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Crowdsourced Effort May Have Found Soviet Mars Mission's Remains

Posted by timothy on from the crispy-on-the-outside dept.

A story at Slashgear says that the remains of a Soviet mission to Mars may have been spotted — on Mars — by enthusiasts poring over old photos taken by a NASA orbiter. The article points out that the find must be confirmed by further imaging, but matches the seekers' expectations. From the article: "The community at VK.com/Curiosity_Live crowdsourced a mission to find the Soviet Union’s long-lost Mars 3 spacecraft, with the site’s leader, Vitali Egorov of St. Petersburg, Russia, creating models of what hardware from the spacecraft should look like. With this reference, the community combed through a large image taken five years ago by NASA’s MRO, identifying what is believed to be the craft’s parachute, lander, terminal retrorocket, and heat shield."

10 of 16 comments (clear)

  1. Stranfe quote FTA: by lxs · · Score: 2

    "The HiRISE image in which the possible spacecraft parts were discovered is massive with 1.8 million pixels, which NASA says would require approximately 2500 average computer monitors to view."

    I guess that is 2500 monitors at NASA or 1 smartphone. Please tell me that it should be 1.8 billion pixels.

    1. Re:Stranfe quote FTA: by lxs · · Score: 4, Informative

      Turns out the number of 1.8 billion is stated correctly in the original press release.

  2. Mars 3 by nvn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is full story with nice pictures (google translate from russian) http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ru&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http://habrahabr.ru/post/175827/

  3. Great news by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

    Now when Val Kilmer goes to Mars he will know where to look so he can get back to Trinity on the ship! If only we can just keep the government from developing AIMEE.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  4. Re:Any Russians? by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Technically this is true. When an object lands on Mars, Mars lands on the object. They both have gravitational fields which attract one another.

    Whether this means that Earth has also gone Soviet is up to debate.

  5. Re:Any Russians? by ProzacPatient · · Score: 3, Funny

    It adds a whole new meaning to "The RED planet."

  6. Mars 3 = First Soft Lander on Mars by thrich81 · · Score: 4, Informative

    This shouldn't be news to anyone, but Mars 3 wasn't just any old mission. It was the first soft lander on Mars. Transmitted data for about 14-15 seconds, then ceased for unknown reasons.

    1. Re:Mars 3 = First Soft Lander on Mars by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Transmitted data for about 14-15 seconds, then ceased for unknown reasons.

      One theory was that a dust-storm knocked it over or caused static charges, killing it. There were known dust-storms in the general area during the mission (seen from Earth scopes as a pale obscuring of the usual dark areas).

      Another theory, at the time, was that it landed in a kind of "quick sand". Because of this theory, the US Viking probes were programmed to immediately take and send images of a lander foot-pad so that if it did sink, they'd at least have possible clues about the probe's death. In Viking 1's first image, you can see unsettled dust haze from the landing on one edge (it was a slow-scan kind of camera).

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  7. Re:Any Russians? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    So I'm not sleeping on the bed, the bed is sleeping on me?

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  8. Re:Any Russians? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    You are full of sheet!

    --
    Table-ized A.I.