Slashdot Mirror
New Movies of Whirlwinds on Mars
FleaPlus writes "The Pasadena Star-News, APOD, and WPBF report on new movies of Martian whirlwinds, captured by Spirit rover inside Gusev Crater. These movies are the result of a new imaging technique developed after the initial spotting of whirlwinds by Spirit last month.
Here is the first and second video. According to a rover team member, 'This is the best look we've ever gotten of the wind effects on the martian surface as they are happening.'"
Direct links to the animated GIFs are here:
;-)
PIA07861.gif and PIA07863.gif.
To those of you that don't want to download 3MB of animated GIFs for a 2 second view of a whirlwind on Mars let me sum it up for you. Dust, a small hill, and what appears to be a UFO dancing around on the screen.
For those of you that are conspiracy theorists... This could be a UFO sighting! It also could have been made in any one of the deserts in the USA (or abroad!)
Clearly this effect is caused by the recoil of an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator
Could anyone care to explain how winds are started if there is no to little atmosphere? Does this for instance imply that there is water in the air on mars?
Until they get the next Mars Rover there that's going to be powered by a RTG (http://www.nuclearspace.com/a_2009_Rover.htm)!!
If it ends up working anywhere near as well as the current rovers, it might still be operational when astronauts land on Mars in 2020(Im trying as hard as possible to be involved in this project once I get out of college)
Interesting to see what the weather looks like on Mars. What I'd like to know is if weather.com is going to start posting forecasts for other planetary bodies anytime soon.
Very nice to know that the dust devils are helping the rovers along. I wonder if we could get them to wash and wax the rovers as well.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
This supports a wind erosion theory for the bluberries. I'd heard people say that the atmosphere is too thin to really erode them much; clearly, if it's strong enough to suspend dust in densitites like this, it's got enough force to erode/polish the pebbles to roundness.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
Once again, a Lego Mindstorm on steroids proves more interesting than the space shuttle.
Someone you trust is one of us.
These movies are certainly better that Red Planet.
What if that mime really is trapped in a box?
Look real close. Isn't that the Tazmanian Devil in the center of that thing?
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
...and in conclusion, this footage offers concrete proof that there are not martian dust devils, as my esteemed colleges suggest, but proof of Tasmain Martianius Spinnus maximus, or in laymas terms, Martian Tasmanian Devils.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
The page will almost certainly get /.d since the animated GIFs are over 1.5 MB each.
Here's a mirror if that happens:
Video 1
Video 2
Have fun!
I hope we get a research station on mars, even if it is unmanned. It will be a starting point for building more.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
yank.. who cares..
Comments like this have no place on Slashdot, where we are supposed to mindlessly cheer for the manned space program, regardless of how much it may cost, or how little we may get back.
Unless I'm mistaken, if you look closely along the top, right edge of the images in the first link you can see another dust devil. It appears near the horizon edge and meets the edge of the overall image right before the main dust devil appears.
Unless it's some kind of artifact from the processing it looks like NASA got a two-for-one.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The properties of fluids are the same on Earth and Mars.
Man, what if all of physics works the same there? Just think of the number of stories.
"Scientist discovers light on Mars!"
"Stuff falls down when you drop it on Mars!"
"On Mars, stuff stays where you put it!"
"On Mars, a rock keeps moving if you kick it!"
"Mars displays friction!"
"On Mars, energy tends to move from stuff with more to stuff with less!"
This didn't start out as a Troll, sorry. I'm just tired of Martian News of the obvious.
sigs, as if you care.
Simply turn on the martian weather channel
I'm curious to know how much effort/man hours is put into studying this kind of phenomena. Do NASA folks just say "That's cool, look at that." like I do, or do they assign a team to spend a month trying to extrapolate airspeed, volume, spin direction, lifespan, and other attributes that I can't even think of?
I guess I mean: does this really mean anything important to a scientist, or is it just eyecandy for the taxpayers?
xxx Earth xx Venus xx Mars
O2 xx 0.20 xx 0.001 xx 10^-7
CO2 xx 0.0003 xx 64 xx 0.009
H2O xx ~ 0.02 xx ~ 0.01 xx ~10-6
Am I reading this right, we have more of an atmosphere on Venus than mars? Why don't we go search that planet. If there a greater chance to find evidence of life there? Why deal with a "dead" planet when we have another planet with oxygen and carbon dioxide. Who knows, maybe we can give Venus CPR. We start with a small station with plants. We build a mini enclosed ecosystem. Then we build another, and another.
I know, we might as well try it in a desert first, but I bet it can be done.
The CO2 number really sticks out. Plants could convert that to oxygen.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
This just in: Mars Blows
The sporadic winds were two-edge sword. For the first [earth] year Spirit panels were getting progressing dirty, to the point where power was down to 40%. Then the one day the dust was mostly blown off and the power doubled. The fact that a devil may have actually collided with a rover suggested to NASA that they might be common enough to actively search for them.
We all know those whirlwinds, which some will undoubtedly try to claim are "naturally occurring" are really caused by Global Warming on Mars caused by the Mars Lander emissions. An attempt at humor, yes. Just wait though, someone will actually end up claiming this before it is all over.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
carbon based life forms copulating in connubial bliss.
How do we know that these "dust devils" aren't really martian orgies? Or those whirlwinds when the road runner and Wile E. Coyote fight? Or the cloud created when Pigpen walks anywhere in Peanuts cartoons?
(tongue firmly in cheek)
I guess I mean: does this really mean anything important to a scientist, or is it just eyecandy for the taxpayers?
They have teams. Nothing is done because of individual interest. It is a huge beuracracy, you have managment like any business, that directs the scientists.
It is one of the knocks on the university system. When you start out, getting your BA or AB, you can study many different things, math, biology, literature, physics, sociology, chemisty. But once you start for a PhD, you then pick one small thing and spend the next 7 years studying it and researching it. For example, you could not pick Biology for a PhD, you would pick Genetics. And even then, you're research might be limited to a subset of Genetics, maybe how Gene X produces protien Y in albinos.
I think it would be cool if places like NASA let scientists pick thier projects. Or even let outsiders in, for example if you have a masters in geography and you're interested in helping map the surface of mars, that you can sign up for that work.
Come to think of it, why don't they run NASA like sourcefourge. There is alot of talent out there. And it would make people feel like they are contributing to discovery, rather than living a mundane dilbertesq life.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
In the NASA films the acting is a little dry, but the plot is more fully realized.
You're not kidding!
Looks like dust kicked up by aerial machine gun fire. Maybe the martians are using the rover as a training target.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
If NASA plans on setting up a Mars Colony, they could harness an endless supply of solar and wind power. Maybe it can teach us earthlings how we can better use our own free natural resources to power our grids instead of burning coal, oil and gas? Just a thought.
Now they have pictures and movies, all we need is an audio recording of a dust storm and ambient noise on Mars and the mission will be complete.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
So is no one else old enough to think of Adam Strange and the Dust Devils when reading this? Looks like NASA hit the wrong planet with their rovers.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Evidence of wind around Uranus
No, the post has no business being on Slashdot because here, you're supposed to mindlessly jeer at the Space Shuttle and call NASA a complete cultural failure. You're supposed to complain about costs and technical problems on subjects that you've never worked and hardly even know the basics about, by picking a choice selection of quotes from a handful of individuals and ignoring what the majority of those who have actually worked on the projects have stated. And lastly, no matter how ridiculously small a feat a private company achieves in reference to space, you're supposed to treat it like it's as good as a Saturn V. Strangely, there is an exception: you're supposed to ignore the actual *relevant* accomplishments of private companies in space, such as the Pegasus rocket, and only cheer for those who make joyrides.
Are there any deer in the theater tonight? Get 'em up against the wall.
... any self-respecting geek checks the rover mission website daily!
This guy applies modern image processing to old tapes of raw data from Russian "Venera" missions. Quite fascinating views, but still, too hot and acidic... I guess a spacecraft gets "eaten" by the atmosphere there in like an hour...
Paul B.
Does this for instance imply that there is water in the air on mars?
Actually, the presence of wind implies there is life on Mars! How could we have missed this?!
Check it:
There is wind on Earth.
There is life on Earth.
There is wind on Mars.
Therefore, there is life on Mars.
Try to patent this technique - oh, you can't cause it's prior art. It's my birthday! It's my birthday!
Please note, my patent on this technique will likely serve irrelevant as the same logic implies that the universe is really a pokemon watch!
*ducks, stands up and is hit with a tomato*
Well, bein that the rovers have had their solar panels cleaned, presumably by these dust devils, it becomes a *mission critical* question to see if you can predict where a dust devil will appear so that you can park the rover there once too much dust accumulates again. Moreover you want to know how fast these things go, to a) see if/where they will harm the rover and b) see if they might be the source of erosion around the round pebbles found a while ago.
It's really strange how these stupid-looking phenomena can become important when you're trying to make sense of a completely new environment while scraping the bottom of the barrel for anything tha might help you keep going.
I guess I mean: does this really mean anything important to a scientist, or is it just eyecandy for the taxpayers?
Never underestimate the power of eyecandy for the taxpayers. They want to see what their millions of dollars buy and eyecandy appeals to even the least technically minded.
That's one great thing about these space missions. NASA, JPL, and the ESA let us see the interesting images (and the mundane ones - but no one talks about those much). Plus, the images are available to the whole world, not just U.S. taxpayers.
So everyone, seeing these images, may become inspired to learns more about and support the sciences, including schoolchildren, some of whom may continue on to be the next generation of leaders, scientists, and explorers. Seems like a win-win situation to me.
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
I think it would be cool if places like NASA let scientists pick thier projects. Or even let outsiders in, for example if you have a masters in geography and you're interested in helping map the surface of mars, that you can sign up for that work.
Well, if you're motivated, you can look at and work with data from NASA planetary missions. Data collected from the first 270 days of MER rover operations are available.
I guess I mean: does this really mean anything important to a scientist, or is it just eyecandy for the taxpayers?
They have teams. Nothing is done because of individual interest. It is a huge beuracracy, you have managment like any business, that directs the scientists.
Well, yes and no. One of the scientists I work with at Cornell University is in the Atmospheric interest group of the MER project. The science team is broken up into interest groups such as Atmospheric, Geology, Soils, Long Term Planning, etc, which allows for parallel planning. Every day there is a Science Operations Working Group meeting, at which the agenda is decided - plans are merged and different courses of actions are argued. But don't think for a moment that there's never been anything done by MER simply because a single scientist thought it was important. Professor Squyres once called in on a day he wasn't even working to make sure panoramic cameras got some good images of the micrometeorite impact.
I think it would be cool if places like NASA let scientists pick thier projects.
I worked at JPL as an intern, and then as an operations staff worker for MER, and I can say that the people there are certainly not all working on projects that they did not choose. In fact, many were hired to work on a specific project, and while they usually move on afterwards, it's not like they are often stuck working on some project they hate. Indeed, many scientists/engineers work for NASA for such low pay precisely because they are working on something much more interesting to them than they would in industry for twice the money.
And it would make people feel like they are contributing to discovery, rather than living a mundane dilbertesq life.
Anyone working for NASA that feels that way is doing something wrong - when I was at JPL we had our share of management problems and budget issues, but it was anything *BUT* dilbert. Most of the coworkers are as crazy as you, the ideas that are being worked on even crazier... The pioneer feeling doesn't seem to really fade... even if what you are working on has been done before many times, it's still new, because it's innnnn spaaaaaaaaaaaaace!.
Come to think of it, why don't they run NASA like sourceforge.
Because most people aren't rocket scientists? Because spreading around responsibility too thinly is the surest way to see that nothing gets done (or no one is held accountable)?
Don't get me wrong - I'd love to see the NASA change to be more agile, more risk-taking and more "open ended" in some ways - but lets get real, this is the government. (insert typical slashdot statement about writing to senators or voting your opinion - doesn't change the fact that most people in the country simply do not CARE about this at all).
It is precisely:
'Illudium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator'
1953: Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century
Daffy Duck,Porky Pig,Marvin Martian: July,25 MM Chuck Jones
Marvin makes his third appearance in this cartoon parody of
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.Duck Dodgers(Daffy Duck) and his eager space cadet, Porky Pig, traval to Planet X, the only remaining source of Illudium Phosdex(the shaving cream atom) to claim it for Earth. But Duck Dodgers winds up in a battle with Marvin, who's dead-set on claiming Planet X in the name of Mars.
CANT YOU PEOPLE READ?!
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
In a press statement from the Martian Picture Association of Alterion, Director Zerfig Mowbelfub stated that, "NASA needs to learn that it cannot indiscriminately share Martian movies on the internet as it pleases. Many Martians have worked very hard to create these whirlwinds, and recording them and then sharing them on the Internet is a violation of Galactic Copyright Law." The press release also stated that from now on Martians will search every NASA Lander for recording technology and confiscate it upon entry to the Mars atmosphere. NASA was unavailable for comment, but as of press time the movies were still widely available on the Internet with no official response from NASA.
Do we really want the surface of Mars covered with huge windmills? That would tend to spoil the view. I'd prefer a nuclear power station myself.
the explanation says the surface is warm to the touch.
obviously there is something they havn't told us.
Bush has gotten man to Mars! Gooooo Leader!
-pyrrho
NASA now knows it's time to scrap the the idea of housing Mar's colonists in mobile homes.
Must have hit him right on the mark to get him all rowled up like that.
Someone you trust is one of us.
All I seem to be seeing in these posts are reasons why we couldn't do it, just because we don't have all the tools that we need to make a viable system at the moment doesn't mean that those tools could not be created.
As it stands, we have ceramics that can withstand the tempature but I don't know how ceramics react under intense pressure. I understand that just a ceramic shell would not, in and of itself, be enough because as far as I know (although I'm no materials engineer) ceramics don't do that whole conducting thing [although I think I read somewhere that certain types of ceramics start have similar properties as superconducters near 0 kalvin].
My whole point is this, rather then looking at what's not possible why don't we assume we don't know what is and is not possible and work out from there? Ambitious projects require a reasonable amount of unreasonability....
It surprises me that there isn't some sort of microphone on the rovers to pick up "whatever."
You never know what we might hear.
old geek
JPL's servers were overwhelmed the day Huygens took the plunge into Titan. Yes, it's a different order of magnitude than a Slashdotting, but even NASA has limits (in terms of serving up webpages).
sig semper tyrannis!
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epa per/2005/04/21/m1a_wx_0421.html
No More Free Weather Reports if Rick Santorum
has his way.
We better be packing BFG's when we land there. With dust devils now being confirmed there's bound to be a Cyberdemon or two lurking around there.
"Hey George, there's hellspawn on Mars... time to wage another crusade to rid the solar system of evil!"