Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Curiosity's Latest High-Res Photo Looks Like Earth

Posted by timothy on from the ocean-front-property dept.

New submitter bbianca127 writes "Curiosity sent a picture down to us, and it looks a lot like Earth. Actually, the picture's color quality has been changed — to human eyes, the landscape would look a lot more reddish. Still, it looks remarkably like the southwestern United States (bringing to mind the Arrested Development quote about how Lucille Bluth would rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona)." Definitely a different sense of the place than the one given by the reddish-brown posters I remember from elementary school.

18 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Great summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Especially the part that mentions where the photo is from.

  2. impossibly obscure, personal cultural refences by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "bringing to mind the Arrested Development quote about how Lucille Bluth would rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona"

    no, actually, sorry, not at all

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:impossibly obscure, personal cultural refences by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Almost heaven, Martian winter,
      CO2 ice, rusty frozen water
      Light of Deimos in thin red sky
      Just can't breathe here, think I'm gonna die

      Take me home, Martian road,
      to that place far from home
      Marineris, Mount Olympus
      Take me home, Martian road.

  3. That's because it IS earth. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    How much more do we need before the public accepts that it's just a few guys driving around Nevada?

    1. Re:That's because it IS earth. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      It clearly is cg. Rocks don't look like that in Nevada.

    2. Re:That's because it IS earth. by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Funny

      How much more do we need before the public accepts that it's just a few guys driving around Nevada?

      I would accept a beer can in one of the photos as evidence.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    3. Re:That's because it IS earth. by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

      NASA blew its budget for CG on the ISS. Two guys, a Ford Bronco, a camera, and an unlicensed copy of Photoshop is all they can afford now.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    4. Re:That's because it IS earth. by GungaDan · · Score: 5, Funny

      "I would accept a beer can in one of the photos as evidence."

      Sorry, all they've found so far are Budweiser and Coors Light cans. But the search continues.

      --
      Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
  4. third parties? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is it that people keep redirecting me to a third party site to see the rover images, in stead of linking to the Nasa source?

    1. Re:third parties? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Because NASA doesn't have advertising?

      (Which is a completely wasted opportunity.)

    2. Re:third parties? by omnichad · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here you go:

      Original:
      http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA16051.jpg

      White balanced:
      http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/676031main_pia16051-figure_2_brightened-portalfull.jpg

    3. Re:third parties? by realityimpaired · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't think Opportunity has been wasted at all....

  5. White-balanced by neoshroom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's because that photo is the white-balanced version! A white-balanced photo is what the scene in Mars would look like if you literally took the scene, cut out that whole area of ground, transported it to Earth and viewed it under the Earth's sky.

    --
    Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
    1. Re:White-balanced by need4mospd · · Score: 5, Informative

      Science.

    2. Re:White-balanced by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Informative

      As much as I love the awesome idea of moving a chunk of terrain between planets, I'm going to shoot for an informative mod and answer the question.

      There is a sundial mounted on Curiosity, with a few colored stripes on it. Those stripes' colors (red, green, blue, and yellow) were recorded under Earth's lighting, Now that those same stripes are on Mars, their apparent color change in new pictures is the result of Mars' different lighting. By comparing the stripes' pictures, an approprite transformation can be determined, then applied to other pictures to compensate for the change in lighting.

      We are sure because we're assuming that those stripes' actual colors haven't changed significantly during flight or landing.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    3. Re:White-balanced by necro81 · · Score: 5, Informative

      On the rover are color calibration targets (here is the one for the rover's arm's instruments). We know exactly what the colors of those targets are supposed to look like, when imaged by the cameras on the rover, under normal Earth-like lighting conditions. By looking at how those targets appear in the images we get back under Mars lighting conditions, we can do two things:

      1) Learn a lot about the lighting conditions on Mars.
      2) Correct the appearance of images we get back to correct for that Mars lighting.

    4. Re:White-balanced by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Informative

      Gee, I wonder if such an image could be available on NASA's web site. Nah, that's unthinkable.

      Oh, wait, here it is: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4431

      --
      No sig today...
  6. Both versions by neoshroom · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is a page on the MSL's site where you can see both versions of the photo:

    http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4431

    One is white-balanced and one colored. The white-balanced version represents what the scene would look like to human eyes under an Earth sky. The colored represents what the scene would look like to human eyes on Mars.

    The point of using white-balanced photos is that geologists are used to looking at rocks on Earth. So when a geologist wants to judge rock characteristics using color, it helps to white-balance it so the color is similar to what it would be if looking at those rocks on Earth.

    __

    --
    Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.