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NASA Images Old Mars Landers
Iron Sun writes "Scientists have used the Mars Global Surveyor orbiter to capture images of what they think are the Viking 1 and Mars Pathfinder craft sitting on the surface of Mars. I'll have to take their word they are the indistinct blobs in question. The probes were supposedly just below the resolution of Surveyor, but they used a new trick developed last year to squeeze more detail out of the camera. The next target will, of course, be the Spirit rover."
And of course here's the images of Beagle for those who missed it.
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They can show us this, but they still can't show us the fillagried balconies on all the ornate buildings of Cydonia, or even a more detailed image of the Face of Elvis!. Come on, where are you priorities, NASA?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
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If those blobs at the end of the arrows are our probes, whose probes are all the rest of the blobs?
Well, since you can't read articles apparently, (hey it wouldn't be slashdot if not for you ;-) NASA say's this technology only works, if you know where it is already. You have to know the landscape and what it looked like _BEFORE_ you can try to figure out which dot is beagle.
For example they say they know where the rover is because they parked it next to a rock they named "Yogi". Well they know about where Yogi was, and where all most of the dots were before it landed, therefore they look for the new dots near objoects where they expect it to be.
Not even the ESA knows where beagle is, you have to try to pick a dot out of something that _might_ have tumbled down a crater? Fat chance.
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I think we are a few artist renditions away from a Martian Liberation.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Uh, this is the same resolution as the currenct MSG. From the article:
"Normally it can resolve features only down to about 3 feet (1 meter) per pixel, not good enough to discern a typical landing craft from its surroundings."
They got the additional resolution needed to see the landers by using a funkey trick, something about pitching the spacecraft at a faster speed... not very well explained in the article. But it gives a single-dimension resolution of ~20 inches/pixel.
The MSG actually only has a resolution of 1.5 meters/pixel, if the information here is correct. So The Mars Recon Orbiter camera will be a bit of an improvement, if they use the same resolution-enhancing trick. But it will only make the dot a little bigger... I doubt it will be able to confirm that the dot actually is a lander. Although, the HiRISE will have a 1-2 ft/pixel resolution at near-infrared. This could be be enough to almost make out something...
If I was worried about Karma, I'd eat tofu.
"In 2005, NASA plans to launch a powerful scientific orbiter, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This mission will focus on analyzing the surface at new scales .... For example, the Reconnaissance Orbiter will measure thousands of Martian landscapes at 20- to 30-centimeter (8- to 12-inch) resolution, good enough to observe rocks the size of beach balls."
If I read that correctly, this will have tremendous optics.
Read it here