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Mars Lander Seismometer Gets Protective Shield (theguardian.com)

Posted by msmash on from the marching-forward dept.

Nasa's InSight Mars lander has placed a domed shield over its seismometer, completing that instrument's deployment. From a report: The seismometer will look for evidence of ongoing seismic activity on the red planet to provide data about the deep interior of Mars. This will help scientists determine how the planet formed. The seismometer, called the seismic experiment for interior structure (Seis), is the lander's highest priority science instrument. It is needed to complete about three-quarters of the mission's scientific objectives. The spacecraft touched down on 26 November 2018. On 19 December, a robotic arm picked up the instrument from its storage position and placed it on the martian surface about 1.6 metres away from the spacecraft.

4 of 24 comments (clear)

  1. Silly question about the seismometer. by KixWooder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Can anyone tell me what all the bow-tie looking symbols are that painted all over the seismometer. It looks like they are on the shield, as well.

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    I hate fat people.
    1. Re:Silly question about the seismometer. by Xolotl · · Score: 2

      These are reference points for assesing the position and orientation of the seismometer and the shield as they are put in place by the robot arm. They're like the smilar little bow-tie symbols on crash test dummies etc.

    2. Re:Silly question about the seismometer. by necro81 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Those are called fiducials. They are used to very precisely determine the location, distance, and orientation of an object when pictures of that object are taken. Because of their contrasting colors, the edges of different "wedges" are easy for a human or computer vision system to pick up; the center point is the intersection of those edges, etc. The "ovalness" of the fiducial can be used to determine the angle to the camera.

      The same kind of fiducials are placed all over crash tests to track motion and displacement.

  2. Too bad they couldn't come up a recursive acronym by sconeu · · Score: 2

    If they could have come up with an MIC portion "on Mars InSight Craft"?

    Then it could have been a recursive acronym... SEISMIC Experiment for Interior Structure on Mars InSight Craft

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    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.