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Making Tracks on Mars
An anonymous reader writes "In a remarkable series of orbital pictures, the Mars Global Surveyor's cameras have imaged the tracks of the Spirit rover on the surface. Individual debris pieces including the backshell and lander are visible with remarkable clarity using an innovative roll of the satellite."
[insert D&D reference here]
I wonder what the Satellite has for initiative roll bonuses?
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Can't we go to just ONE other planet without scattering our garbage about willy-nilly?!?!
Now all they need to do is locate the massive impact crater left by Beagle 2.
Any chance that they can use this process to search for Beagle?
You know the Surveyor guys are like "oh, sure, NOW you can look around and tell us what's interesting to investigate!"
-Styopa
I worked on the Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit) this February at JPL and we had images like the posted one available almost as soon as the rover landed, of course you couldn't see the tracks back then...I don't have a link handy to any of the pictures from then I remember that we had a wall-sized poster where scientists used to guess where the rover would land. Some days later, once the rover landed, there was another poster with various points of interest (lander, parachute etc.) marked on it. So we have had images (also from the Mars Global Surveyor) like these for a long time only they weren't available to the public. If anything, these images bear testimony to the quality of the camera on-board MGS.
On the one hand, Mars does have a much thinner atmosphere, and I have no idea how low the Mars Global Surveyer orbit is.
On the other hand, *anything* we ship to Mars is a design compromise in terms of weight and size. So I'm sure the camera is sophisticated, but isn't this one of those times when size matters, especially on the objective lens?
I've found my house on Terraserver, and I couldn't see features as small as this picture gives us. Makes me wonder what spy satellites can do, what commercial imaging satellites can do, and what DHS wants to let us have.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
have they ever tried doing this to look for the remains of the Apollo missions and other luna missions?
Any estimate on how long it will take the tracks to erode until they are no longer visible, given the average winds in that area? Unlike the tracks on the moon, these shouldn't last too long (relatively speaking).
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
Quit messing up my lawn!!!
Yes, it's soooo interesting to look at our own devices on other planets.
Maybe it's just me, but when I'm on an exotic vacation, I don't go out and start taking pictures of my car.
bug.gd: error search engine. Humanity working together to solve all errors.
It is a line camera, X resolution is set by number of pixels, Y resolution by mars rotation speed and number of scans per second. If the satelite rolls opposite to mars rotation, it is as if mars rotates more slowly, therefore higher Y resolution. Price to pay is you end up rotating out of view, so smaller pictures, but more detailed ones.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
A little article with two boffins talking abour terraforming mars.
They harp on about oxygen levels. I started to wonder - what gas other than nitrogen would be good to compose the other 80% (assuming we reach earth density - could we have a 1/5 less atomosphere than was 99% 02?
So I think (although mars contains nitrogen - composition) the matter is how to make nitrogen and oxygen and enough co2.
Nitrogen in the air is vital for plant life also, so I think a valid nitrogen cycle, water cycle and healthy o2/co2 ratios would need to be established.
Would they find thier own levels, or will it be *bloody* hard to establish a balanced eco system?
Any other thoughts on mars ecosynthesis?
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
First, it's astronomy, not astrology. One is a science with reproducible experiments and predictable results; the other is a pagan near-religion whose results are entirely vague, and impossibly subjective.
m l).
Second, you're talking about a statistical sample of 2 planets (out of what, thousands of billions?). (And I daresay we've hardly explored #2 - heck, there are great chunks of EARTH we haven't explored.) To wash your hands of it saying 'well, haven't found life yet, we must be alone' is a bit presumptuous.
Second "Things like irreducible complexity in bacterial flagelli or the inability to intentionally design life from scratch while claiming that a roll of the dice made all this seems absurd." NOBODY (except Creationists commonly hiding behind the title of 'intelligent design theory' and busily building strawman arguments) has ever suggested that life is the result of the 'roll of the dice'.
We KNOW that in the presence of radiation, complex hydrocarbon chains such as those found around the universe will form amino acids (found both in liquid water on earth, and in insterstellar dust clouds http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0328/p11s01-stss.ht
We KNOW that these acids can spontaneously form proteins and quinones, among lots of other stuff, which in turn form proteins and (it's surmised) possibly the precursors to RNA.
Granted, we're not clear on that last, teeny step. But give scientists some benefit of the doubt - they've resolved the simplest forms of life down to the point where serious research projects are going on now to create life at a molecular level; to the credit of the researchers in the field, there seems to be a hesitation going on while some of the ethical and moral issues are discussed before proceeding.
I don't dispute with you your essential point - it IS pretty amazing when you think about it. I find the system of the universe a glorious and joyful ballet of energy, matter, and life. I don't know why people feel compelled to assume that God isn't competent enough to build it from the beginning to do what He wanted, and that He would have to stick his hand in and 'make' stuff happen.
-Styopa
Point 1) Mars has an atmosphere.
Point 2) The moon isn't a planet.
Other than that you're completely right.
Hubble has already imaged Mars. The resolution is nowhere close to these new images from MGS. They are images of the entire planet. Check them out here: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/ releases/1999/27/
Probably not. They knew exactly where to look to see the rover, and they also were able to take many pictures of the same area at different sun angles (shadow lengths) to get one with enough contrast to show the tracks. Because the width of the rover's tracks is just at the pixel resolution of the orbiting camera, a little luck/persistence was required to get those shots, I imagine.
I, too would like to know where the Beagle2 lies. It is about as small as one pixel from an orbiting camera, so they'll need to find some other evidence (ejecta from an impact crater, etc.) to find it. It's very likely Beagle is the crack of a rock, for example.
This sig is a test. If this had been an actual sig, you would be reading something quite a bit wittier than this now.
If you think the images from Mars Global Surveyor look awesome, the images from the upcoming Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter should be nothing short of AWESOME.
Given that MRO will likely use a modified version of the same camera system used on the Ikonos imaging satellite (Ikonos can resolve down to 100 cm resolution from a 300 km orbit through Earth's thick atmosphere), the combination of the lower orbit and the very thin atmosphere on Mars means there are estimates that the MRO cameras could resolve objects as small as 150 millimeters across in the visual light spectrum! At that resolution, MRO could finally put to bed the controversy about the anomalous features on the Cydonia plain of Mars that some people claim are not natural features of that plain.
the combination of the lower orbit and the very thin atmosphere on Mars means there are estimates that the MRO cameras could resolve objects as small as 150 millimeters across in the visual light spectrum
I think I just shat myself.
Couldn't they use the same techniques to find the other landers that have either crashed or soft landed successfully and died (Viking, one of the Russian Mars probes).
I would be interested to see if the Viking landers are still visible, or if they're now covered in martian dust? Maybe it'll be a better job for the MRO when it gets there.
I would be interested to see if the Viking landers are still visible
i ng_040107.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mgs_mpf_vik
Table-ized A.I.
Do the AnswersInGenesis people know that you're trying to defend their point of view? Maybe you should just link to the site and leave it at that. Yours has to be one of the worst arguments for your point I've seen in a long time, and that's saying something. Let's take a few swings, shall we?
...the mysteries of an apparent Cambrian explosion in the fossil record?
> People have been discussing Asimov's three laws of robotics for decades. But we're no closer to robots with synthetic intelligence than we were in the glory days of AI research. (i.e. we're not close at all).
And you know this exactly how? In 1899, the vast majority of the world's brightest minds were openly saying that there was very little left to learn in the realm of physics, since Newtonian mechanics had been quite thoroughly explored by that point. It only took six years to turn that on its ear, and nobody (not even Einstein) knew it was coming. How you propose to know what technological or innovative breakthroughs will or won't occur in AI is beyond my understanding. As simple (to us) a device as the steam engine took more than 300 years to develop, and societies as far back as the Romans had the materials to make it happen, just not the innovation.
> There is no evidence these projects that you say are "going on now to create life at a molecular level" are likely to succeed.
Nice spin, but to reverse it, there's also no evidence that they're likely to fail, either. See above. Isn't acting clairvoyant a violation of Christian ethics?
> See this for reasons why the 1950s Miller experiment was not an accurate replica of supposed primordial conditions...
Since that particular experiment doesn't have much to do with current efforts (because, y'know, it was not an accurate replica of supposed primordial conditions) this point is irrelevant. If they simply wanted to replicate the old experiment, then they'd have done so.
> You must have considered the apparently unique earth we have: it's wonderfully balanced Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen cycles, the temperature and the position of earth w.r.t. to the sun, the qualities of water, and the wonder that is the water cycle,the wonderful balance of plant and animal life...
I'm familiar with this argument, but it's not valid because it's two-sided. You argue that the Earth is perfectly designed for humans, and I argue that humans developed specifically to survive Earth conditions, and these things support both points, so they support neither point.
>
I agree that there's no good explanation for this as yet. Again, though, it doesn't disprove any reasonable theory, it puts bumps in the road for the theories. Whether we will learn what caused it will remain for time to tell, but I see no reason to accept the young-Earth theory on the strength of this alone, and so far it's the only thing you mentioned that I can't answer directly.
> Consider how the continents were one supercontinent to begin with (as the Bible describes in Genesis) or how the Bible, rather off-handedly, describes the earth as a sphere (Book of Job).
In a book the size and scope of the Bible, you will find plenty of references to stuff that turns out to be true. However, you must counter mentions in the Bible of stuff that turned out false as well, if you care to use it as a scientific reference. You might start by Googling for "geocentrism".
> And then there are the smaller details: look up and consider how the sun, and the the moon have the same relative size...
What? What relevance could this possibly have? If you think this is anywhere approaching a good piece of evidence in defense of the existence of God, you're going to be very easy to dismiss. Besides, they're not all that close, unless 20 percent different is "close enough".
> how all humanly-recorded history begins 5000 years ago...
nd then there are the smaller details: look up and consider how the sun, and the the moon have the same relative size
Um. So? Millions of years ago they didn't have the same size, as the moon was closer to the Earth. Millions of years from now they won't be the same size, as the moon is steadily moving further away.
no tree has more than 5800 yearly tree rings (and there is no reason they can't - these old trees were cut down, still living, in this century).
You can extend it back a lot further if you look for more than one tree. You find a live tree going back, say, 4000 years. The you find an old stump whose later rings match up with the earlier rings of your tree. Then maybe you find a petrified log whose later rings match up with the early rings on the stump. We have tree ring data going back 10,000 years. Here's an example of a study going back 7400 years.
Also, we have ice cores and varves with annual layers going back tens of thousands of years.
And please don't disappoint me by quoting some rubbish from the ICR or answersingenesis.
I'm thinking that the heatshield impact should have dug a pretty nice divot out of the ground, which might make a pretty good opportunity for examining deep layers of soil on the edge of a large impact crater.
Possible to find all sorts if interesting things in there... almost as good as the crater itself. (presuming that the rover can get out on the other side, that is.)
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