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Mars Sundials - True Colors, Ambiguous Hours
An anonymous reader writes "NASA's Astrobiology Magazine today has an interview with Bill Nye, the Science Guy, who spearheaded the first interplanetary sundial, which will land on Mars in early January. The Cornell sundial inscription reads "Two Worlds, One Sun" in 17 languages [including ancient Sumerian and Mayan], and was selected over such historical mottos as one French sundial that reads: "Every hour injures; the last one kills". The sundials were an inspired transformation of a needed [mainly orange-pink] color wheel to calibrate the Mars' panoramic cameras to give true Martian colors, but so resembled the shadow-casting time pieces, that Nye took it over to become an internet-updated interplanetary dial." Read on for some more.
Our reader continues: "There are no conventional hour lines at all on these dials, because unlike regular sundials, they are on moving platforms. Nye says: 'Before people figured this out back in the first era of Mars probes (also the first Disco Era) the images from the Viking spacecraft were too pink or orange. Those "over-pink" images still show up in Mars science fiction movies and Mars-themed posters and restaurant walls. One of the charming challenges is roughly, "What is an hour on Mars?" Is it a "Mour?" Is it a "quadraduodeci-sol," a twenty fourth of a sol, a Mars day? ' The interview recounts the Apollo 12 controversy over whether one of the first lunar probes, Surveyor, returned viable contaminants to Earth."
What time is it on Mars?
No more Micro$oft bashing from me. Its like bashing at the special olympics.
Then they changed his time slot so it was during school hours. I guess they thought unemployed people would enjoy the show more than gradeschoolers. For a latchkey kid like me, it was shows put on by people like Bill that got me interested in science, along with my science inclined uncle.
As for the sundial, I'm not exactly wetting myself, but it's not as stupid as other posters are making it out to be. If you're gonna do something trivial like color correction, you might as well spice it up and do it nerd style.
The actual saying is "Omnis vulnerat et ultima necat" and is, obviously, latin. "Chacune blesse, la derniere tue", or "Chaque heure blesse, la derniere tue" are but adaptations.
Not really sure why they didn't go with the latin, at least *somewhere* on the sundial - I think the saying has been put on sundials since the Antiquity...
Karma: Could be worse (could be raining)
I'm more excited about the use of these dials for photocalibration. Mars may or may not have a blue sky, but at least we can know for sure with these things on their way.
Just throw humans on there. I mean, all these rovers and probes, they could turn to research to enable humans to travel to mars, i.e. supplies storage/possible cold(cryo) sleep/faster propulsion, etc; There are enabling technologies out there and with physics horizons being redefined every day, there's no reason to say "Look. We've got pictures, we've got soil tests, we've got maps, we have a whole lot of stuff, but let's get on with it and focus on putting humans on Mars." Apparently it has some sort of thin atmosphere, it just needs to be temerature regulated. Well, with some sort of habitat that can withstand the Martian weather and control internal climate, there's no limit to the utility of it. It could be the first base humanity establishes on another planet.
Here in a secret place forgotten, I
Mark the tremendous process of the sky.
So may your inmost soul, forgotten mark
The dawn, the noon, the coming of the dark.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
The images aren't meant to be realistic, they're meant to be representational. The images mean that humans have a torso, a smaller head, and 4 limbs in upper and lower pairs. Remember that these plaques may be seen by entities with no concept of shading, muscles, or any other style of art that we either innately comprehend due to our brain's "greedy" pattern recognition or have learned to accept as part of our years of seeing images. Every single element of the drawing must have a precise and unique meaning.
So some future entity will think that all the creatures depicted in those crude drawings must be a lifeform that exists solely by being chained together at the arms. There's not one example of a human existing on its own. Just look at it again. Every depiction of a human is done through joining of two or more people at the hands. They would think we're some kind of chained lifeform.
Granted, an alien being may not have any concept of shading, muscles, etc. but neither did the six year old who drew those pictures. If the goal is to have every single element stand on its own and be uniquely defined, surely they could come up with something non-stick figure. Even a simple silhouette would be orders of magnitude better. And your argument falls apart anyway. In the first image strip, the people on the left have torsos. The people on the right have no torsos. One person on the right has a triangular hip, whereas nobody else in that strip has a triangular hip. How are they to know a triangular lower part means a skirt and, hence, the stick figure must therefore be the child-bearing member of the species? And look at the bottom image. There's not even a remotely accurate sense of scale. The first person is a tiny neckless balloon on top of a large balloon, out of which huge disproportionate sticks protrude. On the right of that bottom image strip, there's another triangle hip person joined to a big fat person where the triangle represents the torso and hip and most of the legs too, leaving only stubby feet. And god only knows what the hell is dangling from the fat triangle's arms. Is that supposed to be a purse? A dog?
Precise and unique meaning, my ass!
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
"better by a watch!"
Sundials tend not to gain/lose up to 30 seconds a month like your average cheap quartz crystal watch does (unless, of course, the sundial is on a moving platform). Short of a cesium clock, if you want something that approaches that kind of accuracy, you want a decent marine chronometer, which is probably heavier (ie. more expensive to put into space) than a sundial. And even if you did, who's going to wind it?