Mars Science Lab (Curiosity) landing on 6th August Options

[Kev]

Curiosity, encased in a protective capsule-like shell, utilized a first-of-its kind automated flight entry system to sharply reduce its speed before landing.
Then it rode a giant supersonic parachute, a jet-powered backpack and a never-before-used "sky crane" to touch down inside a vast impact basin called Gale Crater, located near the planet's equator in its southern hemisphere.

Holy hell!

[mikes]

The Sky Crane is such a beautiful piece of engineering.

[John84]

I love it when we do shit like this. Makes me feel all 'humans are awesome'. Plus, astronomy etc, everyone loves this stuff.

Jumblr, on the Voyagers front, they are still transmitting, but there's no guarantee they'll last forever (even when inactive). Space isn't a total vacuum, so micro meteorites/any old shit they might run into in the Oort cloud region may well put paid to them a bit earlier than expected.

Also, this coincides with the item I currently covet the most in the world: the mars globe

[blablabla500]

Where do I get one John? WHERE?!

[John84]

Heh, it's made by Replogle globes, Stanford's in London sell it (though don't buy it from them, as though they may sell the good geography/astronomy shit, they sell it at crazy prices). Product decription makes me want it MORE.

Created from more than 6,000 images taken by the Viking orbiters, the 12-inch globe approximates the planet's true colour and emphasizes the striking bright and dark variations seen through telescopes. Produced in cooperation with NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, the globe includes official names for 140 features.

You can get it cheaper via the states, google is your friend. I've found out that due to my birthday being in two weeks, it is soon to be miiinne

[Kev]

Don't we have a couple of satellites circling Mars?

[John84]

Quite a few I think, NASA Odyssey snapped a pic of Curiosity on its way down to the surface...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19150849

Edit, apparently it wasn't Odyssey, but the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

This post has been edited by John84: Aug 6 2012, 19:45

[Kev]

It's still pretty cool.

[ladsnet]

I thought I read somewhere this one did have HD video cameras onboard?

[Jonnycondom]

I know it's never gonna happen, but I would love it if we got footage of a giant monster thing walking up to the camera and smashing it to pieces. I just want something interesting to happen on our planet/Mars/wherever

This post has been edited by Jonnycondom: Aug 6 2012, 22:51

[dixie]

I know it's never gonna happen, but I would love it if we got footage of a giant monster thing walking up to the camera and smashing it to pieces. I just want something interesting to happen on our planet/Mars/wherever

I want some little inquisitive creature to sniff around it and look directly in to the camera lens before running off.

[Parsifal]

I once saw a spoof photograph of the first landing on the Moon with the first astronaut's (Armstrong?) foot stepping on a pile of shit.

[AdrienAsche]

I know it's never gonna happen, but I would love it if we got footage of a giant monster thing walking up to the camera and smashing it to pieces. I just want something interesting to happen on our planet/Mars/wherever

I want some little inquisitive creature to sniff around it and look directly in to the camera lens before running off.

I want us to find a grey-complected, eight-foot tall humanoid in a biomechanical suit.

[Jonnycondom]

Or maybe an alien version of ourselves, all sat around on computers using FMMF (extra M for Mars)

[mikes]

Don't we have a couple of satellites circling Mars?

Yup, the main two being Reconnaissance orbiter (MRO) and Odyssey (ODY)

I thought I read somewhere this one did have HD video cameras onboard?

It does kinda... NASA are actually doing what I suspected and have taken a very fast sequence of still images during the descent which they will then combine into a HD video of the landing.

This post has been edited by mikes: Aug 7 2012, 07:59

[Kev]

NASA releases low-res video of Mars rover descent

I wish they had sound to go with it.

This post has been edited by Kev: Aug 7 2012, 10:53

[Unilad]

Jesus Christ, I have a nut job of a friend who is obsessed with conspiracy theories. He 'doubts' the Moon landing and truly believes the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the Bush Government. Now his not shutting up about this, arguing this is a fake and a ploy for governments to distract from the economy.

What can I possibly do, short of smacking him, to convince him these are real? lol.

[mikes]

Just show him the headlines EVERY DAY IN THE NEWS.

Not much distraction of one or two days of headlines is it?

[BillyBuddSailor]

[ic1male]

Can you imagine? I'd jump off a tall building immediately. I'm no Ellen Ripley.

The first colour panorama has been constructed -

"This is a very low-resolution panorama," explained Mike Malin, the principal investigator on the rover's Mastcam cameras.

"The individual frames are only 144 by 144 pixels. There are 130 of them in there. It took us about an hour and six minutes to take the mosaic.


"For the full-resolution panorama, the data volume will be 64 times larger, [and] the resolution will be eight times better. But this was pretty enough and interesting enough that we thought it was worth sharing with you guys," he told BBC News.

The colour is what the camera saw. Apart from the process of blending the individual frames, the only modification made was to brighten the image slightly.

Pictures are deliberately acquired underexposed so as not to saturate any bright regions in the field of view.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19201742