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Mars Probe Brings the "Weather Rock" New Respect
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."
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Fascinating. This may be the first time 'angle of dangle' could be used in an actual scientific context.
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Don't you hate it when... Simple makes sense?
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Wonder if they included some good old fashioned Dowsing Rods to find water too?
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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.
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When you're sending something into orbit or further, payload weight is a concern. Cutting weight, moving parts, and simplifying things is generally a good idea on this sort of thing.
Remember that the surface air pressure on Mars is very small compared to on Earth. So you need a much lighter and more delicate instrument for the air to be able to move it. Anything resembling a traditional weather vane would probably not respond to the tenuous Martian breezes. Even if it worked at first, it might well get stuck after the first of those Martian dust storms blew dust into its pivot. Disclaimer: Yes I am a meteorologist. No, I have not been to Mars or worked on any instrument that went there.
And they already had enough respect as a simple form of wind indicator. You may have seen one at an airport, for example. It's not a weather rock.
See, the point, or "joke" as it were, of the weather rock is that it can't actually tell you anything you wouldn't have already known due to your own senses. "If it's wet it's raining, white it's snowing, bouncing and there's an earthquake." But you could tell all those things without the rock... get it?
A wind sock isn't very sophisticated, but it tells us things that wouldn't have been as apparent without it.
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So, of course, they will collect both angle of dangle (azimuth) AND degree of dangle (intensity), both of which vary over time and circumstances. I just don't want to know what they are using for the low-budget ground based simulator. "No Jim, lay back down. Your shift isn't over."
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Telltales have long been used in sailing. Most sails have some visible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell-tale
That they are incredibly rudimentary and primitive does not diminish their usefullness, provided they're used for what they're meant for. They're not going to predict anything, for example.
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Martian weather forecasting rock
o Rock has dust on it - there has been a martian sand storm
o Rock is swaying back and forth slighly - a martian sand storm is brewing
o Rock cannot be seen - there is a martian sand storm
o Rock is white - there is frozen water on Mars
o Rock is levitating - There is a UFO with an anti-gravity beam
o Rock is floating - Rock is in orbit around planet
o Rock has gone - UFO has been here and removed rock
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I can't wait for the first manned landing with the first weather report from Mars. "Well it looks kind of windy, hold on, let me take my glove and helmet off so I can lick my finger and hold it up to get a measurement of what direction the wind is blowing...." "POOF!" "ARRRGGGGGG!"
"Mars base, this is Houston, over"
"Mars base, this is Houston, over"
"Damn, I think we lost another weatherman..."
That's why I read Slashdot, so I can find innovative and workable solutions that were dreamed up after five minutes of consideration, rather than wasting time observing and learning about the decades-long efforts of a bunch of idiot engineers who have no friggin idea how to design, launch, navigate, land, and operate an interplanetary exploration robot.
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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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No, no, no:
If the rock is missing: Martians
To the best of my ability to read, we just spent a few million dollars so that we could learn the direction the wind was blowing. At one point. On a rock. A rock very, very far away from here. Where no humans fly, boat, or do anything else which benefits in the slightest from wind directional data.
Except, you know, that whole "understanding the environment of Mars" which benefits quite a bit from knowing about the wind. Sure it's only one location. On the other hand, it will be the only measurement we've ever had and thus a substantial increase in knowledge. They could have spent more on more sophisticated devices, compromising the mass (and dollar) budget, if you really wanted to.
It's hard for me to imagine how you could approve of the overall $420 million project, yet disapprove of this simple, lightweight, and relatively cheap instrument. If you're expecting anything discovered by the Phoenix to have a direct impact on sailing, boating, or any other thing we do here on earth, well, it's possible it will happen eventually, but don't hold your breath. So is it the entire concept of investigating other planets in our solar system that bothers you? Or is it really just the unsophisticated wind indicator?
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A dowsing rod doesn't actually detect anything (even according to practitioners) - it is simply a device to magnify subconscious body language of the operator. The theory is that the human operator detects water via poorly understood senses below conscious awareness. Some dowsers don't bother with the rods, claiming to have trained themselves to become more aware of these senses.
I know I "see" something like a flash of light whenever someone turns on a fluorescent light with magnetic ballast in another room - so I don't think the idea of additional senses is completely crazy.
Quite difficult, but it is being planned...
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The kapton tube does not swing in response to wind, it just deflects. The stronger the wind, the more it deflects. Imagine that it's a spring. Ever seen a car's radio antenna flex on the highway? Same idea.
Insects use exactly the same sort of mechanism to detect gentle air movements. This is one reason it's so hard to catch a fly with your hand when the fly has landed somewhere: the air currents generated by your comparatively large and slow-moving hand are easily detected by the fly.
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