion

The universe is HUUGE - and this is just what we are able to see....



Number of stars in the visible universe = 2000 billion billion or 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Number of superclusters in the visible universe = 270 000

Number of galaxy groups in the visible universe = 500 million

Number of large galaxies in the visible universe = 10 billion

Number of dwarf galaxies in the visible universe = 100 billion

We are on a teeny-tiny planet next to an average star, in unremarkable galaxy - let's not take things out of context.

While I won't say it is likely that there is intelligent life, I would reserve judgement until there is more data - as should anyone concerned about truth.

Consider the size of the universe. Then consider all of your knowledge of the universe. Now consider how likely intelligent life exists. The fact of the matter is, we are a very small and insignificant on the grand scheme of things. How can you, with any confidence, "doubt there is another intelligent lifeform out there". I would think that an assertion like that would require more knowledge than any of us have currently.

When considering the size of the universe, consider these figures:
Size of the sun: 1,299,400 Earths

Size of Jupiter: 1316 Earths

(scroll to bottom, look at volume)

Speed of Light: 186,000 mi/per sec

Diameter of our Galaxy = 90,000 light years or 5,865,696,000,000 (almost 6 trillion) miles across

Number of stars in the Milky Way: 200 - 600 Billion

The universe is HUUGE - and this is just what we are able to see....



Number of stars in the visible universe = 2000 billion billion or 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Number of superclusters in the visible universe = 270 000

Number of galaxy groups in the visible universe = 500 million

Number of large galaxies in the visible universe = 10 billion

Number of dwarf galaxies in the visible universe = 100 billion

We are on a teeny-tiny planet next to an average star, in unremarkable galaxy - let's not take things out of context.

While I won't say it is likely that there is intelligent life, I would reserve judgement until there is more data - as should anyone concerned about truth.

How do you account for the fact that mars is also showing signs of global warming? Sure, it's possible that a bunch of martians are having their own industrial revolution at the same time as ours, but it seems more likely the sun has something to do with it. And sure enough, it turns out the sun is getting hotter. And sunspot activity is changing, and the strength of the sun's magnetic field is changing, and so on. And we don't have good models to account for much of it, and we don't have good data going back more than a few decades on much of it either.

My personal theory is that incrementing the year on our calendars causes global warming. The whole time that people think the planet has gotten hotter, the calendar has been increasing! Coincidence?

Spirit is an entirely different story. The images we've seen so far are just from positioning/navigation cameras which only image in b&w. But I believe the first color images from the high-res, color cameras are due to reach us any time now. We should have high-res color pics sometime today.

Spirit has far better batteries, lots more energy, and a much longer mission schedule. Where Sojourner was expected to run for just 7 days, Spirit and Opportunity are expected to run for 90 days. The mission schedules this time are more deliberate and meticulous.

Today Spirit is going to begin to put down it's wheels and "stand up." But that whole process with take two days. And it won't actually roll off the pad and onto Martian soil until the 9th or 10th day after the landing.

So just have patience. We should see the first color pictures today, and Spirit will start puttering around the surface by the middle of next week.

Failure to provide instant gratification isn't a sign of general failure, nor an indicator of conspiracy. ;)

* Here's the Mars Pathfinder mission web site

* And here's an overview of the current Spirit & Opportunity missions.

Perhaps this was the page?

Didn't Popular Science publish 3-D photos taken by the Viking mission to Marsin the 1970s?

Oh, by the way, here's the link I found that page at. Just leave the Karma on the dresser.

Didn't Popular Science publish 3-D photos taken by the Viking mission to Marsin the 1970s?

Oh, by the way, here's the link I found that page at. Just leave the Karma on the dresser.

I would be interested in hearing examples of historical undertakings, that were done on the basis of hope and progress


No problem.

It's an unanswerable question, carefully written to exclude any example that does not evoke it's own counter-argument.

The point is these kinds of projects do not measure their importance in quarterly earnings.

The economic benefit of the moon landings and the entirety of the international space programs of the 60s and 70s is immeasurable. The medical benefits alone are unmatched in all of history.

U.S. (Success: 67%)
-Successes: 10 (Mariner 4 [64], Mariner 6 [69], Mariner 7 [69], Mariner 9 [71], Viking 1 [75], Viking 2 [75], Mars Global Surveyor [96], Mars Pathfinder [96], Mars Odyssey [01], Spirit [03])
-Failures: 5 (Mariner 3 [64], Mariner 8 [71], Mars Observer [92], Mars Climate Orbiter [98], Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2 [99])

U.S.S.R. (Success: 27%)
-Successes: 4 (Mars 3 [71], Mars 5 [73], Mars 6 [73], Mars 7 [73])
-Failures: 11 (Unnamed [60], Unnamed [60], Unnamed [62], Mars 1 [62], Unnamed [62], Zond 2 [64], Kosmos 419 [71], Mars 2 [71], Mars 4 [73], Phobos 1 [88], Phobos 2 [88])

Russia (Success: 0%)
-Failures: 1 (Mars 96 [96])

Japan
-To Be Determined: 1 (Nozomi (Planet-B) [98])

E.U.
-To Be Determined: 1 (Mars Express/Beagle 2 [03])

Source: NASA

I'd love to get paid hourly for that one ;-) but seriously, what would the salary be for a job like that? What kind of effects would it have on you? IIRC, going to space and back seem to have strange effects on you, mostly due to gravity. http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/livinginspace/Foa le-Record.html [nasa.gov] -- notice it was 12.09.03, so it is recent. "230 days, 13 hours, 3 minutes and 37 seconds in space." I wonder if a couple years would be a differece.

Maybe some of the hardware on this table may explain what they're using at JPL these days.

Looks like three Apple laptops and one IBM Thinkpad.

Certainly a far cry from the predominantly Windows based laptops predominant only four years ago! That reminds me, wasn't there a Windows Only directive at JPL in 2000?

Apparently the immortal Maya Buttreeks made it on the DVD.

Elonka :)

All of the individual raw photos (which are clearer and in black & white) are available at:

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit. html

Enjoy.

I'm happy to report thatThe Floating Head of Ayn Rand made it too. Congratulations to everyone at NASA and A=A!

We have some internal web pages but nothing published externally but here is a paper on it. I actually haven't read it but its on the AOP which is the actual subsystem that detects the conflict and tries to plot a route around the conflict.

There is a medium resolution version (1116x328 pixels) viewable here which is not too bad

According to JPL's official calculation, Spirit (and presumably Mars) are currently 168,377,000 km away, or about 104,000,000 miles.

NASA's pre-made press panorama wasn't good enough for me (obvious stitching lines), so I downlaoded all of their raw photos and used my own stitching utility (Canon Photostitch).

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit. html

Link

Ask your six-year-old kid if the planets move, and even he will know the answer.

According to this Mars Fact Sheet, the maximum distance between Earth and Mars is nearly exactly 1/4 billion miles. And while we're probably not at the maximum, we're nowhere near the minimum anymore either.

In six months, we move from one side of the sun to the exact opposite side.

looks like you have a very short memory:

best bang for the buck

take that, US...

this is cool: Flight Linux

that NASA haven't set up their site DNS properly, if you go to http://nasa.gov it doesn't work, but http://www.nasa.gov does, strange.

that NASA haven't set up their site DNS properly, if you go to http://nasa.gov it doesn't work, but http://www.nasa.gov does, strange.

There's loads of images here.

There's loads of images here.

http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit001.h tml