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Mars Probe May Have Spotted Sojourner Rover
Maggie McKee writes "NASA's eagle-eyed Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have spotted the tiny, toaster oven-sized Sojourner rover just a few meters away from its companion, the Mars Pathfinder lander. It appears to have crawled there in an attempt to re-establish contact with the lander after the lander had already died.
But the pictures aren't clear enough to definitively ID the rover, and it's possible Sojourner simply took off on its own. If it were miraculously still alive after 10 years, it could be 3 kilometers away from Pathfinder — and probably impossible to find, even with MRO."
I spy with my litle eye something that starts with S.
SOJOURNER? Yay!
Else they'll multiply like rabbits
Red Rover, Red Rover, Let Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Come Over
.
;-)
Sorry, the image of the little one crawling to it's dad after a crash.. kinda choked me up ....
Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
Was anyone else reminded of the scene when the one robot finds the other one after the guy hit it with an axe? Poor little robot...
Is Mars so boring now that we're just sending things there to look at other things we've sent there?
...in a dorky kind of way.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
It was probably taken by whoever stole our herds of sweet sweet Buggalo.
I'm a little robot.
I'm a little robot who is lost.
I'm a little robot who is lost from Earth.
If I'm a little robot who is found, please call the interstellar hot line 1-800-LOSTROBOTS.
I wonder why don't they try to image probes from Russian Mars probe program? It would be interesting and important to know why did they ultimately failed. Mars 2 and 3 even had small rovers which maybe could be imaged, if they were deployed.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
My eyes and monitor are good, but I can't tell what the labels are to. Couldn't anyone draw a line to whatever the item is that they think is the rover? I'm just not seeing it at all. It's like where's Waldo in black and white but with a much, much smaller Waldo.
stuff |
It's so bad that the editors of the article forgot to include a scale to indicate the actual size of the area in the image.
One probe leaves...
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I think I saw the prequel to this movie when I was a kid...
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/54360
I suggest the following survival guide: How To Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion
If the rover is still functioning can it be used to take more measurements? Would there even be a point, or has the rover been made obselete by the newer ones?
an infographic listing the challenges NASA faces with the rovers, and one of them is "Must maneuver around burnt-out hunks of failed probes littering Martian surface"
Monstar L
If you want to geek out and track the lifespan of the various Mars missions, you can do so on your Palm with MarsClock. If you want the desktop version check out Mars24. Both should be updated for Pheonix sometime this year.
Space and Computers.
;-)
is that a face I see on Mars?
Did anyone else read that headline as "Sigourney Weaver"?
I'm going to go crawl into my hole now...
Aikon-
There is a collection of much higher resolution pictures on the NASA site to the point you can see the ramps on the lander.
It is difficult to see whether the sojurner rover is nearby or not. The programming was set to make it do so but I like the thought of an intrepid little robot setting off on it's own.
"It's a magical world, Hobbes old buddy. Let's go exploring"
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
We're spending all this money so we can spot a lost robot millions of miles away, so why can't we point it back at earth and help me find my KEYS!
GAAAAH!
After we colonize Mars, the first one to find it gets a 25 million dollar coffee table for their new home!
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
That's because you crazy: (see link for more details)
http://www.ineedcaffeine.com/unboring.php
What most amazes me are the Viking landers. Looking at some of the pictures they took, the quality is just great. And they kept transmitting information for years - I think Viking 2 finally died in 1982 or something, six years after landing. Cult 1970s technology!
We're going to *have* to colonize Mars just so we can issue ourselves a junkyard permit.
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
This would be great if confirmed. The rover was programmed to move toward the lander station if I did not receive any commands for a certain period of time in order to improve its radio signal with the lander. But without a way to communicate with Earth (probably because the lander's batteries died and that rover relied on the lander for Earth contact), JPL had no way to know what the rover was doing during this time and if this emergency procedure was carried out. Now we may have an idea about how the rover did on its own. Perhaps it even built a clubhouse and spa during our absense :-)
Table-ized A.I.
...you're just f*ckin' blind.
Do these people really make a difference? I remember hippies protesting over Cassini but that didn't stop the mission. Did NASA actually want to use RTGs on these Martian probes and get flamed into submission? If they did, then they're wussies.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Or was it... Megatron?!?!
I will forever be a student.
I can't understand why Slashdot links to the New Scientist site when NASA is surely the best place to link to. Seems like a ploy for traffic by New Scientist to me.
Anyway, there's a better image here.
I thought the Mars Pathfinder lander had been renamed Sagan Memorial Station?
Although it looks like someone put decals all over it:
& satitle=big+trak
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40
"Time is an abstract concept devised by carbon-based lifeforms to monitor their ongoing decay." - Thundercleese
... but I still want to go there.
It's got this immense benefit over the earth: no lawyers and no politicians. For now.
MRO has only been on station a few months, since March. Imaging these four American landers were probably higher priorities than older Soviet landers.
I believe the appearent bias is for technical reasons, such as newer radio tracking technology, and the fact that surface images are used to help find the landing sites. No Soviet probe ever returned a surface image.
Somebody discovered that if they stretch the vertical scale of a Viking surface image, the distant hills were more easy to see. This allowed them to match them to orbiter photos of the general vacinity.
The Sojourner landing set found two fairly large hills in the distance that were used to pinpoint their spot.
The two current rovers also sent back images from about a mile high just before landing for the very purpose of finding them from orbit. (Technically the camera was on the outer appuratus, not the rovers themselves.)
This is partly in response to the lost Polar Lander, which they are still looking for to gain clues to what went wrong. The fact that Polar Lander didn't send radio signals nor images is why it is still lost. Thus, Polar Lander is in the same boat as the Soviet landers and Beagle.
It is not nationalism bias, at least not yet.
Table-ized A.I.
I haven't found anywhere on a NASA site that shows the purported Sojourner rover - only New Scientist and one other online news site do, so far.
In case of communications failure, the Sojourner rover was programmed to return to the lander and circle it. It's unlikely that it's kilometers away.
What this photo doesn't show is the large army of killer robots just off frame.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
The article links to a downsized picture. If you really want in on the fun, download the 6.2 MB full size image from the MRO website.
The Pathfinder lander itself is labeled MPF. It's about 2/3 of the way across the image (to the right) and perhaps 500 pixels from the top. It appears lighter than the surrounding material, roughly triangular in shape, and has a slight shadow to the right.
I'm not sure which point they think is the adorable little Sojourner (pic of mockup next to Spirit and Odyssey on earth), but I think it's the two light grey pixels with a shadow about 15-20 pixels north of Pathfinder. That may just be one of the rocks it studied, though.
The parachute and backshell are also labeled. The round object is the aerodynamic backshell that covered the top of the lander during entry. It is attached to the parachute, which is draped over the ground a few meters northeast.
The think the heatshield fragments are pretty self-explanatory, although I'm unsure why it's so scattered. It must have broken up, probably tumbling, shortly after being released.
The distribution of parts around the landscape makes some sense if you know how it landed. Pathfinder entered the Martian atmosphere at about 17,000 mph. It aerobraked using the heatshield down to about 900 mph. After two minutes, the parachute deployed and the heat shield was released. The lander was then lowered on a tether so it would be clear of the backshell. 8 seconds before touchdown, the airbags inflated and retrorockets fired. 2 seconds before touchdown, the tether was cut, with the retrorockets carrying the backshell safely away from the lander, and the Pathfinder bounced down onto its airbags.
I think the Pathfinder payed for itself just in coolness (come on...airbags! Who thinks this stuff up?). Add science and engineering lessons learned, and this mission is priceless.
Now that's just incredibly cool... A rover with self motivation.
I can't wait for the next news story that Sojourner is driving around Mars, stealing parts off other rovers to repair and improve itself...
We may have the first Mars ghost story.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I love that they named one of the rocks Stimpy. Though it leave me wondering where Commander Hoek is...perhaps he got the.....SPACE MADNESS!
The pathfinder rover is 63cm long. How many toasters are 63cm long? Come on Slashdot. If you're going to make a comparison, at least ensure it is apt.
that's not a sojourner, it's a SCHOONER!
I'll look for it!
~psybre
Authority questions you. Return the favor. -- d474
now, not to be a dick, but how could it take off on its own, it is tethered there - not even the wind can drag it away ;-)
"It's a magical world, Hobbes old buddy. Let's go exploring"
Mars is amazing! Mars is amazing!
... what's that horseshoe-shaped arrangement of little rounded dome-like things in the picture in the article? Look about 1/4 of the way down, 1/3 of the way across.
Don't worry they all go to Silicon Heaven!
What?? No such thing as Silicon Heaven??
Where would all the calculators go?
Small Probe and Big Probe fly into an upper atmo bar.
The ex-NASA bartender says, "What'll it be, boys?"
Small Probe responds "I'll have a Pint of ale, please."
Big Probe says, "I'll have a Liter of ale, please."
The ex-NASA bartender just gives them a Quart of ale each, which they drink and then leave.
Small Probe crashes his ride and dies in a pool of his own vomit. Big Probe lands safely, a bit pissed that he got ripped off on his drink, but later ends up in therapy since he blames himself for Small Probe's death in letting him drive. The ex-NASA bartender is fired for giving out free product, is convicted of "criminal negligence resulting in death" in a Martian court, and is sentenced to 7-10 years in the Phobos Mining Prison. Both Big Probe and the ex-NASA bartender are financially decimated after being named in and losing the wrongful death lawsuit brought by Small Probe's family. Ironically, Big Probe develops a drinking problem and now blames the ex-NASA bartender for all his problems. In a drunken rage, he corners the ex-NASA bartender in a filthy bar toilet stall and beats him to death with a titanium pipe. Before swallowing two bottles of sleeping pills and dying himself, his final hate-filled thoughts are directed toward himself and the JPL.
Remember, unit conversion always matters!
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yjiGH9QNiU0
Are we sure it's not 3cm, or 3mi? How about 3"?
I thought the Mars Pathfinder lander had been renamed Sagan Memorial Station?
It was. But the name "Pathfinder" is what is stuck in people's minds.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!