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Spirit's First Mars Images
An anonymous reader writes "First panoramic and overhead polar views of Mars, a quarter billion miles away are available. Some spectacular examples and accompanying commentaries are at NASA's Astrobiology Magazine, and JPL."
Details on the panoramic camera are available from Cornell. Check out the popup test image links which show the test shots they shot in the lab and at Cape Canaveral. They're pretty spectacular.
here
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
These are the real pictures: First Pictures. It should be noted that these are black and white and not color or false color, as the submitter may lead some to believe, to that magazine's tweaking of the original.
A blog like any other.
You can get the full quality version of these images and more here.
Great stuff so far! The landscape seems a lot flatter than where Pathfinder landed.
Here.
Stupid troll, this has been covered very well by CNN and other major media outlets.
What?
The pictures that have been released were taken by Spirit's Nav Cam, and at only 1/4th of the Nav Cam's maximum resolution. Remember, we weren't even expecting images at all yet. We were only able to take these because we only had a relatively small amount of time to transmit data (at 24 megabits per second). Larger images and color images from the Pan Cam will be coming by evening when Spirit's high gain antenna is directly in line with Earth. Then we'll have the bandwidth for the higer resolution (3 times the maximum resoultion of the Nav Cam, 12 times higher resolution than what we've seen so far) color images that the Pan Cam is capable of taking. It will probably take a few days to get an accurate full color panorama of the landing site.
There's loads of images here.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
You are not seeing the curvature of the planet. You are seeing an effect of the wide angle lense that causes the picture to have a fish-eye like distortion.
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
It's almost certainly Sun CDE. CDE is (or at least was) used fairly extensively within NASA, and they have a great deal of Sun iron. For kicks, see this Google search which provides a bit of evidence as to the use of CDE within NASA. Note that the word "cosmic" has been excluded from the search, because NASA once had a project called "Cosmic Dust Experiment" or - you guessed it - CDE!
In any case, their environment is absolutely not Windows. Any number of choice quotes could be derived from this fact, not the least of which is, "When it's worth 400 million dollars, don't use Windows to keep track of it." If only the Fortune 500 were so savvy!
In case anybody wants to know what resolution the cameras will be taking the photos at you can get the whole technical specs for the pan cameras at
http://athena.cornell.edu/pdf/tb_pancam.pdf
It's quite interesting actually. Real News for Nerds!
People keep commenting on the black and white quality of these pictures. AFAIK, these are lower resolution black and white photos taken for initial analysis to keep the file sizes low. The nice color pictures we all want to see should be here later today (around 12:00 P.M. PST 3:00 P.M. EST). Overall, i'm impressed that we have once again gotten something on Mars without unit conversion issues or just plain bad luck. Now it could only be topped if our President (or the next one) would announce a manned mission to mars challenge, similar to the one issued by Kennedy to go to the moon in the 60s.
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
According to another article on the same site HERE , the data transfer rate is exceeding their expectations 150% by sending "24 megabits per second" which certainly isn't broadband, but it ain't that bad either.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
Later on, they'll calibrate the camera using the color wheel on the sundial (yep another old technology that works ) and you'll get full color images that are very crisp. The color images will be composite images that are built from 3 separate shots of the same scene looking through different colored lenses.
Had they chosen instead to send a ccd that was wired like a digital camera, the images would have had 1/3rd the resolution they'll get this way.
"More specifically, the effects of a lens that is under 50mm that is not being shot parallel to the ground."
50mm is true only if it's a typical 35mm camera - which it's not. If that was the case, then yes, 50mm would be the "normal" perspective. With other sizes of cameras and optics, the "neutral" focal length will be different - not 50mm
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit. html
Link
I really hate to do this to my poor little server, but if you still have your spy kids 3d glasses, and / or want to see the beginning of the latest "life on mars" craze, check out this page I just put up:
http://www.changestorm.com/mars/
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Windows (with a capital W) generally refers to Microsoft Windows... I have no idea whether they have a trademark on the term or whether it's too generic.
X Windows is what everbody seems to incorrectly call the X Windowing System. If you want to abbreviate, call it X, or call it by the name of the server actually being used, e.g. XFree.
In the late 80s, when we said "it's using windows" with a small 'W', we'd mean it's using any WIMP (windows, icons, mouse & pointer) system, such as Mac OS, X, early MS Windows, whatever.
There is a medium resolution version (1116x328 pixels) viewable here which is not too bad
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The information in the article is incorrect. 24 Mbit (or 3 MBytes) of data were received in total over a couple of minutes at a speed of 128 kbps (This was for the first pass of the Odyssey orbiter). 128 kbps relates to the transmission speed from the orbiters to the Deep Space Network on Earth. That's not broadband, but it's not bad either, given the distance! The direct link from the rover to Earth will be much slower with around 12 kbps (but longer time periods of communication can be achieved each day compared to passes of the orbiters). However, this will only happen once the high-gain antenna is operable (which will probably be later today) and the Earth is visible from the rover.
All of the individual raw photos (which are clearer and in black & white) are available at:
. html
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit
Enjoy.
Actually, a number of Mars experts have already commented on this. The main explanation is that, though Mars does have all those dust storms, the atmosphere is quite thin compared to ours. It doesn't have the power to pick much up, and the storms are made up of rather fine powder. The effect is more like a slow polishing rather than the sand blasting that you get in Earthly deserts. It really would take billions of years to wear those rocks down to sand by such feeble storms. Come back when Mars is twice as old as it is now, and the rocks will be smaller and smoother. Except, of course, for the ones more recently scattered by impacts that haven't yet happened.
I wonder if there's a NASA page with the numbers on this?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.