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."

Comments

See Jane run, run Jane run.

[malakai]

At some future point, when human existence is long forgotten, some entity will find this plaque long since buried in the martian dust, and think to themselves "My god, what shitty artist they were".

Seriously, i'm not a big fan of UI design, what being a programmer and all, but come on, shell out five grand for something better than squiggly "see jane run" pictures of people. Or hell, at least use better stick figures. I'm sure the whole development team has access to MS products and can grab the annoying clip-art stick figures we see in every fookin slide at a conference. I swear if I see another image of a stick figure guy scratching his head on the slide entitiled "Any Questions?" I'm going to start shooting people...

Re:See Jane run, run Jane run.

[Have Blue]

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.

Although, the plaques carried by Voyager and Pioneer used more realistic artwork.

Re:See Jane run, run Jane run.

[nacturation]

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!

Re:See Jane run, run Jane run.

[pyrrhonist]

Look at it again. Man on bottom left is by himself.

That's the token Slashdot reader.

all that trouble....

[KiwiEngineer]

And they could have used a colour chart from a paint store with a digital watch taped to the side for the same effect.

Occam's (spelling?) razor, people. Go for the simplest solution.

That's a relief...

[Black Parrot]

> The Cornell sundial inscription reads "Two Worlds, One Sun" in 17 languages [including ancient Sumerian and Mayan]

So when that Sumerian spaceship finally reaches Mars, they'll feel at home and know what time it is.

Re:Such a waste of money

[agent dero]

This leads to a lot of other problems,

Mars! Brought to you by Microsoft

Hailey's Comet! Sponsored for the next 76 years by AOL Time Warner

All viable space science! Funded by SCO

Alright, maybe not that last one, but you get the point

Re:The obvious question is?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/mars24/

Bill Nye was like a hero to me...

[ejito]

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.

Why?

[quantaman]

"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".

I can't imagine why, I mean that second motto is just such an optemistic and inspirational message to send to another world! I mean just repeat it to yourself,"Every hour injures; the last one kills," don't you feel better already?!

Re:Why?

[critter_hunter]

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...

Check yer facts

[Wonko42]

The Cornell sundial inscription reads "Two Worlds, One Sun" in 17 languages

Actually, according to the article (there's even a picture where this is visible), the inscription "Two Worlds, One Sun" is in English only, and the word "Mars" is in 17 languages.

Interesting Rover data

[-tji]

Following a few links from the mission site, I found the answer to a question I had about the communications capabilities of the rovers.

They can communicate directly back to Earth at a slow speed ( 3,500 to 12,000 bits/sec ) or they can communicate via the Mars orbiting spacecraft (Odyssey or Mars Global Surveyor) at a rate of 128,000 bits/sec. The orbiters are only 250 miles from the planet surface.

Unfortunately, there was no information about protocols, encoding, or error correction schemes..

Some good info is here: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/mission/communication s.html

Mars' true colors

[moltar77]

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.

Bill Nye, The Science Guy

[pangu]

Can anyone even say Bill Nye, without feeling a compulsion to add "The Science Guy"?