Mars Hi-Res & Thermal Images Payoff

eldavojohn writes "The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter & Mars Odyssey Orbiter took high resolution images (and shots of each other) earlier this year and after studying them, experts believe that there are too many boulders around the proposed Phoenix Mars Lander landing site. From the article, 'At the end of January 2007, scientists will meet to see if there is an obvious choice for a landing site. If not, they will keep analyzing the data until summer 2007. They are comparing HiRISE's data with that taken by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera on the Mars Odyssey orbiter. Since boulders hold heat better than soil or sand, they show up in THEMIS images taken early in the morning.'"

Comments

Night shots?

[Darlantan]

Wouldn't it make more sense to take thermal image shots a little while after sundown instead? Doing in the morning strikes me as being less accurate, as depressions in the ground/shadowed spots will heat less quickly than other areas. At night, once the sun has gone down, soil should more or less cool at about the same rate. It seems like they'd get less false positives at night. Maybe I'm just crazy.

Re:Night shots?

[Dolphinzilla]

based on my own experience, and a quick zoom in on the picture, the black signature of the boulders appears to be due to shadows cast by the boulders - not any kind of temperature differential.

What would the martians do?

[stunt_penguin]

Offtopic I know, but here's a flipside question that occurred to me when RTFA: if we were an alien species sending probes to land on Earth, where would we pick to land based on imagery of at the resolution we're getting back from Mars?

And don't say here