NASA Spaceship Scouts Out Prime Mars Landing Spots

Posted by Zonk on Friday October 12, 2007 @04:39AM from the you-know-they-limit-the-good-ones-to-give-out-tickets dept.

coondoggie writes "NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter this week sent back high-resolution images of about 30 proposed landing sites for the Mars Science Laboratory, a mission launching in 2009 to deploy a long-distance rover carrying sophisticated science instruments on Mars. The orbiter's high-resolution camera has taken more than 3,500 huge, sharp images released in black-and-white since it began science operations in November 2006. The images show features as small as a desk. The orbiter has sent back some 26 terabytes of data, equivalent to about 5,000 CD-ROMs."

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Clearly I have the humor of a 12 year old... by Corpuscavernosa · 2007-10-12 04:48 · Score: 0, Redundant

... but somehow I wish we were talking about scouting Uranus.

--
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
Bad Math by Like2Byte · 2007-10-12 04:51 · Score: 1, Redundant

(26 terabytes) / (4 gigabytes) = 6 656

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=26+terabytes+%2F+4+gigabytes+%3D&btnG=Search

Which equates to ~6600 DVDs, not CD-ROMs.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=26+terabytes+%2F+720+megabytes+%3D&btnG=Search

(26 terabytes) / (720 megabytes) = 37 865.2444

That's 38000 CD-ROMs.