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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)."
stupid mars probe. Also, hooray for communism!
What's that all about?
Is it good or is it not so good?
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?
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?!
or does Dean sound like Hulk Hogan, brother!
Whatcha gonna do when the Deaniacs run wild..on..you!!
Perhaps I should be looking at mars? Everyone else is. :)
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Metafilter's run the story.
Hell, memepool's even made note of it!
Why is the whole "goatse.cx suspended by it's registrar" story not worthy of mention on slashdot? I guess Michael isn't worked into a froth because the .cx registrar RETROACTIVELY changed the TOS just to get rid of goatse.
News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters , indeed!
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)
and then tell me what you can learn from it,
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, if you landed in the sahara desert how much do you think you would learn by looking at the sand ? do you really think you could discover traces of life or water ? so what makes doing this on mars any different ?
your thoughts ?
...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?
Who wants to yiff?
That rock looks suspicioulsy like a petrified road apple. Maybe Mars once had horse or cow like mammals?
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
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
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..
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objec tid=13832645_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-PO LICE-PROBE-HAWKING--ASSAULT--name_page.html
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?
...don't even read your own site! If there's a way you could look consistently dumber, I'm not aware of it.
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...
These don't look like pictures, they look like paintings. Take a look at the hi-res versions
Have these been retouched?
How sweet!
I was bored....
JoeLinux
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
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?
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
(Here's a conspiracy theory for ya... Somebody made the comment that nic.cx has been deleting the posts from their comment messageboard on this matter. I can't verify the claim. But apparently that sort of doublethink from a domain registrar isn't newsworthy.)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Why was the parent article marked as flame bait?
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!
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
"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.
. . . 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.
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.
That this pic is just bogus? It really gives no detail. It could easily be a rendered rendition of something real, but rendered nonetheless.
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"
not "could of". idiot.
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.
Beagle was going to be the icing on the cake. But the stuffing is the orbiter!
Makes me wonder if they got there or took pictures at all, or couldn't do it and now are faking images.
how about "then" instead of "than?"
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...
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?
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.