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The Ongoing Mars Explorer Thread (1 Viewer)

Peter Kline

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THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN PANNED AND SCANNED!

HERE' S THE COMPLETE VERSION:


Resolution will be good enough to project on a theatre screen eventually. Later ones should be in color.

More photos are available here.

There will be a PBS Nova Special Sunday evening (4th). Check your local listings for time and station.
 

BrianShort

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Peter: Isn't the Pancam resolution something crazy like 50000x4000? The test images at the Athena website are very high quality. Can't wait to see some high res color images soon.

Edit: Nevermind, I see the actual imager is 1024x1024, with a resolution of 1mm per pixel of an object 10 feet away. Probably a full panorama would be a LOT larger.

Brian
 

Francois Caron

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Peter, does that picture indicate WE'LL be the one uttering "Take me to your leader?" :D

Pretty exciting night! The SNL repeat didn't stand a chance. :)

I too can't wait for the high resolution colour images to start coming in. I wonder how well NASA's Internet servers will be able to handle the load? At the last successful mission, most of us were still downloading images via dial-up connections. But with millions of people now possessing broadband connections, there'll be a fight to download those images as soon as they come in.
 

Peter Kline

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Actually, the alien is a parking attendant. Unfortunately, there's no cash aboard so I think we'll have to move the Rover pretty soon. :)

I understand these images will be in color next week.
 

BrianShort

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During this morning's press conference, they said there should be a spectacular color panorama late tonight.

Brian
 

Jack Briggs

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Though Spirit may a rover robot be,
Its landing is a victory for the human family.

Thrilling! Words cannot express how wonderful a moment this is.
 

CharlesD

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Here is a Mars "sun clock" Java app. LINK

It shows a graphical display of Mars with the MER-A, MER-B, Viking, Pathfinder and Beagle 2 landing sites as well as the day/night. Currently it is 04:08 am on Sol 2 for MER-A (Spirit).
 

CharlesD

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A "Sol" is a Martian Day, 24 hours & 39 minutes (IRRC).

Sol 2 means its the second Martian day of the mission on the surface.
 

Peter Kline

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An interesting sidelight of little importance. The British press refers to the National Aeronautics And Space Administration as "Nasa". We refer to it as "NASA".
Today the Brits admitted that their Mars Express oribiter is in the wrong orbit and will be adjusted to seek out a signal from Beagle 2 on Wednesday. NASA can no longer help in the search as they are busy.
 

Jack Briggs

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Charles, I thought you were referring to the planet itself (i.e., Mercury being Sol 1, Venus being Sol 2, and so on). Sorry!
 

Peter Kline

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At this morning's newsconference they said a spectacular panoramic color photo with 3 1/2 times more resolution then the black and white one released will be available this evening. Possibly with 5.1 sound?
 

BrianShort

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I thought they said 14x, since the images last night were shrunk down.

One of the NASA sites said they would be able to stitch together panoramic images of 4000x24000 :D

Brian
 

Peter Kline

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The black and whites were from the low rez Nav camera. The Panoramic will be from the hi rez camera they said. Perhaps 14X is correct. Wow!
 

Peter Kline

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PBS Nova show was very good. They inserted last nights events at the end. A follow up show is scheduled for Tuesday night when the color Panorama shots, and others I would think, will be shown.
 

John Nelson

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I stayed up quite late here on the east coast watching NASA TV on the web, and it was well worth it. Quite thrilling-- the kind of thing we space buffs live for. I can scarcely wait for the color high res photos!

However, I too am concerned about the liberties that NASA is taking in editing its downloads. They have not been terribly upfront with us about how they distracted the Martian Defense Forces, which is, of course, why the Mars Rover Explorer was allowed to survive its landing, whereas Beagle 2 quite possibly has not:

http://forum.racesimcentral.com/atta...hmentid=141063
 

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