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One Mars Probe Photographs Another

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the pictoral-history dept.

sighted writes "In one of the more remarkable shots ever taken by robotic space explorers, the Opportunity Mars rover has been photographed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter ." From the article: "Shown in the image are 'Duck Bay,' the eroded segment of the crater rim where Opportunity first arrived at the crater; 'Cabo Frio,' a sharp promontory to the south of Duck Bay; and 'Cape Verde,' another promontory to the north. When viewed at the highest resolution, this image shows the rover itself, wheel tracks in the soil behind it, and the rover's shadow, including the shadow of the camera mast. After this image was taken, Opportunity moved to the very tip of Cape Verde to perform more imaging of the interior of the crater."

6 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Full View by dankstick · · Score: 5, Informative

    High Resolution View

  2. Re:Impressive resolution by symie5 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Wow, impressive resolution for such a remote platform. Of course the resolution of the current US spy satellites is about three times better (10cm optimal), but those things are the size of a school bus and regardless, it is impressive what you can see with 30cm resolution.


    I'm willing to bet US spy (esp. military) satellites can have much better resolution than 10cm...I work for a GIS company, and we often work with satellite imagery at 5cm resolution. I believe, by the way, the MRO does have multispectral capabilities (seven-channel, from ultraviolet to near-infrared).
  3. A Better Image IMO by sasserstyl · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA08813.jpg

  4. Re:Wow! by dan828 · · Score: 2, Informative

    The already did that a few months ago. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4542174. stm

  5. Re:Moon Probe by Ars+Dilbert · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, we can't do that. The Apollo artifacts left on the Moon are just too small. Even the mighty Hubble does not have the resolution necessary to resolve Apollo stuff.

    The ESA lunar probe SMART-1 was in lunar orbit for a while, and it too was not able to resolve Apollo landing sites. But SMART-1 did capture lunar terrain in detail never before possible, except for the pictures taken on the surface of the moon by the Apollo astronauts. The terrain matched the Apollo pictures perfectly, so yeah we've been there. Not that *I've* ever had any doubt.

  6. Re:Impressive resolution by mopomi · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ah. No, I'm thinking of CRISM, the spectrometer, also on MRO.

    MARCI is for weather monitoring (it will be very useful for knowing where there are clouds and haze and avoiding targetting HiRISE there).

    There's also CTX, the context imager, clocking in at ~6m/pixel.

    Lots and lots of good data is going to come from this mission.