Slashdot Mirror
First High-Res Color Photos from Mars
mzs writes "The first color thumbnail from Spirit was available yesterday from a larger image. Today some full-size color images are available. If you are in the USA you may be interested in catching the NOVA program on your local PBS station tonight." Acrobatman notes the existence of a nifty utility:"Mars24, a Mac OS X and Java application and applet which displays a Mars 'sunclock', a graphical representation of Mars. This free utility shows the current sun- and nightsides of Mars, along with a numerical readout of the time in 24-hour format and landmarks such as the landing positions of the rovers."
The sky on Mars would be blue, if it weren't for all the dust particles within it. These red dust particles colour the sky with a pink shade. Vikings 1 & 2, Pathfinder and now Spirit have confirmed this.
e /c limate_history/sky_color1.html
http://calspace.ucsd.edu/marsnow/library/scienc
-James.
First of all, there's a vertical line just left of center. This is where the image is stiched together. Although NASA may like us to believe this is one image, it's really a composite.
Aside from that, I see nothing terribly unusual. Interesting, yes, but not unusual.
The "line of rocks that starts at the middle left edge of the picture and goes up and to the right" is an illusion created by shadows and perspective. If I stare up at the light fixture on my ceiling, there appears to be a "pattern" of concentric rings and radial lines of texture. It's daylight, the curtains are open, and snow is on the ground so when the light is off, I have plane-source scattered light and any "pattern" disappears.
Any appearance of order in the image is just an illusion.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
The Mars Polar Lander most likely crashed in 1998 so I think it was wise of them to be cautious and realistic about their chances this time. They sent two to improve their chances of getting one down. They went with stuff that worked in 1996 on Pathfinder, airbags, instead of lander legs which proved troublesome. More importantly, they included telemetry on the way down which is more expensive but which means you aren't left with such a guessing game if there is a failure. You at least have a clue how far it got, unlike the Beagle which hasn't been heard from since it left its mother craft; we have no idea whether its chute opened or if it was eaten by a space-probe eating monster. I applaud NASA for being more careful this time and for putting the equivalent of some printfs in there to make sure it wasn't going to slip away quietly this year.
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
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