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Phoenix Mars Lander Updates
spandex_panda writes "There are a few pictures of the Mars Lander on the ground — you can see its parachute and its heat shield a few kilometers away, too. There's a very cool looking picture of it floating down, actually captured while it's in the air with its parachute out!" We also have a YouTube video all about the robot arm that will dig down and probably find a groundhog who we all hope will see his shadow.
Yes
If there is no atmosphere/air on Mars,
Wrong. Mars does have an atmosphere though it is much less dense than our own. Read the Wiki about Mars exploration which talks about the parachutes. A quick Google will turn up much more information about atmospheric density, size of parachutes to compensate for a less dense atmosphere, size of objects to be parachuted, etc.
why in the world do we have a parachute on the lander?
Because it was too big and heavy to use the bouncing airbag routine the two rovers used to successfully land on Mars. Further, bouncing creates much more shock to the system than a one-off parachute deployment.
Also, "captured while its in the air" might not be an appropriate way to summarize the article as there is no air on Mars.
See my second comment. You are assuming something which is not correct.
Can someone please explain why we are wasting our money putting a parachute on the lander?
I just did.
And to think I gave up the opportunity to mod you a troll to explain something so basic.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
You're missing something about the relative distances and resolution of the observing telescope.
This is the best we have at the moment:
the shadow of a lander is just visible
relevant earlier AskSlashdot
Perhaps in a lot of missions, you'd be right on. This one in particular, however, involves digging beneath the top dirt to get at the "permafrost" ice beneath, which is at an unknown (though thought to be small, like a few inches to a foot) depth.
Blowing away the top layer of dust may have helped.
The answer is very simple: because the Apollo moon landing equipment is on the moon, not on Mars.
They have never done mapping of the moon on such a detailed resolution because the moon is not considered as interesting as Mars. Since there is no reason to believe the moon has ever had the smallest chance of developing life, it doesn't have the same scientific and popular appeal as Mars, where the possibility that life existed at some time in the past hasn't yet been disproved.
It's as close as you can get to reconstructing the real color from a series of monochrome images taken with different color filters
Meaning they are at least as accurate as photos from your digital camera, which work exactly the same way. The three primary colors combined to make up your digital color photo are made using color filters.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I think NASA and co. would like to figure out about the possibility of existing or deceased life on Mars before we set about infecting the planet with biota from Earth. I can certainly see the value in a project like the one you propose, but the current NASA mandate for Mars still seems to be "Is there life right now?"
[Why no images of moon landers taken from orbiters] We have satellites with cameras circling mars.
There have been various satellites orbiting the moon taking images since Apollo, but it seems that they send the most powerful cameras to Mars instead of the moon. The moon is not "in style" at the moment. The moon orbiter budgets have been small compared to the Mars counterparts, even if you factor in the distance.
Table-ized A.I.
Modding him troll would have been wrong, and an abuse of mod points. Clearly, it was a VERY dumb question, showing a COMPLETE lack of knowledge about the topic at hand, but it appeared to be a genuine question. It certainly didn't deserve any up-mods, but the down-mods would be equally as inappropriate.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
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Maybe, though it would be nice if Taco and Company would add another option. Something along the lines of Stupid, Idiot, Moron or You've Got to be Kidding!
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I don't care if we kill the Martian bacteria - once we've studied them, it's no longer humanity's concern to preserve them. Intelligent life (even as intelligent as a very stupid fish) should be preserved, but not bacteria.
;)
Aliens everywhere agree with you! We're not their concern until we're at least as intelligent as a very stupid Narfeneg.
Don't let the big filter hit you on the way out.
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Science -- Sealed, Delivered.