Slashdot Mirror
News from Mars
An anonymous reader writes "While the Beagle 2 may have been gobbled up by Mars--Eater of Spacecraft, the main part of the ESA's recent Mars mission is doing well. The Mars Express Orbiter has sent back some amazing pictures of The Grand Canyon of Mars (Valles Marineris). Yes, this is the same gigantic geological feature that was missed by Mariner 4, 6, and 7 but finally found by Mariner 9. In other news, the Spirit rover is getting ready to grind the rock Adirondack (picture)."
The ESA site appears to be getting quite slow. A mirror of the large image of Valles Marineris is here.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Every space mission gets a conspiracy theory. What's this one going to be?
Is it good or is it not so good?
That's 'whack', not 'not so good', YOU INSENSITIVE CLOD!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
I just don't take pictures or issue press releases. Probably best that way.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
How much time does it take it to grind a rock compared to the amount of time it takes to move one meter?
OMG... that rock is like, a pyramid! I wonder what secrets it holds?!
Perhaps I should be looking at mars? Everyone else is. :)
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
The pictures would be more detailed if they would let Mars Express fly a little lower. And they would have a decent chance to find Beagle 2, too.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
"The chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one - but still... they come!" (War of the Worlds by HG Wells, musical version)
...featuring famous landmarks on the surface of Mars 'as seen through European eyes'...
I thank those noble European eyes that were sacrificed in order to make this European mission Euro-possible.
It's ironic. By so blatantly highlighting the Euro-ticity of this mission, they sound very American.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
What gives? That's remarkably annoying -- why not just show us the picture as taken instead of this cutesy mockup?
Check out Lunokhod, two Russian moon rovers from the early 1970s that drove around for months.
Not to bring down the Spirit guys or their great work, but their talk of pioneering 30cm moves sound a bit dull compared with Lunokhod, or the Pathfinder. Also look at the Russian Venera probes that managed to return images from the surface of Venus, at temperatures hot enough to melt lead and pressures of 90 bar.
Ydco co
Why not just land in one of their city's then we'll know for sure there's life?
I am wondering why the imagine looks so fake, particularly the bottom half. The surface sure doesn't look that fake from the pictures I have seen from Spirit. What gives?
Since when did NASA scientists stop calling rocks after cartoon characters. The last visit to Mars we had Scoobydoo, Popeye and Barnicle Bill. Those names were really scientific sounding too...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
perhaps they are looking for intelligent life
How sweet!
I was bored....
JoeLinux
I am lazy(don't want to google), but I also thought it would be interesting for other people to know. But what is the envirnoment like on Mars? Oxygen? Gravity? High/Low temps? etc..
Here is the last two lines of your post entered in google, except with `environment' spelled right, you lazy bastard.
--
In London? Need a Physics Tutor?
American Weblog in London
temp is between 5-15 degree's celsius. here's a fact sheet, i tried to post it here but it said there as too many "JUNK" characters... fact sheet here
Try Here for more info. It's got info on all the planets.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
The rover is already in an area of mars that, when warm, is dozens of degrees below freezing.
The poles are even more so, cold enough for the atmosphere itself to freeze and fall to the ground. It would take about 15 minutes to kill anything battery powered there.
Here [google.com] is the last two lines of your post entered in google, except with `environment' spelled right, you lazy bastard.
That is absolutely the funniest thing I've read on Slashdot for an incredibly long time.
These sigs are more interesting tha
Once the orbiters have been in place for a while there should be some truly excellent hi-res images returned.
:)
The must have coffee table book for x-mas 2004
Worst
the Spirit rover is getting ready to grind the rock Adirondack
Science article->Pulp Fantasy in just 1 sentence
1) It is less complex to insert a craft from earth near the equator than at the poles.
2) There is more solar energy available at the equator.
3) They are more interested in the geology of a lake bed [IE, history of liquid water than they are looking at ice.
4) Not much is known about the surface of Mars. The two landing sites are good candidates for exploration.
Looks something like a repeat.
"[...] ready to grind the rock Adirondack"
Is this a rock that they've given a name to? Or is it an American colloquialism that I'm not familiar with? Or is it something else? Aren't the Adirondacks a mountain chain in NE N. America?
Water?? who said anything about water??
:) water at the poles.. it's not lost either.. it sunk into the tar sands.. they know where it is..
Beagle is there.. it found oil.. oil in the desert..
make sense now?
Why do you think bush wants to get on the moon ASAP.. it's not the chinese.. it's the oil! oil from mars!
Missions to mars
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Eurotrash display their well-earned inferiority complex. Film at 11.
Here is the mirror
I did already submit this news yesterday, and the story was posted... What gives?
The image is indeed a composite of two processed images. The background is the top down view. The foreground is an extrapolated "aeroplane" view, using the information provided by the stereoscopic camera image.
I imagine the background too is "fake" if you wish to call it that. The stereoscopic image, again, has probably been processed and this is the top-down view of the 3D model.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
It's ironic. By so blatantly highlighting the Euro-ticity of this mission, they sound very American.
I think you're missing the point. I think it's a dig at the UK, who hogged all the publicity with the (UK-built) Beagle lander, which then turned out to be a turkey. This is them pointing out that the rest of the mission, designed on the "continent", works just fine.
Remember that, especially in the UK, the "opposite" of european isn't american, it's british. "Fog in channel, continent cut off" and all that.
"While the Beagle 2 may have been gobbled up by Mars--Eater of Spacecraft, the main part of the ESA's recent Mars mission is doing well."
Um, excuse me, but wasn't the main part of the mission eaten by Mars? Let's not sugar-coat this now-- The biggest reason for going to Mars was to put something on Mars. That said, it's nice to know they're making use of the leftovers.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My childhood suspicions are confirmed;.. Mars is one friggin' big toffee pie!
see for yourself... this is Mars, and this is what it's made of
No, goddammit - it's WACK!
WACK! WACK! WACK!
I swear, you people need to have your Kool Moe Dee records confiscated.
Why was the parent article marked as flame bait?
umm, i wasn't flame-baiting
there is something very unnatural looking about the hi-res image
and now Beagle 1 is eating up our computers!
--tUrBzY
I have a 50% deja-vu ;o)
Sigged!
Note that wallpaper ain't just for Windows! KDE users can download it, open a root console, and copy it to /usr/share/wallpapers/, from where any user can then set it as their desktop wallpaper. {This may or may not also work for GNOME -- haven't been able to test as I don't have Gnome installed on this machine}.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
[Khan]
> you anime-tainted musk-huffing fools
[/Khan]
That's particularly difficult now, at a time when the American probe phoned home and the European one did not. Kind of sounds hollow and desperate.
Seems like the ESA has a serious case of American Penis Envy. Scratch that. The whole damn EU seems to have it.
Sounds as if Europe has decided to try to be a superpower again after 50 years of regional isolationism? Trying the "bigger, better" competition like the Soviets? Hopes it works out better for Europe.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
temp is between 5-15 degree's celsius.
From that fact sheet you linked to:
Average temperature: ~210 K (-63 C)
Diurnal temperature range: 184 K to 242 K (-89 to -31 C) (Viking 1 Lander site)
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
"Oh, anyone could miss Europe, all tucked away down there!"
Party-line-towing, anti-Semitic lunatics who are Castro apologists
Didn't we do all the mapping of Mars in the name of America decades ago? This is a completely pointless and redundant mission. Typical of the Europeans to be so behind.
I doubt it. That sounds like a little revisionism to me. BC
...the most expensive computer wallpaper generating space mission ever.
Colin, you are sounding like a Brit now.. oops.. actually you shoudl have said "You lazy bugger"...
;)
At least your got the British Sarcasm
Have a nice day!
. . . of "Adirondack Al," the wise-cracking otter from the Allegheny Animation Studio's show _The Runciple Potts Hour_?
You know, ran on the Muntz TV Network?
Had the guy who played Commodore Langly on _Space: Mission Upwards_ as Runciple Potts, the friendly lumber deliveryman who introduced the cartoons?
Jeeze, kids these days don't have appreciation of culture.
Stefan
this is an amazing tactic(!):
:P
send three probs. you def. know that the
mars-probe-eater is insatiable and gon get one.
so you send three probs. a small cheap one that's
going to lure the mars-probe-eater away from
the the two real probs! amazing!
maybe next time the lure-probe won't actually
need all the fancy equipment. some bright
fancy LED, some flowers and maybe a small
altar and some nitty-pitty glas juwlery might
just do better job.
maybe adding a few pounds of c-4 will then get
rid of the mars-probe-eater once and for all?
The european picture looks like it's artwork. It does not seem real.
if the purpose of these landers is to discover water or traces, why didnt they land at the poles where some people are convinced there is water instead of landing in the middle of a desert
They are there to solve a mystery, not just find water. The crater area of the landing site LOOKS likes like it used to be a lake because it is filled in like a dry lake and because it has (now-dry) river-like channels flowing into it. What made the channels? If Mars used to contain large lakes near the equator, that is an important find. It could mean that Mars was once more Earthlike.
Table-ized A.I.
I hope they have audio gear on that expensive digital camera just in case that rock says "Owww! Stop grinding me!"
---- The geek shall inherit the Earth.
Looking at this picture(small) (Large), I see what looks to be 3 high areas that seem to have their tops sliced off. They look to be flat, almost like what you'd see here on Earth, like Devil's Tower.
I'm wondering if these features were caused by similiar forces. Given the apparent size of the features on Mars, I'm thinking that whatever happened, it must've been big. Or maybe it was just gravity, given that these features are part of the canyon wall.
I'm no geologist, or rocket scientist by any means. However it looks pretty interesting to me.
wbs.
Huh?
...it just arrived in my Inbox.
Wow, that looks fake......
>stupid mars probe. Also, hooray for communism!
Lets see,
links for the history of missions to the red planet
US Mars Missions
16 Launches containing 21 different probes (4 fly by, 8 orbiter, 4 landers, 3 rovers, 2 penetrators) of which only 7 where lost (1 fly by, 3 orbiters, 1 lander, and both penetrators).
Communist missions
19 Launches containing 25 different probes (6 flyby, 12 orbiter, 7 landers, 0 rovers, 0 penetrators) of which all where lost or failed.
Hurray for ?
And for those keeping score the European orbiter and lander went up on a russia rocket (1 orbiter, one lost lander).
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
What's the white stuff in the valleys?d Map_hi-res.jpg
http://www.esa.int/export/externals/images/Colore
But it was Taco who posted the original as well!
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
don't forget, that the last time we tried to go to the poles of mars, we lost the lander. that was in 1999.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
not "could of". idiot.
It could easily be a rendered rendition of something real, but rendered nonetheless.
(Score:0, Redundant)
Now, who can look at that and still say all mods are smoking crack?
Didn't this rover land near the old Viking probe sent down in the 70's? How about sending the rover off on it's last mission to get a picture of the Viking Probe? NASA could see how the probe has held up all these years. NASA would also get mad props too. :)
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
what the atmosphere is like in the deepest part of that canyon (pressure, composition, etc.)?
it's probably thicker there than anywhere else on the planet, so i reckon it'd be the best place to build a permanent base.
As we have clearly seen in Star Trek TOS episode 38, "The Apple".e .html
http://www.ericweisstein.com/fun/startrek/TheAppl
Strange rocks must be handled carefully.
From the definitions:
"Average temperature: Mean temperature of the body over the entire surface in Kelvin."
"Diurnal temperature range: Temperature range over an average day in Kelvin."
One would assume the Diurnal is also over the entire body.
So, these quick stats don't really apply to a single point on Mars.
Anything is possible given time and money.
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
Beagle was going to be the icing on the cake. But the stuffing is the orbiter!
There IS something unnatural about the image. It is a composite of two ASSEMBLED images. This is not the same as a photograph.
That image is from two different camera angles... I first looked at it seeing a long dark canyon, then I noticed the craters looked the same. The dark actually seperates two pictures. The top is the original image, and the bottom is some computerized attempt to show what it'd look like from the horizen
There's no place like ~/
Makes me wonder if they got there or took pictures at all, or couldn't do it and now are faking images.
Looks organic.
It's not so much the images themselves, as the colouring. It looks more like they scanned in a poster than took data from a satellite. I don't question that these are real, just why they have such a crappy finish close up. I'd have prefered them just giving us the black and white images, rather than this media token. But they will want to keep the science data to themselves - ESA are a little more closed mouthed than NASA when it somes to this kind of stuff.
-- IANAL, BIPOOTV
Must not mention Venus. Must not mention Venus.
Doh!
-- IANAL, BIPOOTV
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spiri t/20040120a/2P127438461IOFP2269L456C6_V3-A17R1_br. jpg
Look at the rock in the bottom center of the screen--talk about optical illusions--looks like an inverted skull--missing/ragged jawbone pointing north. Below it are ocular sockets to either side, with a nasal socket in between (eye & nose sockets filled with Martian dust/soil), and note the striations on the "forehead." This *looks* like a single rock, and is much different from any others in the images in terms of size and shape.
Hey, it's Europe's turn to try out cultural imperialism (again), don't knock it. In no time we'll have you Americans eating French fries and pizzas, using European languages (e.g. English, words from French like derriere, cafe), trying to learn the Metric system, setting your time system based on a location in England, madly trying to trace your roots back to Ireland, coming over here to see our old castles and achievements predating the founding of the US, yearning for Mercedes Benz and BMWs...
Remember, Europe is the best. The whole world should accept our values, try to imitate us, buy all that we have to sell, use our currency... Eire go deo, Vive la France, God save the Queen, etc., etc. 15-25 times.
Kind of sickening isn't it. I guess being proud is not something to be proud of.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
Mean one aren't you ole Colin at CGP@ColinGregoryPalmer.net
I was just wondering. The pictures look very colorful. Do the colors on these photos correspond to the actual colors on Mars, or have the colors been enhanced?
>Must not mention Venus. Must not mention Venus.
... 6 Launches towards Venus plus two flys by probes to other parts of the solar system (Galileo,Cassini). Only one Failure Mariner 1. First Sucessfull flyby, Four Atmospheric Probes, Never attempted a lander program.
... 32 Launches towards Venus containing 42 vehicles (13 Flyby, 8 Orbiters, 21 Probes (landers, atmospheric probes, and baloons)) with 17 failures. Only country to really explore Venus, still managed to loose 17 of 42 Vehicles they sent to Venus. Much better than the mars record.
Hmmm... Venus
From the big list
US
USSR
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
The images will never be perfect. The page you reference on the space.com article was not the exact image stored on the rover. When the images are transmitted from the Rover back to JPL, there is a transmission loss in the retro-bias diagonal frequency bass carrier that causes the image to be distorted. The fuzzy look we receive is then dithered and poly-metrophased with the dark "shadows" you see. This brings the image back to what we could theoretically predict it would be if the image was proper.
Somewhat offtopic, though much software ON THE GROUND at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is written in Java, but not software on the spacecraft. This doesn't have any problem, but due to Java's slow execution rate on the Rover's computer we actualy lose tetra-physical carbonic exposure rate because the camera simply can't be operated as quickly in Java as if the comman protocol were operated through a more iffecient lower-level language such as C.
Needless to say, I wrote some of the software used for the mission in Java, and it worked very well for our purposes, namely due to platform independence and quick development time. We had a heck of a time with some of the GUI code, however.
The rover runs VxWorks from Wind River. Very solid. Cheers,
Jim Cobgrobbler
Science Activation Planning Developer
Mars Exploration Rovers
Not, likely im sure... but it would be nice if the working lander to make use of the useless Beagle orbiter to perhaps increase the number of hours of use and images we can get back.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
I wonder if that canyon was formed by the big flood in the bible, like the Grand Canyon was. That's what a book being sold in the GC gift shop says.