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New Images From Mangalyaan

Posted by timothy on from the way-up-there dept.

schwit1 writes Indian scientists have released a new set of color images taken by their Mars orbiter, Mangalyaan. Arsia Mons is one of the three giant volcanoes to the east of Mars' biggest volcano, Olympus Mons. Arsia Mons is important for future manned colonization, as there are known caves on its western flanks. In addition, those western flanks show solid evidence of past glaciers, which means that it is very likely that those caves will harbor significant quantities of water-ice, making settlement much easier.

10 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Caves, etc. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why don't we ever send the rovers to cool places like this???

    1. Re:Caves, etc. by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      because bad things always happen in sci fi when you go into a cave. It's the natural equivalent of the red shirt. Hell, the whole damned planet is red!

      I would note that you couldn't use solar panels in caves; and communication with Earth would require relay station(s). There are solutions, but they do jack up the costs.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:Caves, etc. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      Because exploring caves is difficult and dangerous work even for the dexterous and adaptable humans. Robo-tech might be just about up to it on earth - but not to making the exploration with a near-zero accident rate, in an unmapped environment, on a weight budget, operating for years without servicing, after spending months in storage.

      It's going to take decades of robotic-technology advancement before we can consider something like that. Or a manned mission, which would be ridiculously expensive.

  2. Re:images shut down - anyone have mirrors? by lkcl · · Score: 2

    pictures here:
    https://www.facebook.com/isrom...
    http://www.vipnews.in/index.ph...

  3. Re:images shut down - anyone have mirrors? by MrL0G1C · · Score: 3, Informative

    Official Site:
    http://www.isro.gov.in/pslv-c2...

    --
    Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
  4. Under the red soil, Mars is blue by SternisheFan · · Score: 2
    Recent NASA photo that shows under the red soil, Mars is blue, courtesy of Curiosity's drill bit...

    http://www.nasa.gov/sites/defa...

    1. Re:Under the red soil, Mars is blue by itzly · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's not blue, that's white and gold.

  5. Re:lol, space nutters. by Alrescha · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "...we already have enough tech to feed a stable world population, so scientists should really be tasked with effective education and resource distribution before..."

    Do you seriously believe that this is a *technical* problem?

    Let me be blunt. The only reason the world is not fed, clothed, housed, etc. is because there is a significant percentage of the population that does not want that to happen.

    This is a social/political problem, not a technical one.

    A.

    --
    ...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
  6. Re:lol, space nutters. by Alrescha · · Score: 2

    "Humans are complex machines. Establishing how they work and fixing their faults is a technical problem."

    That's one point of view. I prefer this one:

    "If there is such a phenomenon as absolute evil, it consists in treating another human being as a thing."
                                    -- John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider.

    A.

    --
    ...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
  7. Re:lol, space nutters. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    No, people don't suck - the truth is, that on a global scale, I don't give a shit what happens to somebody I've never met, will never meet, and don't even know exists, in southeast bumfuck, Vietnam, and likewise, I don't expect that person to give a juicy fart's worth of care to MY existence.

    I know this will shock all you "Global Citizens" here on Slashdot, but it's human nature (and in fact, there's some research to support this - google Dunbar's Number sometime) that there's a fairly limited scope of people you "really care about" - and for most of us, people outside those circles of caring are simply not all that important.

    Now that doesn't mean it's okay to actively wish others harm... and I dare say that most of us would be hard-pressed to refuse to help a single stranger (or small group of strangers) in obvious distress. However, trying to make "7 billion people are miserable" my personal, relatable problem, is a fool's errand. I honestly don't care about "7 billion people." The REAL trick is to get *everybody* to care about (and for) the small number of people they know, and actually care about - this distributes the problem handily and makes everybody responsible for pitching in to help out "the people they care about" - done on a wide scale... this would eliminate the problem.

    Problems like this are solved by HUMANIZING them. Not by shouting at people and trying to "shame" them into caring. It's why images of disaster areas, war zones, and other places where people are suffering are so effective at triggering aid responses: when we see *actual people* suffering, we want to help. When you sit there talking shit about how "5 billion faceless hypothetical people are miserable, and you need to do something about that," the brain just shuts off.