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Mars Probe Brings the "Weather Rock" New Respect

Posted by timothy on from the if-tail-is-wet dept.

radioweather writes "What looked to casual observers like a malfunction, a dangling wire with something on the end, seen in the first photo of the meteorological mast on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, actually turned out to be the real instrument. Surprisingly, it is much like the novelty 'weather rock' seen as a novelty gag around the world. The instrument called the 'Telltale' is described as a 'passive wind indicator' and uses an extremely lightweight Kapton tube hanging in Kevlar fiber. Images taken of the instrument will show the deflection of the Telltale due to the Martian wind."

5 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Don't you hate it when... by tiedyejeremy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't you hate it when... Simple makes sense?

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    Anything you say will be held against you. ... "tits"
    1. Re:Don't you hate it when... by krog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The windsock is pretty tough to beat.

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      Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
    2. Re:Don't you hate it when... by Stanistani · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's true. You could build it for $1.

      Now, step two: Get it to Mars.

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      You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
  2. Re:Why not a weather vane? by desenz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It definitely wins in the durability department. Dust is a real problem on mars, so wherever that weather vane pivots would have to be sealed up pretty tight.

  3. Re:Why not a weather vane? by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Great, Now make your nice lightweight fragile weathervane survive 9g's of reentry and almost that amount on launch, plus numerous bumps at various times in the mission.

    Touchdown on the Mars Surface was 5 miles an hour. How hard could it be. Now, crash your Toyota into a wall at 5 MPH and you might find that the 5 MPH bumpers really only work at 4.95 MPH. Oops.

    It's easy to make a lightweight weathervane. It's hard to make a lightweight weathervane, get it to Mars, and still have it in working order.

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