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."
Interesting how the Martian clock gives the Mars date like so: MSD 46218.763 This looks very similar to ye olde Star Trek stardates.
...the "Mars Sol Date" (MSD) defined by AM2000. This represents a sequential count of Mars solar days elapsed since 1873 December 29 at approximately Greenwich noon
Very cool! I'm not sure I even care how they compare to previous pictures. There's something about knowing these are from virgin ground (so to speak). Alien landscape. I can't get enough. Right now, it just doesn't get much better.
Damon,
http://actionPlant.com
I need alittle help. Who can tell me where in Utah this picture was faked by the liberal space establishment?
If we work together we can beat the system!!
One interesting mystery is the presence of dark patches that look like mud near the rover - they are clearly visible at the bottom the larger 8MB version of the photo on the nasa site. They are most likely formed by the airbags, but have an unusual dark appearance that really looks like wet ground.. nobody seems to know why they'd look that way from what I've read so far.
I think you're mixed up. Unless I'm gravely mistaken, the sky on Mars is indeed red and not Blue. The atmospheres vastly are different in both content and pressure. Also, there's probably a lot of rust dust in the air colloring things.
You might be thinking of the Martian sunset, which is blue.
Blaze a trail to the New World
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???
I believe under the black cersored block you will find either a KDE or gnome logo and NASA didn't want to deal with SCO lawsuits (despite SCO behaving as if they are from another planet)
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
4 gigabytes, announced today. NASA could've spent $50 extra and gotten the 15 gigabyte one, but budget cuts et cetera et cetera. You know how it goes.
Besides, this lander is about half the size of the 15 gig model, and weighs less, which is great for that heavy martian gravity.
Oh, mars has less gravity? Oops.
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
Take your digital camera out and slam it against a wall hard enough to generate 40gs of deceleration, and see how many megapixiels it has left.
For fun I carefully massaged the photo to suppress the massive red cast, so we can see all the colors and detail more clearly : here!
And the original for comparison (just resized) : here!