'Curiosity' - NASA Mars Rover - Due to land 5th Aug 2012

[mrmr96]

NASA link to that:
Mars Water (Phoenix 2008) http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/pho...

[mrmr96]

Cheers for those, I'll just "un-thumb-ify" them:

[mrmr96]

Do we know why the top photo shows "target" type markings on several sections of the robot?

[mrmr96]

Loads of great informative links - cheers chaps!

[mrmr96]

Youtube video: "Top 5 Coolest things about Curiosity"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB2eB2qH2-A

[mrmr96]

FurtiveFreddy said:

SkinnyBoy said:

[mrmr96]

You guys know this isn't a photo shop thread?

[mrmr96]

FurtiveFreddy said:

Don't go! The stitching together stuff is ace. (The inserting of aliens though... not so much.)

[mrmr96]

FurtiveFreddy said:

Bedazzled said:

That's pretty poor in comparison to the amount of data they are collecting. Nasa are planning a Laser Communication Relay mission, details here, if that works we could get a live video feed from Mars!

Live apart from the 14 minute delay, of course!

If you had a big enough telescope to look directly at mars with the naked eye, there would still be a 14min delay as that's light speed of course. So I DO think it's fair to describe such a transmission as being 'live'.

[mrmr96]

TheHeretic said:

mrmr96 said:

If you had a big enough telescope to look directly at mars with the naked eye, there would still be a 14min delay as that's light speed of course. So I DO think it's fair to describe such a transmission as being 'live'.

Nothing you see, or hear is actually 'live'.

If there's no artificial delay, then it's live. (IMO)

[mrmr96]

Gwagon111 said:

My big boss has just made a speech at our (stuff has landed on mars) celebration dinner. I had to laugh, now everyone is staring at me.

Where do you work? What do you do? What cool stuff can you tell us?!

[mrmr96]

FurtiveFreddy said:

We are all just a pixel floating in space

This one is better from that point of view:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

(We're just over halfway down the reddish band on the right.)

[mrmr96]

rxtx said:

Zaxxon said:

That's not too slow seeing as an emergency stop would take a few hours to send and recieve.

The communications lag is about 14 minutes each way currently isn't it?

That's right. The real reason for the low average speed is the fact that i) they don't want any mishaps, and ii) there's about 400 scientists on the project who will each have a desire to stop and look at different things along the way. (The interviewee likened it to going on a road trip with 400 scientists sat in the back of your car, and they all want to stop and look at every little thing along the way, whilst you're trying to drive somewhere!)

[mrmr96]

The human story behind the robot as told by one guy who spent 7 years on the Curiosity project:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCKogFDM3Zg&fea...

(Again, makes you realise why they will take so few chances with it now it's there safely!)

[mrmr96]

FurtiveFreddy said:

TheHeretic said:

Oakey said:

In all seriousness, what about the first pic I highlighted? That looks like it might have been an interesting rock to look closer at.

Indeed. Definite straight lines, although that could be natural wind abrasion, maybe, or something like that? Maybe layering coming through. Still worth a look at.

I think those lines are compression/processing artifacts. If you compare the highest resolution .TIF image NASA has released with that .JPG image, you can see a lot of JPG compression causing all sorts of patterning. The right hand image has been processed less and although it doesn't look as sharp, its probably closer to the original image the camera sent back.

Good analysis. Thanks. We should get "pixlepusher" to have a look and give his professional opinion.

[mrmr96]

Zad said:

Looks like it was successful:

FANTASTIC

[mrmr96]

HD video of the entry descent and landing now available:
http://www.wimp.com/curiositydescent/

[mrmr96]

Curiosity rover hijacked by will.i.am to debut science song
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/27/curiosity_...

On Tuesday NASA is pimping out its Curiosity rover to silly-named songster will.i.am so that he can use it to premiere his latest song Reach for the Stars.

The song, which NASA says is "a new composition about the singer's passion for science, technology, and space exploration," will be uploaded by the rover and sent back to Earth at 1pm Pacific Time (11pm UT) on Tuesday, hopefully without polluting the Martian atmosphere. The transmission will form part of an education session for kids by NASA about the science behind the Mars mission.

[mrmr96]

FurtiveFreddy said:

Some nice images from the 100mm mastcam have just been released



More here: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/ind...

Too early to tell, or does that look like sediment layers?

[mrmr96]

oj113 said:

mrmr96 said:

Curiosity rover hijacked by will.i.am to debut science song
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/27/curiosity_...

On Tuesday NASA is pimping out its Curiosity rover to silly-named songster will.i.am so that he can use it to premiere his latest song Reach for the Stars.

Yes, I saw this being reported today, depressed me beyond belief. First the Olympic Torch Relay now this...

Got me thinking though, they should have just strapped him to the rocket and sent him with the bloody thing, he could have bipped happily away on his Casio keyboard direct from Mars and we could have been shot of the annoying little turd.

If the kids like him, well I don't see it as a problem. I think he has done some other sciency type stuff? At a certain age and level of engagement kids will be awestruck by the science itself. Other kids, either younger or less engaged, may well be hooked in by this type of stunt. By no means all, but maybe 'some' would fall in that gap. So whilst there's no huge (incremental!) cost to doing it, it's not such a bad thing. I'm sure we'd all have our own ideas on whose song would have been best suited for the stunt, but it doesn't really matter. Certainly not enough to be depressed by!