Slashdot Mirror
Mars Lander Instrument Waving In the Martian Wind
Matt_dk writes "This series of images show Phoenix's telltale instrument waving in the Martian wind. Documenting the telltale's movement helps mission scientists and engineers determine what the wind is like on Mars. On the day these images were taken, one of the images seemed to be 'out-of-phase' with other images, possibly indicating a dust devil occurrence."
Insert joke here about my "telltale instrument" waiving in the wind.
The most Illustrious Council of Elders has decried this latest humiliation inflicted upon its noble citizens by the latest mechanical invader from the blue planet. K'breel, speaker for the Council, stressed that this most recent insult would not be taken lightly:
When a small group of younglings questioned whether the telltale waving of the enemy's instrument was perhaps due to a gust of wind, K'Breel ordered their gelsacs pierced on the spot.
This series of images show Phoenix's telltale instrument waving in the Martian wind. Documenting the telltale's movement helps mission scientists and engineers determine what the wind is like on Mars.
On the day these images were taken, one of the images seemed to be "out-of-phase" with other images, possibly indicating a dust devil occurrence. Preliminary analysis of the images taken right before and after the passing of this possible dust devil indicates winds from the west at 7 meters per second. The image taken during the possible dust devil shows 11 meters per second wind from the south.
These images were taken by the lander's Surface Stereo Imager (SSI) on the 136th Martian day, or sol, of the mission (Oct. 12, 2008). Phoenix's telltale is part of the Canadian Space Agency's meteorological package on the lander.
The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University
Feel free to discuss this article in the forum... or chat...
How many landers must we see touch down
Before you can send one that's manned?
Yes, and how many times must you scoop the soil
Before you get some in the pan?
Yes, and how many sols must the dust storms fly
Before there's ice on polar land?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
As a carryover from a previous topic regarding the smell of space, I wonder if NASA is trying to determine the smell of the martian atmosphere.
While we have no humans in place to do the smelling, could samples be taken then sent back for "smell" analysis?
Previous topic( http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/16/1533239 )already touched on the importance of the smell of space, but what about Mars?
The fact that there is mass pushing that little flag around leads me to believe that there are also chemical components to provide smell "signatures".