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NIMA Locates The Mars Polar Lander
Skyshadow writes "Space.com is reporting that the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) believes they've located the Mars Polar Lander, intact on it's landing legs. They've apparently had their people looking for the lander in photos taken by the Mars Global Surveyor, which has been tasked to take more photos of the landing area later this year."
Keep in mind the diffraction limit of a telescope (the angular size of the smallest items it can distinguish) is given by a very simple equation (theta = 1.22*lambda/diameter where theta is the resolution in radians, diameter is the diameter of the telescope's primary and is in the same units as lambda, the wavelength of light used). Long story short, if they did spot if from orbit, it had to be Mars orbit. A telescope orbiting Earth would have to be about 46 kilometers in diameter to physically resolve a 1-2 meter sized object at a distance of about 150 million kilometers with optical light (although you could also pull it off with two small telescopes 46 kilometers apart, but that is another story). And frankly, I have a hard time imagining they did it from Mars orbit, although at least in that case, it is physically possibile (Mars observer does have very high resolution imaging capability).
I think this was people, not computers, going over images for a long time.
I find it difficult to imagine having the patience to do that, but no doubt such people are employed by the government.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I meant to say canyons and such, but my grasp of the English language seemed to escape me at that moment.
That's OK; it's an honest mistake. An ironic one, too. Giovanni Schiaparelli (I would have never remembered his name; yay Google!) saw the optical illusion of lines criss-crossing Mars and called them "canali": a word that means "channels", but was mistranslated "canals". In English, "channels" generally means any fluid passage, but "canals" implies a water passage of artificial origin. So all the 19th century wonder about intelligent life on Mars was first sparked by an English mistranslation of someone else's language.
And doubly ironic, there are channels on Mars. They might be from lava flows instead of water, and they're much smaller than the optical illusions some squinting pre-Space Age astronomers saw, but they are there.
I think this was people, not computers, going over images for a long time.
I find it difficult to imagine having the patience to do that, but no doubt such people are employed by the government.
Interns.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
at least we know Xenu didn't get it.
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NIMA isn't using telescopes. They are using their crack photographic analysis skills (case in point: hey, JFK, there are missiles in Cuba!) to analyze the photography of the Mars Orbiter Camera onboard Global Surveyor.
This isn't a dig at NASA; NASA simply turned to the agency with the best equipment and experience in the task at hand. The bigger dig at NASA here may be that the lander's failure was misdiagnosed after all.
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
It's one thing to have an image; it's another to interpret the results. Two scientific teams working from different points of view could come up with incompletely consistent conclusions from the same data.
We do know that Mars had water, and probably still has some; we just don't know how much, we don't know how recently, and we don't know how important it was in shaping the Martian surface. If it's not on the surface, or in the atmosphere, has it bled away to space, or is a large amount still encased in the ground? The results from the Global Surveyor cameras have only just begun to be analyzed in a rigorous fashion, and the scientific results you look for will be forthcoming over the next several years. Just don't expect pat answers.
Anyway, uh, canals? There ARE no canals on Mars, kiddo. Maybe you should get your astronomy books more recent than 100 years old.
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Goonie wrote:
Even if you had centimetre-resolution images of Mars, that's not necessarily going to tell you whether canals were formed by water. Why? Because it only shows what's there. It doesn't necessarily show you how it got to be that way.
Yep. Actually, the bigger problem is that on Earth, we can observe features over time to determine how they are changing. There are geologic processes on Mars, but they will move glacially by comparison. We can't observe the Valles Marineris canyon system over time and see processes like erosion and sublimation, because they aren't happening -- or if they are, it's on a scale of tenths of a percent as fast as on Earth. So even observation over time is largely denied us as a tool.
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
I hate "journalism" like this. Why even report something using words like "may have". It conveys nothing. "monkeys may have flown out of butt" yes folks that's a true statement. I see this all time on talk-tv especially on fox. Most of their analysts are very fond of saying "may-have" when they just want to smear someone without presenting evidence. Too bad americans are so easily fooled by these weasel words.
War is necrophilia.
Perhaps this could provide proof that the Martian probe deactivation beam truly works!! ;-)
NASA also reported a strange black monolith right next to the lander.
... I wonder if i'll be able to contract out nima and have them analyse digital photos of my apartment to find my car keys. That would be a truely wonderful use of space age technology.
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
If NASA is able to spot a polar lander from orbital photography, why do we still have all these disputes over the history of mars; i.e. whether or not Mars had water, whether canals were formed by water, etc. It just seems like they would be able to determine it with that kind of image clarity. Perhaps someone more informed on the subject could elaborate...
How the hell can they not be sure that they're seeing the polar lander, yet at the same time report that it is "sitting upright on its tripod legs"!?!
"Ok, yeah, see that lander thing there sitting upright on its tripod legs? We suspect that might be one of NASA's craft, maybe even the polar lander that was supposed to land in that spot, which had tripod legs on which it was supposed to sit. But then again, we're just not sure... our crack 'mars lander-type objects sitting on tripod legs' team is working on it right now!"
Flat5
I wish I could take credit for this but it was posted by an AC way back.... it may be closer to the truth than anyone could have guessed:
/\/\y 31337 h4x0r1n6 5K1LLZ!
"150 years from now when men find the crashed probe on mars, the LCD display will probably read: PH33R
- K1n6 Kr4x0r! 1999"
According to the /. headline, it HAS been found. Anybody else get the feeling that things around here get overstated from time to time?