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Detailed Panorama of Mars Released

dptalia writes "NASA has just released a detailed panorama of Mars taken by the Spirit rover. During the short Martian winter the rover didn't get enough sunlight to move, so it took these pictures instead. Spirit took over 1400 pictures, for a total of 500 megs of data. If you look to the left of the picture, you'll see the tracks from the rover's trip."

92 comments

  1. 'Detailed Panorama'? by atomicstrawberry · · Score: 5, Informative

    TFA has some tiny images that barely pass as thumbnails. You can get the actual 'detailed panoramas' from NASA directly.

    1. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by complete+loony · · Score: 4, Informative
      Some more direct links:

      Normal Colour Small, Medium, Omg.
      False Colour Small, Medium, Omg.
      Red / Blue 3D Small, Medium, Omg.

      --
      09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
    2. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by boethius78 · · Score: 2, Funny

      They may be more detailed, but I still can't see any buggalo.

    3. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Sorry, marsrovers is not working, only marsrover.nasa.gov

      Did something happen to one of them?

    4. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by rHBa · · Score: 2, Informative

      The Omg(Normal color) link just crashed firefox. It's probably worth "right click"->"Save link as..." as they are pretty massive imgs

    5. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by murple · · Score: 1

      I just viewed OMG normal color in firefox. And zoomed in. It is large. Wow, you can see every grain of dust.

    6. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by Jaruzel · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So...

      If I were standing on Mars in my natty Gucci space suit, which has a CLEAR visor. Is the Normal or the False Colour image the vista I'd see?

      ie. is Mars really red?

      -Jar.

      --
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    7. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by rHBa · · Score: 1

      I think I was a bit impatient with the DL, it was worth the wait though...

    8. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by CSLarsen · · Score: 2, Informative

      I would *guess* normal color. Mars is brownish red, as you can see. In fact, if you look at mars with a telescope on a good day you can actually faintly see that it looks reddish-colored.

      --
      Claiming to be pedantic on Slashdot is asking for trouble
    9. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by Elminst · · Score: 1

      I love that you can follow the path of the rover backwards... you can see where the wheel stopped working, and where it got stuck in the sand going up the hill.
      Awesome.

      --
      No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
    10. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by cnettel · · Score: 1

      OTOH, the Earth, from space, is not unaffected by the reflections and absorptions through the atmosphere, i.e. things might well tend to be more bluish.

    11. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ah crap, i support those servers .

      i guess it is time to go to work to watch you all destroy this environment.

    12. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by CSLarsen · · Score: 1

      True, but the atmosphere on Mars is pretty thin compared to Earth's, so I think the color you see is that of the ground. But I am not an expert.

      --
      Claiming to be pedantic on Slashdot is asking for trouble
    13. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by Captain+Murdock · · Score: 1

      Geez, who drives that thing... those tracks are going all over the place.

    14. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Normal" is as seen with visible light, as in what our eyes see.
      "False-color" is generally infrared, or more acurately real-world infrared displays as red on the photo, real-world red as green, and real-word green as blue with real-world blue not represented on the photo at all.

    15. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by complete+loony · · Score: 1

      Just to give you some idea of the detail in those OMG HUGE images... Here's a closer look at some of the rovers cables from the bottom right of the image. So if you *do* decide to click those links I stupidly posted to slashdot ;) be warned...

      --
      09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
    16. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by Himring · · Score: 1

      "Spirit survices 1000 SOLs...."

      I'm the only who thought, "SOLs?... sh1t outta luck?..."

      --
      "All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
    17. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by complete+loony · · Score: 3, Funny

      I believe thats called "driving by committee".

      --
      09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
    18. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Informative

      On each rover there is a color-calibration target which is used to determine 'true color correctness' (my words, not theirs). This article from Discover talks about how NASA determines what is the true color of each Mars picture using the color target. A picture of the target, an identical copy of which is kept on Earth and is compared against a picture from Mars in which the target on the rover is present in the picture, is shown in the article.

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    19. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by Speare · · Score: 5, Informative

      The problem is not "what color would enter my eyes?" but instead "what color would my brain register?"

      The color calibration target that is on the corner of the rover (designed by a group including Bill Nye the Science Guy, if I recall) helps the scientists recreate the colors that entered the camera lens accurately, or to recreate the colors of the materials when ignoring the differences in Martian lighting conditions. But if you were standing there on Mars looking at all this stuff for a while, you'd probably have a different impression. Your eyes would "get used to" the color shifts and start remapping things to perceive them without the shift.

      In cameras, this is called "white balance." The white target should look white, right? Well, anyone who has used their digital cameras to take pictures of a white birthday cake lit by candles, or a white wall in a room lit dimly with low-wattage incandescent bulbs has seen that white objects appear amber to the camera. Sometimes seriously orange. Forest shots look much more green/blue than you remember them. Many digicams have automatic white-balancing software, and they automatically shift the RGB colors until the average over the whole scene is neutral.

      Your eyes would get a really reddish scene on Mars. Just like that automatic white-balance setting on your camera, your brain would get used to the reddish glow, until the white spot on the color target looked mostly white or subtly blushed instead of a ruddy red color.

      --
      [ .sig file not found ]
    20. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by MasterC · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The color calibration target that is on the corner of the rover (designed by a group including Bill Nye the Science Guy, if I recall) helps the scientists recreate the colors that entered the camera lens accurately, or to recreate the colors of the materials when ignoring the differences in Martian lighting conditions.
      Not quite. From a NASA story about the image:

      This is an approximately true-color, red-green-blue composite panorama generated from images taken through the Pancam's 600-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 480-nanometer filters. This "natural color" view is the rover team's best estimate of what the scene would look like if we were there and able to see it with our own eyes.


      Those images are combined from three separate color channels or known frequency therefore no calibration is needed. In other words, they did not take a grey-scale image and add false color to make it appear true color but took three separate grey-scale images of known wavelength and combined them.

      And for what it's worth, the wikipedia article on color vision says the three types of cones in our eyes are most sensitive to 420 nm, 534 nm, and 564 nm.
      --
      :wq
    21. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by jafac · · Score: 1

      Yeah - I've often wondered at the trend lately; both SpaceDaily and SpaceFlightNow do this. They post an article about some nifty wizz-bang new space or astronomy photo, with often, no link to the photo, or at best, a postage-stamp preview. The old Fark saw comes to mind: "This post is useless without pics."

      Then when one thinks about it, MY tax dollars paid for this picture. Paid a lot. Why should some private journalistic enterprise be charging me for premium content for a link to this photo or video? Kinda makes me angry.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    22. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by Speare · · Score: 2, Informative

      Again, the issue is not "what wavelength is red" since that's simple to calibrate before launch time. Once a camera is able to accurately model a given shade as white or red or purple or chartreuse, the camera will continue to model that color pretty consistently until the electronics fail.

      The problem is not the hardware but in deciding what to perceive.

      Color is a combination of the incoming light, the surface characteristics, and the sensor's biases. We adjust our biases to counteract changes in the incoming light, so that the remainder tells us what the surface characteristics are.

      The amount of light and reddish filtration in the Martian atmosphere varies with the Martian day, season, and weather. If the camera just records exactly what it sees, that's simple: every image comes out a bit different and anything that is white will look like some unique shade of rosy pink. Every day, the rocks and the soil would look different.

      They shipped an expensive and heavy color calibration target all the way to Mars for a reason. Perceptual color calibration is done on an ongoing basis. The goal is to post-process the raw images in a way similar to what our brains do: to balance the lighting conditions so that white objects appear white, green objects appear green, and that soil under our left wheel does not freakishly change color every day.

      --
      [ .sig file not found ]
    23. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by aggiefalcon01 · · Score: 1

      Didn't crash my firefox, but the machine's been "in trouble" for about 12 minutes now ... and I've got a fat pipe hooked up to it, too. I know you said "OMG" but man, I guess that treats me not to think you really meant it!

      --
      Global warming is neither science, nor politics. It is a religion.
    24. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by Ankur+Dave · · Score: 1

      How much RAM do you have? I have FF2.0, 1.5GB, and loading all 3 Omg images simultaneously in different tabs left Firefox just fine.

    25. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      But if you were standing there on Mars looking at all this stuff for a while, you'd probably have a different impression. Your eyes would "get used to" the color shifts and start remapping things to perceive them without the shift.

      That might be so, but such is rather subjective because different people's brains will calibrate differently. I imagine the result would be something like a cross between the "natural" image and the color-enhenced one.

    26. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      I believe thats called "driving by committee".

      Or the W Katrina Planning group: "Drive-By Committe" :-)

    27. Re:'Detailed Panorama'? by rHBa · · Score: 1

      512Mb/1.3Ghz/FF1.5 FF stopped responding when I clicked on the Download StatusBar plugin. If I'd been a bit more patient it may well have recovered once the image finished DLing

  2. Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    That must have taken a while to render in 3DSMax.

    1. Re:Wow by neersign · · Score: 1

      That's what SETI's At Home software is for.

      And to give it that 1950's feel, "So THAT'S what a Hollywood set looks like!"

  3. Slashdot (in)effect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Spirit took over 1400 pictures, for a total of 500 megs of data
    I am slightly surprised that the submitter neglected to link directly to this data, and that the 'editors' also declined to correct this oversight.
    1. Re:Slashdot (in)effect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're still surprised? I got used to this type of stuff years ago.

    2. Re:Slashdot (in)effect by WhiteSpade · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It may have been intentional. Sure, linking to the 1400 pictures would make sense since thats what the article seems to be about; however, I think it was wise to not link to 500 MB of photos on Slashdot's front page. Though NASA has some really nice servers that hold up well to the Slashdot effect, I think the editors want to give NASA a fighting chance.

    3. Re:Slashdot (in)effect by Isotopian · · Score: 1

      Whoosh!

      --

      It's poetry with a beat behind it! And guns! They're like beatniks with automatic weapons.

    4. Re:Slashdot (in)effect by mei_mei_mei · · Score: 1

      That's less than 1/3mb per photo which is very smallby todays standards. guess NASA are using old tech cos of the time it took the rover to get there, or for reliability.

    5. Re:Slashdot (in)effect by stevesliva · · Score: 2, Insightful
      That's less than 1/3mb per photo which is very smallby todays standards. guess NASA are using old tech cos of the time it took the rover to get there, or for reliability.
      Or perhaps they're using a grayscale CCD imager with color filters and a low susceptibility to radiation-induced noise.
      --
      Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
  4. Circle work? by JonathanR · · Score: 1

    OMG! Some NASA bogan has been doing "circle work" with the rover!

  5. From "The Onion": by Garrett+Fox · · Score: 3, Funny

    From "The Onion": Mars Rover Beginning To Hate Mars. "And the thousand or so daily messages of 'STILL NO WATER' really point to a crisis of purpose."

    How sad! We should send some humans there to play with it.

    --
    Revive the Constitution.
  6. Google Buys Mars by fuzzybunny · · Score: 0

    Google CEO Eric Schmidt was quoted as saying, "we aren't quite clear yet on what we'll do with it, but we had some cash lying around and it seemed like a more sensible investment than buying a nuclear submarine for Larry & Sergei. Plus it's an economical location for planned new datacenter." It is not yet clear what Google intends to do with its recent acquisition of North Korea; industry experts speculate that it may use nookle.google.com to turn into a glazed over parking lot regardless

    The new Google Mars, which is expected to be released from beta in mid-2017, will allow users to navigate between any massive red dusty wasteland to any other massive red dusty wasteland. Insider rumors also claim that Google plans on selling text advertisements around the Martian poles. A Google source who declined to be named also describes plans by Google to move its complaints department to three major land masses on its new real estate, and to display its motto in three mile high illuminated letters at the new site.

    --
    Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
    1. Re:Google Buys Mars by Sqwubbsy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, they already have their map ready

    2. Re:Google Buys Mars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bitter much? You know what's exorbitant? The War on Terrorism. When Google buys something and it doesn't yield the desired result, it's written off a a loss and it is no longer pursued. When a government does it, they'll keep pumping cash in it from your taxes and don't stop because a lobbyist might just have the head so far up his ass that he'll be his own Moebius strip.

    3. Re:Google Buys Mars by ejp1082 · · Score: 1

      News of the purchase came as positive news to Wall Street, while reaction across the tech industry was more varied. Steve Ballmer was quoted saying "I'm going to f*cking kill Mars", and attempted to destroy the planet by throwing a chair at it.

  7. all a matter of perspective by macadamia_harold · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you look to the left of the picture, you'll see the tracks from the rover's trip.

    You look at them as "tracks from the rover's trip."

    The martian people look at them as "evidence leading to the invading probe from earth."

    1. Re:all a matter of perspective by tehSpork · · Score: 1

      Damn it! I told NASA I wanted a floating attack probe of doom, not a wheeled one. And I don't see the lasers I ordered either! I guess that's what I get for outsourcing, even my stereotypically incompetent minions could do the job better!

  8. Raw Pictures by WhiteSpade · · Score: 3, Informative

    For the curious, the links to Spirit's and Opportunity's "raw pictures" are here http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/all/ ---Alex

    1. Re:Raw Pictures by StormShaman · · Score: 1

      Those are all greyscale. Where are the color images?

  9. Can you hear that? by rHBa · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's the sound of thousands of nerds changing their wallpaper...

    1. Re:Can you hear that? by BigDogCH · · Score: 1

      Mmmmmmmmm, 70MB wallpaper. Man that really slows down a machine :).

  10. Sneaker Footprint? by tekrat · · Score: 0

    Is it just me, or is there a sneaker footprint on Mars in the lower left third of the image? Hrmmm. More proof that the whole thing is faked. "And cattle mutilations are up." (sneakers).

    TTYL

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
    1. Re:Sneaker Footprint? by Anal+Cock · · Score: 0

      A single footprint! Clearly what we have on our hands is a deranged one-legged long jump champion who breathes CO_2!

      --
      AC
  11. I'll see your OMG... by MelloDawg · · Score: 5, Informative
    ...and raise you a Really Frakkin' Big. (387MB TIFF >>>>>>>> 87MB JPG)

    Also, this isn't the final image; just a preview in honor of Spirit's 1000th sol. Another panorama picture will be released that includes the rover deck.

    --
    /. is irrelevant.
    1. Re:I'll see your OMG... by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 1
      ...and raise you a Really Frakkin' Big. (387MB TIFF >>>>>>>> 87MB JPG)
      And for those doubters still amoung you, yes, ImageMagick will convert this, if you've got the RAM.
      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
  12. And on to the right... by ms1234 · · Score: 1

    ...you can see the small green alien with antennas picking his nose staring at the camera.

  13. I am VERY worried by giorgiofr · · Score: 2, Funny

    Where is K'breel, speaker for the Council? What shall we do, elder?

    --
    Global warming is a cube.
    1. Re:I am VERY worried by simcop2387 · · Score: 1

      TMM has been gone for a month according to his user page, too bad, i enjoyed those stories.

  14. Nothing new here by OriginalArlen · · Score: 5, Informative

    The McMurdo pan has been compiled over the last six months or so. The raw data is always up on the web almost as soon as it arrives on earth (thanks to the enlightened attitude of Steve Squyres, PI :) and lots of people grab these and make their own images. There's even a dedicated software app: google for "Midnight Mars Browser". There are a couple of forums dedicated to this stuff which I shall refrain from linking to (Google around, if you're interested enough you'll soon find 'em) that produce really superb (so-called) "amateur" work, often before the official JPL releases.

    --

    Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
  15. Optimus by Bozzio · · Score: 1

    If you look to the left of the picture, you'll see the tracks from the rover's trip

    Those look like transformer tracks to me.

    --
    I just pooped your party.
  16. To the /.ers who work at google : by g253 · · Score: 1

    if you don't know what to do with your 20%, time to start google maps Mars.

    1. Re:To the /.ers who work at google : by boethius78 · · Score: 1

      You're way behind them. http://www.google.com/mars/

    2. Re:To the /.ers who work at google : by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Done!

      http://www.google.com/mars/

      Stay tuned for the map of Jupiter...

  17. Hmmm by wolf369T · · Score: 0

    I don't know, those rocks seems so out of the picture to me... Couldn't they found some more real-looking ones? They are so perfectly painted...

  18. Lies! Damned Lies! by Rixel · · Score: 1

    It's all faked anyways. They aren't on Mars. It's all STAGED people...... ...that's the moon, colourized.

    --
    Never play chicken with a passive aggressive.
  19. nice.. by andersa · · Score: 0

    Why thanks a lot!??

    I clicked OMG, and firefox prompty ate all my free memory then froze my computer. I just lost half an our worth of code.

  20. The question is... by OnyxIR · · Score: 0

    Will the Martians welcome their new human overlords?

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  21. Really? by FFFFHALTFFFF · · Score: 1
    "If you look to the left of the picture, you'll see the tracks from the rover's trip."
    Really?
  22. Google Mars? by LoudMusic · · Score: 1

    I'm looking forward to Google Mars. Should be a nice companion to Google Earth.

    --
    No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
    1. Re:Google Mars? by Enigma2175 · · Score: 1

      I'm looking forward to Google Mars. Should be a nice companion to Google Earth.


      Oh, you mean this? The least you could do is provide a link....
      --

      Enigma

    2. Re:Google Mars? by LoudMusic · · Score: 1

      Wow! I had no idea that was available. That's so cool!

      --
      No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
    3. Re:Google Mars? by steve_bryan · · Score: 1

      Why look forward? It has existed for quite a while. easily more than a year. You just have to log out of the main database and log in to the Mars database. Last time I checked this was only possible to do with the PC client.

    4. Re:Google Mars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "I don't see many sales in the future of iPod." -LoudMusic, on the introduction of the ipod.

  23. Yes by ynotds · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised nobody yet seems to have cropped down to that heavily tracked part of the image and made it more widely available. Guess it comes with the problems of working with even an 11.7Mb JPEG in an image editor unless you have a machine up to the task, which I won't till well into 2007.

    Reminds me about our local TV news showing the recent orbiter pic of Victoria Crater and zooming in until a black dot appeared near the rim, while totally omitting to mention that the black dot was a rover (Opportunity).

    --
    -- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
    1. Re:Yes by stevesliva · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I'm surprised nobody yet seems to have cropped down to that heavily tracked part of the image and made it more widely available. Guess it comes with the problems of working with even an 11.7Mb JPEG in an image editor unless you have a machine up to the task, which I won't till well into 2007.
      If you really want to see the hobbyist-created imagery (and sometimes real planetary scientist-created imagery) then browse on over to unmannedspaceflight.com
      --
      Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
  24. Is it just me??? by hcob$ · · Score: 2, Funny

    Or does this look like what you've always imagined tatooine really looked like?

    --
    Cliff Claven
    K.E.G. Party Chairman
    Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
  25. WOW, on the far right side by kurt555gs · · Score: 1

    Look, Banth tracks on the far right!!!!

    --
    * Carthago Delenda Est *
  26. Moo by Chacham · · Score: 1

    500 megs

    Did he actually say "megs"?

    /me cries

  27. Question, Sir! I'm confused... by goonies · · Score: 1

    According to http://www.google.com/mars/ the McMurdo Crater has these coordinates: 84.4S, 0.9E
    But the Spirit rover landed in 14.57S, 175.47E which is quite a distance in between... do I mix stuff up, is there an error on the google page or did that RC car really go all that way down there?

    --
    .sigh
  28. It's already dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mars? "It's dead Jim".

  29. Interactive view by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I took the NASA image and converted it for interactive viewing (with a choice of five viewers, including Quicktime, Shockwave and Java).

    Interactive McMurdo Panorama, Winter on Mars

  30. Rodney McKay by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

    During the short Martian winter the rover didn't get enough sunlight to move, so it took these pictures instead.

    "Using power. Using power. Using power."

    --
    Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  31. McMurdo panorama != McMurdo crater by Old+Man+Kensey · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's called the "McMurdo panorama", for what reason I can't find out, but the images are of the "winter haven" region in Gusev crater. The rovers have driven only a few miles each since landing nearly 3 years ago (but that's an incredible achievement compared to anything that's gone before in planetary landings).

    --
    -- Old Man Kensey
  32. QTVR? by steve_bryan · · Score: 1

    Does anyone have the tools and ability to create a QTVR panorama from these pictures? I suppose I should also ask if it has already been done.

    1. Re:QTVR? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, it has been done: Winter on Mars.

  33. it looks like the west mesa in Albuquerque, NM by haaz · · Score: 1

    Yup. If you're in Albuquerque's west side (near the Rio Grande) and looking west, this panorama looks a fair bit like the volcanoes atop the west mesa. cool. it was such a different place than Wisconsin that to this midwestern boy, living there was almost like being on Mars.

    ::insert family drama of years ago:: ;-)

    that said, i visit and climb the volcanoes as often as i can, which is not nearly enough.

    --
    -- haaz.