4 ms·

Interesting facts that I didn't know before seeing this video: - The opportunity rover captured a barren scene which was named Rub Al Khali (Yes! On Mars!), na

Interesting facts that I didn't know before seeing this video: - The opportunity rover captured a barren scene which was named Rub Al Khali (Yes! On Mars!), named after the Rub Al Khali desert area which touches UAE, Saudi, Oman and Yemen. (1) (2) - The video says that Mars rovers send back images (not videos) and then those images are stitched together to create videos, because "nothing ever moves on Mars". But I wonder how a Mars video will look. Maybe it will surprise us (movements due to winds). - Mars has a lot of clay (i.e. it was once a watery planet) - Some videos took 1,000 images to make - There is a beautiful selfie at timestamp 6:41 - There is dune named "Namib" on Mars, shown at timestamp 9:10, named after Namib desert in Africa. (3) (4)

nobrains 6y ago
References: (1) https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5874/opportunitys-rub-al-khali-panorama/ https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5874/opportunitys-rub-al-kha... (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rub%27_al_Khali https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rub%27_al_Khali (3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namib https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namib (4) https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/slip-face-on-downwind-side-of-namib-sand-dune-on-mars https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/slip-face-on-downwind...
jerf 6y ago
"There is a beautiful selfie at timestamp 6:41" Where's the camera in that selfie? Perhaps edited out of the mosiac?
- salgernon 6y ago
  There's an explanation and video[1]; I remember thinking the same a few years ago. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-takes-a-new-selfie-before-record-climb https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-...
  - jerf 6y ago
    Thank you. That's probably a great example of one of the benefits of these rovers running for so long. They'd never have scheduled something so non-science-oriented if they only got the few weeks they expected, but when your mission exceeds expectations by several thousand percent, you have time for such things.
cryptoz 6y ago
Mars is constantly moving. There are wind storms, dust devils, ice melting, all kinds of things. Here's a dust devil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8lfJ0c7WQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8lfJ0c7WQ8 (again, it's still images to make a video) but not because "nothing ever moves on Mars"! Mars is constantly shifting and changing with its weather and seasons. Ice caps freeze more, and ice caps melt more, water or other liquid flows down hills when it gets warm. More often than dust storms, a new robot comes down to land on Mars in firey rocket-landing-fueled or bouncing-ball style. Movement. Mars is constantly hit by rocks from space that create craters and push dust up into the atmosphere. I've never heard someone say "Nothing ever moves on Mars" because it's really not true and a total lack of imagination. Maybe people think nothing moves because we haven't sent video cameras yet? But...Mars is constantly in motion.
- dmix 6y ago
  When something is quoted like that it usually means it's a reference to something, not a literal statement. In this case I'm guessing it's a play on "Nothing ever happens on Mars" by the Spinal Tap guy.
- astroflask 6y ago
  Earlier this year I made a video[0] where I took two images which are frequently posted on reddit that show the movement of martian sand over a day and interpolated (with python and opencv) the movement into a smooth video. I'm currently working on restoring some Apollo footage, but one of the pending projects is taking the Curiosity descent sequence (at 4 frames per second) and give it a shot at some nice quality, XXI century interpolation (we have some very good algorithms now, or at least better workarounds the artifacts). [0] https://youtu.be/k7pfdFMVj-o https://youtu.be/k7pfdFMVj-o
  - garaetjjte 6y ago
    >give it a shot at some nice quality, XXI century interpolation I think it has been done? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMntZ6_R78Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMntZ6_R78Q
TravHatesMe 6y ago
> named after the Rub Al Khali desert area > named after Namib desert in Africa In a few hundred years, maybe these won't be deserts anymore. It will make for an interesting fact!

nobrains 6y ago

References: (1) https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5874/opportunitys-rub-al-khali-panorama/ https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/5874/opportunitys-rub-al-kha... (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rub%27_al_Khali https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rub%27_al_Khali (3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namib https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namib (4) https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/slip-face-on-downwind-side-of-namib-sand-dune-on-mars https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/slip-face-on-downwind...

jerf 6y ago

"There is a beautiful selfie at timestamp 6:41" Where's the camera in that selfie? Perhaps edited out of the mosiac?

salgernon 6y ago
There's an explanation and video[1]; I remember thinking the same a few years ago. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-takes-a-new-selfie-before-record-climb https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-...
- jerf 6y ago
  Thank you. That's probably a great example of one of the benefits of these rovers running for so long. They'd never have scheduled something so non-science-oriented if they only got the few weeks they expected, but when your mission exceeds expectations by several thousand percent, you have time for such things.

cryptoz 6y ago

Mars is constantly moving. There are wind storms, dust devils, ice melting, all kinds of things. Here's a dust devil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8lfJ0c7WQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8lfJ0c7WQ8 (again, it's still images to make a video) but not because "nothing ever moves on Mars"! Mars is constantly shifting and changing with its weather and seasons. Ice caps freeze more, and ice caps melt more, water or other liquid flows down hills when it gets warm. More often than dust storms, a new robot comes down to land on Mars in firey rocket-landing-fueled or bouncing-ball style. Movement. Mars is constantly hit by rocks from space that create craters and push dust up into the atmosphere. I've never heard someone say "Nothing ever moves on Mars" because it's really not true and a total lack of imagination. Maybe people think nothing moves because we haven't sent video cameras yet? But...Mars is constantly in motion.

dmix 6y ago
When something is quoted like that it usually means it's a reference to something, not a literal statement. In this case I'm guessing it's a play on "Nothing ever happens on Mars" by the Spinal Tap guy.
astroflask 6y ago
Earlier this year I made a video[0] where I took two images which are frequently posted on reddit that show the movement of martian sand over a day and interpolated (with python and opencv) the movement into a smooth video. I'm currently working on restoring some Apollo footage, but one of the pending projects is taking the Curiosity descent sequence (at 4 frames per second) and give it a shot at some nice quality, XXI century interpolation (we have some very good algorithms now, or at least better workarounds the artifacts). [0] https://youtu.be/k7pfdFMVj-o https://youtu.be/k7pfdFMVj-o
- garaetjjte 6y ago
  >give it a shot at some nice quality, XXI century interpolation I think it has been done? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMntZ6_R78Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMntZ6_R78Q

TravHatesMe 6y ago

> named after the Rub Al Khali desert area > named after Namib desert in Africa In a few hundred years, maybe these won't be deserts anymore. It will make for an interesting fact!