11 ms·

First full-resolution images of the Martian surface

435 points by ed209 14y ago

outside1234 14y ago
i hate to be critical of an image sent from millions of miles away but I have an honest question: Why do images from landers like this always look like there were taken from a iPhone 1's camera?
- pavel_lishin 14y ago
  If I had to guess - and I do, because I don't work for NASA - it's because there's a limited payload space on board, and visible images are some of the least interesting things, science-wise, that you can ask from Mars. Combine this with the electronics-unfriendly environment, and you probably aren't going to be strapping huge DLSR's on a 2.5 billion dollar science machine. Edit: Also, these appear to be the navigation cameras, so they're probably just good enough to be able to point the rover in a direction free of road hazards and tell it to boldly go where no other machine has yet gotten around to going.
  - hnriot 14y ago
    I doubt that is the reason, the weight of a 16mp sensor or marginally more than a 2mp one. The metal camera supports are much likely to dwarf the sensor weight differences. most of a DSLR's weight is lens and battery(s), both of which are not issues in this case, since the lens would be the same and the power comes from a nuclear battery. NASA couldn't just bolt on a 5DmkIII and expect it to work because the electronics would be fried. That said, the Apollo missions took a not-very-modified Hasselblad camera with them that worked fine, which is why we have much higher resolution pictures of the moon, despite it being decades ago.
    - jedberg 14y ago
      > That said, the Apollo missions took a not-very-modified Hasselblad camera with them that worked fine, which is why we have much higher resolution pictures of the moon, despite it being decades ago. That and the fact that they used sneakernet, which is still much higher bandwidth than wireless, especially in space.
      - flippyhead 14y ago
        Also, it was easier to do on a sound stage.
        thechut 14y ago
        While I'm guessing this is in jest. All of these hardening necessary raises a lot of question about the legitimacy of the older photos.
        sgt101 14y ago
        My child. In the past years, while your mother played in the sunlight and your father smiled at girls and drank cool drafts as the evening drew in, before you were even a glimmer or a sunbeam, we had devices called "film cameras". These "film cameras" did not have electronic components. They worked by using levers, springs and wheels. An emulsion that is reactive to light was prepared and pasted onto a plastic film. The plastic film was exposed to the light, but briefly. Later a complicated process was applied to transfer the reacted image (for that is what it was) onto other media, which could then be copied. If one looks upon The Sacred Ebay (all bless the name of Sacred Ebay) one will find similar devices today. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Leica-111a-Camera-No-276160-1938-/300753516935?pt=UK_Photography_VintageCameras_SM&hash=item46064e7987#ht_500wt_1332 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Leica-111a-Camera-No-276160-1938-/... In this way, the dark time became but light. Ahhhwaahhhh wooooo. Ahhhwahh wooo... (THIS IS IN JEST)
        pavel_lishin 14y ago
        I thought that one of the things that led to the discovery of radiation was an accidental exposure of photographic film by x-rays.
        sgt101 14y ago
        Yay, yay and verily. Forsooth though it is time to rely on sciencey things. http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/_techrep/CR188427.pdf http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/_techrep/CR188427.p... Wherein the effects of radiation on films is documented. The answer is that some damage occurs, but films are fogged only by extreme conditions such as those that STS-31 got hit by. I don't know what steps were taken by apollo to protect films, but I would not be surprised if some protection was used to prevent excessive damage. Also I would point out that Apollo missions were 8 days in length while the martian missions are 9 mths long (if they smash into Mars at 13k kmph) or hopefully 24 mths + long if they work - hence the serious need for hardening. Anyway - if you like don't believe in it all - the rest of us are happy looking at the photos, data and science and enjoying the general idea. You can believe in invisible pink unicorns or ghosts or something instead if you like! (we don't mind)
    - rdoherty 14y ago
      You also have to factor in that the camera needs to withstand take-off, deep space flight for months (hello radiation!), 11g's on re-entry, heat of re-entry and landing. Along with lasting for at least 2 years on Mars with no spare parts in sub-zero temperatures. There's a reason why they don't send the latest and greatest camera or computer technology into space.
    - mbell 14y ago
      > most of a DSLR's weight is lens and battery(s), both of which are not issues in this case, since the lens would be the same Only true if you assume the same sensor area for the 2MP sensor and the 16MP sensor, which is a poor assumption. If they did use sensors with the same area you would pay dearly with high noise and low sensitivity just to cram more pixels in there. I think most photographers figured out awhile ago that the "Megapixel War" is only meaningful as a way to pitch perceived quality to uninformed consumers.
- shin_lao 14y ago
  Patience, better images will come. They need to deploy the camera fully and it will take time to retrieve the data.
  - halitalptekin 14y ago
    Some Curiosity's Photos From Mars: http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html
- hnriot 14y ago
  It has only a 2 megapixel sensor, which is a shame. I am sure that it has something to do with radiation hardening and the other environmental factors. It would be good though if NASA did catch up with sensor technology. I suspect the 2MP sensor was approved years ago when it was state of the art.
  - skeletonjelly 14y ago
    Sure they have a 2 megapixel camera, but there are probably good reasons, of which you mentioned one I can think of. The other being that they can only send back limited data which has to contest with scientific experiments and navigation data, and they can take multiple 2MP shots to make a panorama like they do, effectively making a higher res image (assuming they can zoom).
  - pyoung 14y ago
    Yup, this mission has been in the works for ~10 years so I would imagine that they chose the specific sensor at least 6-7 years ago. Also NASA is notoriously risk averse (for good reason). Apparently it is very common for them to rely on old but proven technology. Some of this has to do with risk aversion, but I imagine some of it also has to do with budget. It pains me to think what NASA could be doing with 10x more money.
    - ballooney 14y ago
      >It pains me to think what NASA could be doing with 10x more money. Me too, but pretty much it all ends going to Lockheed anyway whether it comes via the DoD or Nasa. I don't mean that conspiratorially either, even JPL people joke that JPL stands for "Just Procure Lockheed". The subcontractors rarely get mentioned in Nasa PR, but Nasa is really a whole bunch of different project offices spread over a few campuses with an enormous ecosystem of subcontractors. I expect a vertical, strongly-led skunkworks style structure with guaranteed funding for several continuous years (vs "start working on this now but we can't promise we won't change our minds in 12 months" which causes a lot of subcontractors to not properly commit to new hires or other big capital commitments, and having to spread all the work evenly among different states) would probably yield 10x as much for exactly the same money. Regardless of all that organizational arm-chairing (though I work in this space, hoho), Curiosity is bloody fantastic and I am very excited to follow its progress over the next year at least. Camera chat: fewer bigger pixels = less ccd noise - remember Mars further away from the Sun than Earth, and so it's generally darker. Take an Iphone 1 photo of things at twilight to appreciate some of the difference!
- trafficlight 14y ago
  These images aren't even from the main cameras. These are still navcam images. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_rover#Rover_instruments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_rover#Rover_instrumen...
  - sosuke 14y ago
    I'm psyched they have a camera that can take true color images! Now we can see what Mars looks like without false color filtering. I wonder how close they get with those techniques to the real thing.
    - jebblue 14y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program I'm pretty sure the images of the surface there are not altered.
    - sp332 14y ago
      Normal "color" cameras are also false-color filtered. They just have the filters applied per-pixel instead of over the whole sensor at once. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter
- sramsay 14y ago
  They're using Instagram filters. ;)
- vhf 14y ago
  Have you seen it at full res or not ? http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/674898main_pia16013-full_full.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/674898main_pia16013-full_... (To me, it does not look like iPhone anymore.)
  - TuanaJenn 14y ago
    yeah, it looks worse
- vladd 14y ago
  >> The bandwidth from Curiosity directly to Earth is about 8 kb/s. Curiosity has a high bandwidth link to the Mars Odyssey Orbiter, a Mars satellite, which has a 256 kb/s link to Earth. The early pictures are from a low resolution camera with a clear dust cover still attached. This camera is used to determine if Curiosity is about to land in a crater. A higher resolution camera will be activated later. << (taken from http://www.quora.com/NASA/Why-dont-we-have-more-color-images-from-Mars/answers/1427717 http://www.quora.com/NASA/Why-dont-we-have-more-color-images... )
  - mtgx 14y ago
    I'm hoping Larry Page's Planetary Resources will use Google Fiber for transmitting from the asteroids.
    - Achshar 14y ago
      You probably meant it as a joke, but fiber networks, as the name suggests, use firer optic wires to transmit data at high speeds.
  - moe 14y ago
    The bandwidth from Curiosity directly to Earth is about 8 kb/s For what it's worth, just about 15 years ago that was the bandwidth that you could expect from consumer internet and BBS connections on earth. And now we're doing it to Mars. Boggles the mind.
  - H_L 14y ago
    While yes, the original pictures from the low res camera look bad, the new raw pictures from the higher-resolution cameras aren't really that much better. Better than the images from the iPhone 1, probably. But better than Viking 1 images from 1976? Honestly, it doesn't look like it. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Mars_Viking_11d128.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Mars_Viki... Just look at the detail per pixel. It's amazing. You can see tiny details in the sand. It's looks like if you took an image on a 20 megapixel DSLR with a high-quality lens, then scaled the image down to web size. The resolution isn't higher than a camera-phone, but the detail is remarkably better. And that's from nearly 40 years ago.
- JunkDNA 14y ago
  This is a great, detailed description about what it's like to do image processing from a space probe on Mars http://cdn.oreilly.com/radar/2012/08/Beautiful_Data_Chapter3.pdf http://cdn.oreilly.com/radar/2012/08/Beautiful_Data_Chapter3... It's from O'Reilly's "Beautiful Data", made available free in honor of the current mars mission. The short answer (covered in that document) is actually that the sensors have to be hardened for space use and are not consumer grade. They are incredibly expensive to produce.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  These are still from the navigation cameras. The main camera, not yet deployed, can take 1600x1200 full-color pictures and HD video at 10fps. There's actually two of it, so it can also make 3D images/video. Other features are wide/telephoto lens, panorama stitching and 8GB flash storage. Before complaining about resolution, this is like having a GoPro 3D on Mars, it has plenty of detail. One of the articles mentions that the cameras are provided by the same manufacturer as the Viking missions, so they must certainly have improved. Expect some awesome images in the coming months! More info: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/cameras/mastcam/ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/cameras/mas..., http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/Mastcam/ http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/Mastcam/, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20110531.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20110531.html
pramanat 14y ago
Looks like the image was stitched together from multiple images, judging by the jagged edges at the top and the "fold" to the right of middle in the image. Very neat, nonetheless.
- ereckers 14y ago
  I think that's why it's described as "two" high resolution images and they're only providing a single file to view.
mattacular 14y ago
This was taken by the camera whose sole purpose is to assist with navigation. That is why its B&W, low quality, and stitched. The main camera system will produce full color images that I assume will be much higher quality.
- fletchowns 14y ago
  Are there any examples of a picture taken on Earth with the main camera?
  - capnrefsmmat 14y ago
    Here's a full-resolution picture taken by the descent imager as the heat shield fell away: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16021.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16021.ht... The descent imager uses the same sensor as the main mast cameras, but with different optics.
    - guscost 14y ago
      If that camera works for 10+ years, I'll take that resolution any day! Beautiful! If you want to blow up a giant printout wait for the stitched-together shots, I suppose.
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    I haven't found any full resolution examples, but there's a resized sample here: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/cameras/mastcam/ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/cameras/mas...
hammock 14y ago
How far away are those hills in the back? I'm guessing they're farther away than we might think, due to Mars not having much of an atmosphere to reduce visibility.
- awolf 14y ago
  I think you think its a lot farther than it actually is. My estimate would be about a mile.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    From a topographic picture of Gale crater [1] with the landing area of Curiosity circled, its about 25km to the nearest crater wall or slightly more than 15 miles to the crater wall. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Topographic_Map_of_Gale_Crater.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Topograp...
- LoganCale 14y ago
  I believe that's the crater rim, and the crater is 96 miles in diameter, with the landing site closer to the edge than the center.
gdw2 14y ago
Has something been whited-out in the bottom right corner?
- ben1040 14y ago
  I might well be wrong, but I assumed that white spot was just the sun reflecting off of that part of the rover.
  - grecy 14y ago
    I had to actually stop and think "hang on, does 'sun' mean THE sun, or....". It's cool thinking about a little robot on mars cruising around doing stuff for us, still showing reflections from THE sun.
    - jdpage 14y ago
      Worth noting that this particular "little robot", unlike the previous set, is about the size of a car. That's why they could fit more equipment on it. :D
7c8011dda3f3b 14y ago
Links to raw images that I posted as a comment on another article: Navcam Left A: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00002/opgs/edr/ncam/NLA_397681372EDR_F0020000AUT_04096M_.JPG http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/... Navcam Left A: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00002/opgs/edr/ncam/NLA_397681339EDR_F0020000AUT_04096M_.JPG http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/... Navcam Left A: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00002/opgs/edr/ncam/NLA_397673010EDR_F0010008AUT_04096M_.JPG http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/... Navcam Right A: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00002/opgs/edr/ncam/NRA_397681372EDR_F0020000AUT_04096M_.JPG http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/... Navcam Right A: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00002/opgs/edr/ncam/NRA_397681339EDR_F0020000AUT_04096M_.JPG http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/...
- halitalptekin 14y ago
  Some Curiosity's Photos From Mars: http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html
- Coincoin 14y ago
  Nice! You can actually use those to make pairs of stereoscopic images. You can even see features not otherwise visible from the raw pictures. It's a shame the left and right camera distances are not the same as a human eye ; it makes the 3D effect a little too strong. I guess it gives their nav software a better depth resolution that way.
  - fooey 14y ago
    i put this together quick as an example: http://i.imgur.com/bNlkY.jpg http://i.imgur.com/bNlkY.jpg
    - leberwurstsaft 14y ago
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thetrb 14y ago
Looks pretty boring around there. I hope they can find something interesting somewhere around that area. I read that over the whole mission the rover is supposed to drive only ~20 miles, so there better be something interesting to observe :)
- yellowbkpk 14y ago
  There is an IMMENSE amount of stuff to observe and learn about this boring part of Mars. Geology, water formations, rock formations, sand composition, atmosphere, etc. Imagine if you lived on another planet and sent a probe that landed in the middle of the desert in Africa. You wouldn't exclaim "that looks boring!", you'd say "awesome, so much data to crunch!"
- jakeonthemove 14y ago
  well, what do you expect, red trees and volcanoes :-)? Mars is kind of a dead planet, and the most interesting things you can see are the dust devils and maybe/hopefully, ice formations.
  - jcarreiro 14y ago
    > the most interesting things you can see are the dust > devils and maybe/hopefully, ice formations For the geologists who designed the scientific instruments on Curiosity, the most interesting things they can see are rocks. Lots of rocks, from different periods in the geologic history of Mars. This is why Gale Crater was picked as the rover's landing site; there are several nearby features, including Aeolis Mons, that will provide the rover with an opportunity to date and investigate rock layers from different eras.
magsafe 14y ago
On the NASA site, look for the "Full Size" link, then right click on the image and set it as your desktop wallpaper. Fits perfectly.
TomGullen 14y ago
I absolutely love this stuff. The photos to me are strangely eerie, and even perhaps a little sinister. I have trouble comprehending the size of other planets, photos like these make me feel uneasy (in an exciting way) because they are strikingly similar to landscapes we might find here on earth - yet it's a completely different planet! I'm no longer looking at mars as a red circle as shown in textbooks, but now as vast unseen landscapes that have never been explored before - a new perspective and a new age of discovery and I can't wait to see what else happens in my life. It's also a stunning achievement. As I lie in bed looking up into the darkness, a boundless expanse of tens of millions of miles of absolutely nothing lies between me, and a small man made robot with the martian wind gusting and whistling gently over it. A robot that is cautiously making small movements, buzzing and whirring going about it's business with no one there to hear the sounds or see the movements it's making. A machine who's intentions are totally pure - it's sole purpose is simply to learn. A small beacon in a far-reaching expanse of barrenness and nothingness. One thing I found recently I'd never heard of before is 'Venera 13': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_13 A Russian rover that landed on Venus in 1981 - designed to last the harsh environment of Venus for 32 minutes but actually lasted 127 minutes. An extraordinary engineering achievement to have a rover go from freezing space temperatures to temperatures of over 450c. And it managed to transmit images of the surface: http://mo-www.harvard.edu/microobs/guestobserverportal/Galileo/ThenNow/Venus/mObsVenusWeb_files/image007.png http://mo-www.harvard.edu/microobs/guestobserverportal/Galil... Absolutely stunning, and in some ways even more eerie and provocative to me than the Mars pictures as the environment it briefly operated in is far more hostile and as time was so limited the images are even more precious.
- deleted 14y ago
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- stuartcw 14y ago
  That's exactly how I felt at 7 in 1975 : http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/viking/viking-20060714.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/viking/viking-20060714.htm...
- jcarreiro 14y ago
  > I have trouble comprehending the size of other planets I'm not sure this will help, but the surface area of Mars is about 1/3 that of Earth. Given that roughly 2/3 of the Earth's surface is covered by water, one can think of the surface of Mars as being roughly equivalent in area to the entire land area of the Earth.
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halitalptekin 14y ago
Some Curiosity's Photos From Mars: http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html
halitalptekin 14y ago
Some Curiosity's Photos From Mars: http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html
dgregd 14y ago
Without caption someone may think that pictures were taken on some Earth desert. It is surprising that mountains look quite "normal".
- rokhayakebe 14y ago
  To me seeing Mars looking like somewhere on Earth just changes everything.
arturadib 14y ago
In cased you missed this released by NASA in July, it's also amazing: HD panoramic view of Mars by the Opportunity rover: http://www.panoramas.dk/mars/greeley-haven.html http://www.panoramas.dk/mars/greeley-haven.html
hybrid11 14y ago
There's a good stitched together panoramic view of all those images at Gizmodo - http://gizmodo.com/5932952/curiosity-opens-her-eyes-for-the-first-time http://gizmodo.com/5932952/curiosity-opens-her-eyes-for-the-...
sheraz 14y ago
I thought it was interesting to learn about the different ways we get data back from mars. Excerpt from [1]: The data rate direct-to-Earth varies from about 500 bits per second to 32,000 bits per second (roughly half as fast as a standard home modem). The data rate to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is selected automatically and continuously during communications and can be as high as 2 million bits per second. The data rate to the Odyssey orbiter is a selectable 128,000 or 256,000 bits per second (4-8 times faster than a home modem). [1] http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/communicationwithearth/data/ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/communicationwithearth/...
- aortega 14y ago
  Some one has a link with more technical data about the communication stack? algorithms, modulation, etc.
  - sanxiyn 14y ago
    Some information is available here, including variable bit rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_(radio) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_(radio)
hypnocode 14y ago
Really brings home the fact that we have reached beyond the place where life sprung up, and are probably getting ready to move beyond the earth.
ck2 14y ago
The highlight of my day is to watch the NASA daily press briefings each day this week. (1pm EST or 10am PST on all NASA channels)
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tomkit 14y ago
Random tangent, but I wonder what procedures NASA goES through to scrub all living organisms from the robot itself if one of their aims is to see if they can detect life on the martian planet.
- jonesbb 14y ago
  NASA adheres to planetary protection procedures and requirements. For MSL... "Selected components were heated to temperatures ranging from 110 to 146 degrees Celsius (230 to 295 degrees Fahrenheit) for durations up to 144 hours. Tools and other equipment that could come into contact with rover hardware were also cleaned routinely with alcohol wipes." More details here: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/pdfs/MSL_Plan_Prot_FactSheet.pdf http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/pdfs/MSL_Plan_Prot_FactShe...
- kyleslattery 14y ago
  You might find some info here: http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/ http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/
- GregBuchholz 14y ago
  "NASA uses a variety of methods to measure, control and reduce spacecraft microbial contamination for planetary protection purposes. Assembly of spacecraft hardware is carefully controlled and often takes place in clean-room facilities using, aseptic techniques in order to meet planetary protection requirements. Dry heat microbial reduction techniques first used on the Viking spacecraft are still used today..." http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/methods/ http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/methods/
- kamaal 14y ago
  On the same lines. Why can't we send some robust organic life to Mars and dump it there, Just to see what happens?
bialecki 14y ago
Random question: Is it silent on Mars? I'm looking at this picture and can't help but wonder what it sounds like. Just curious if Martian weather tends to be windy or calm.
- skeletonjelly 14y ago
  They didn't pack a microphone! Bastards! :P Considering the propensity for dust storms I'm going to say windy. But the atmosphere is thinner, so this makes it harder to hear? Or quieter?
  - jcarreiro 14y ago
    > But the atmosphere is thinner, so this makes it harder to > hear? Or quieter? Sound intensity for a plane wave is given by the equation $I = \xi^2 \omega^2 c \rho$. Here $\xi$ is the particle displacement (the amplitude of our wave), $\omega$ is the angular frequency, and $c \rho$, typically called $Z$, is the characteristic acoustic impedance, where $c$ is the speed of sound and $\rho$ is the density of the medium. Given that the speed of sound is roughly independent of pressure, and keeping all other variables equal, as $\rho$ decreases, $I$ also decreases. So yes, on Mars, sounds are much quieter. Sources: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/672/what-is-the-relation-of-sound-propagation-to-air-pressure http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/672/what-is-the-r... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_intensity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_intensity
    - skeletonjelly 14y ago
      I knew my bait would bring someone smarter than me out of the woodwork! Thanks, very informative. Can I ask what's your background that led you to this?
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    There was a microphone sent to Mars once, but it was on a lander that crashed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_polar_lander#Scientific_instruments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_polar_lander#Scientific_in... Edit: Correction, twice, one was also sent on Phoenix but due to a design defect it was not used: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(spacecraft)#Mars_Descent_Imager http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(spacecraft)#Mars_Desce...
powerslave12r 14y ago
In case anyone's curious- List of missions to Mars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars
desireco42 14y ago
To sum up sentiment of many here: NASA should have got Canon as a sponsor and give us some decent images. It's ridiculous to travel across the system and not being able to send good images.
- Difwif 14y ago
  Okay I've heard this from a couple people already and I think this needs to be said. For one these are the Navigation camera shots and have no reason to be any higher quality. The craft has only been on the ground for 5 days and hasn't initialized all 17 of its on board cameras yet. The one in particular interest to us is the MastCam which features true-color 1600x1200 stereoscopic CCD's, can shoot 720p video at 10 fps, can telescope out to objects seven football fields away, and detect a wide range of wavelengths. And before you complain about it being only 2 Mp or that it can only do snails pace HD that your camera phone can achieve I ask you to think about how resilient these cameras must be to the environment along with how slow our communication speeds are with the rover. With a max uplink of 2Mb/s for 8 minutes per day and a 32kb/s connection otherwise, 3D 1080p at 60 fps really doesn't seem worth the network resources it will hog from more important mission data.
  - desireco42 14y ago
    People who support NASA and it's projects are the reason why you should make room for good cameras. Even scientists are people and would be motivated by good pictures. Having a sense of how it is on Mars is whole point of this and good pictures provide that. Also arguments about how it would be hard to add good camera, simply is not true. I agree about uplink and understand.
nymrulez 14y ago
It's time to put men on Mars and not just robots. It's embarrassing that in the 40+ yrs since Armstrong we haven't gotten anywhere else.
- hk_kh 14y ago
  Woosh.. really it's time to put men on Mars, or is it just "for the lulz"? Robots are meant to provide scientific data about Mars ecosystem, explore further on the surface and so on. What does a men, right now, add there? Nothing. Just danger and wasting money. Now, investigating technology that could put a man on Mars, that's interesting. But not just for setting foot on the surface, just for bringing to reality new tech that allows that. Curiosity is an achievement itself. Great technology, and for now, greatly executed. How many different proves went to the moon before a man could set its foot on there? It's not embarassing that in 40 years "we" haven't gotten anywhere else. To me it's embarassing that in 40 years we do not have yet sustainable way of keeping life on our own planet. Energy, on Earth and beyond, it's what could set a new standard for human race.
redwood 14y ago
Wait, so this is just one photo right? I see a range... assuming this is the edge of the crater? I don't think Mt. Sharp is visible here?
y4m4 14y ago
This is just blows my mind! - Hopefully one day we will walk on that surface and have a thriving colony.
jsilence 14y ago
Rocks!
zerostar07 14y ago
Another random question: In pictures like this: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/800px-Opportunity_Lander_Petals_PIA04848-615.jpg http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/800px-Op... the rover is in a clean chamber, with the staff wearing suits. Why is the clean chamber needed for assembly?
- jcarreiro 14y ago
  This is part of NASA's Planetary Protection directive [1]. Their goal is to ensure that we do not inadvertently contaminate the pristine environments that we visit with our spacecraft. If we did, we would be destroying an invaluable scientific resource! They are also responsible for ensuring that samples returned to Earth from outer space are handled safely. [1] http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov
- vacri 14y ago
  Hollywood movies to the contrary, archeological research is very concerned with avoiding contaminating the subject with crap from the researchers. Imagine if life was found on mars... and we introduced the diseases that killed it.
hessenwolf 14y ago
Why are they in black and white?

435 points by ed209 14y ago

i hate to be critical of an image sent from millions of miles away but I have an honest question: Why do images from landers like this always look like there were taken from a iPhone 1's camera?

pavel_lishin 14y ago
If I had to guess - and I do, because I don't work for NASA - it's because there's a limited payload space on board, and visible images are some of the least interesting things, science-wise, that you can ask from Mars. Combine this with the electronics-unfriendly environment, and you probably aren't going to be strapping huge DLSR's on a 2.5 billion dollar science machine. Edit: Also, these appear to be the navigation cameras, so they're probably just good enough to be able to point the rover in a direction free of road hazards and tell it to boldly go where no other machine has yet gotten around to going.
- hnriot 14y ago
  I doubt that is the reason, the weight of a 16mp sensor or marginally more than a 2mp one. The metal camera supports are much likely to dwarf the sensor weight differences. most of a DSLR's weight is lens and battery(s), both of which are not issues in this case, since the lens would be the same and the power comes from a nuclear battery. NASA couldn't just bolt on a 5DmkIII and expect it to work because the electronics would be fried. That said, the Apollo missions took a not-very-modified Hasselblad camera with them that worked fine, which is why we have much higher resolution pictures of the moon, despite it being decades ago.
  - jedberg 14y ago
    > That said, the Apollo missions took a not-very-modified Hasselblad camera with them that worked fine, which is why we have much higher resolution pictures of the moon, despite it being decades ago. That and the fact that they used sneakernet, which is still much higher bandwidth than wireless, especially in space.
    - flippyhead 14y ago
      Also, it was easier to do on a sound stage.
      - thechut 14y ago
        While I'm guessing this is in jest. All of these hardening necessary raises a lot of question about the legitimacy of the older photos.
        sgt101 14y ago
        My child. In the past years, while your mother played in the sunlight and your father smiled at girls and drank cool drafts as the evening drew in, before you were even a glimmer or a sunbeam, we had devices called "film cameras". These "film cameras" did not have electronic components. They worked by using levers, springs and wheels. An emulsion that is reactive to light was prepared and pasted onto a plastic film. The plastic film was exposed to the light, but briefly. Later a complicated process was applied to transfer the reacted image (for that is what it was) onto other media, which could then be copied. If one looks upon The Sacred Ebay (all bless the name of Sacred Ebay) one will find similar devices today. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Leica-111a-Camera-No-276160-1938-/300753516935?pt=UK_Photography_VintageCameras_SM&hash=item46064e7987#ht_500wt_1332 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Leica-111a-Camera-No-276160-1938-/... In this way, the dark time became but light. Ahhhwaahhhh wooooo. Ahhhwahh wooo... (THIS IS IN JEST)
        pavel_lishin 14y ago
        I thought that one of the things that led to the discovery of radiation was an accidental exposure of photographic film by x-rays.
        sgt101 14y ago
        Yay, yay and verily. Forsooth though it is time to rely on sciencey things. http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/_techrep/CR188427.pdf http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/_techrep/CR188427.p... Wherein the effects of radiation on films is documented. The answer is that some damage occurs, but films are fogged only by extreme conditions such as those that STS-31 got hit by. I don't know what steps were taken by apollo to protect films, but I would not be surprised if some protection was used to prevent excessive damage. Also I would point out that Apollo missions were 8 days in length while the martian missions are 9 mths long (if they smash into Mars at 13k kmph) or hopefully 24 mths + long if they work - hence the serious need for hardening. Anyway - if you like don't believe in it all - the rest of us are happy looking at the photos, data and science and enjoying the general idea. You can believe in invisible pink unicorns or ghosts or something instead if you like! (we don't mind)
  - rdoherty 14y ago
    You also have to factor in that the camera needs to withstand take-off, deep space flight for months (hello radiation!), 11g's on re-entry, heat of re-entry and landing. Along with lasting for at least 2 years on Mars with no spare parts in sub-zero temperatures. There's a reason why they don't send the latest and greatest camera or computer technology into space.
  - mbell 14y ago
    > most of a DSLR's weight is lens and battery(s), both of which are not issues in this case, since the lens would be the same Only true if you assume the same sensor area for the 2MP sensor and the 16MP sensor, which is a poor assumption. If they did use sensors with the same area you would pay dearly with high noise and low sensitivity just to cram more pixels in there. I think most photographers figured out awhile ago that the "Megapixel War" is only meaningful as a way to pitch perceived quality to uninformed consumers.
shin_lao 14y ago
Patience, better images will come. They need to deploy the camera fully and it will take time to retrieve the data.
- halitalptekin 14y ago
  Some Curiosity's Photos From Mars: http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html
hnriot 14y ago
It has only a 2 megapixel sensor, which is a shame. I am sure that it has something to do with radiation hardening and the other environmental factors. It would be good though if NASA did catch up with sensor technology. I suspect the 2MP sensor was approved years ago when it was state of the art.
- skeletonjelly 14y ago
  Sure they have a 2 megapixel camera, but there are probably good reasons, of which you mentioned one I can think of. The other being that they can only send back limited data which has to contest with scientific experiments and navigation data, and they can take multiple 2MP shots to make a panorama like they do, effectively making a higher res image (assuming they can zoom).
- pyoung 14y ago
  Yup, this mission has been in the works for ~10 years so I would imagine that they chose the specific sensor at least 6-7 years ago. Also NASA is notoriously risk averse (for good reason). Apparently it is very common for them to rely on old but proven technology. Some of this has to do with risk aversion, but I imagine some of it also has to do with budget. It pains me to think what NASA could be doing with 10x more money.
  - ballooney 14y ago
    >It pains me to think what NASA could be doing with 10x more money. Me too, but pretty much it all ends going to Lockheed anyway whether it comes via the DoD or Nasa. I don't mean that conspiratorially either, even JPL people joke that JPL stands for "Just Procure Lockheed". The subcontractors rarely get mentioned in Nasa PR, but Nasa is really a whole bunch of different project offices spread over a few campuses with an enormous ecosystem of subcontractors. I expect a vertical, strongly-led skunkworks style structure with guaranteed funding for several continuous years (vs "start working on this now but we can't promise we won't change our minds in 12 months" which causes a lot of subcontractors to not properly commit to new hires or other big capital commitments, and having to spread all the work evenly among different states) would probably yield 10x as much for exactly the same money. Regardless of all that organizational arm-chairing (though I work in this space, hoho), Curiosity is bloody fantastic and I am very excited to follow its progress over the next year at least. Camera chat: fewer bigger pixels = less ccd noise - remember Mars further away from the Sun than Earth, and so it's generally darker. Take an Iphone 1 photo of things at twilight to appreciate some of the difference!
trafficlight 14y ago
These images aren't even from the main cameras. These are still navcam images. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_rover#Rover_instruments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_rover#Rover_instrumen...
- sosuke 14y ago
  I'm psyched they have a camera that can take true color images! Now we can see what Mars looks like without false color filtering. I wonder how close they get with those techniques to the real thing.
  - jebblue 14y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_program I'm pretty sure the images of the surface there are not altered.
  - sp332 14y ago
    Normal "color" cameras are also false-color filtered. They just have the filters applied per-pixel instead of over the whole sensor at once. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter
sramsay 14y ago
They're using Instagram filters. ;)
vhf 14y ago
Have you seen it at full res or not ? http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/674898main_pia16013-full_full.jpg http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/674898main_pia16013-full_... (To me, it does not look like iPhone anymore.)
- TuanaJenn 14y ago
  yeah, it looks worse
vladd 14y ago
>> The bandwidth from Curiosity directly to Earth is about 8 kb/s. Curiosity has a high bandwidth link to the Mars Odyssey Orbiter, a Mars satellite, which has a 256 kb/s link to Earth. The early pictures are from a low resolution camera with a clear dust cover still attached. This camera is used to determine if Curiosity is about to land in a crater. A higher resolution camera will be activated later. << (taken from http://www.quora.com/NASA/Why-dont-we-have-more-color-images-from-Mars/answers/1427717 http://www.quora.com/NASA/Why-dont-we-have-more-color-images... )
- mtgx 14y ago
  I'm hoping Larry Page's Planetary Resources will use Google Fiber for transmitting from the asteroids.
  - Achshar 14y ago
    You probably meant it as a joke, but fiber networks, as the name suggests, use firer optic wires to transmit data at high speeds.
- moe 14y ago
  The bandwidth from Curiosity directly to Earth is about 8 kb/s For what it's worth, just about 15 years ago that was the bandwidth that you could expect from consumer internet and BBS connections on earth. And now we're doing it to Mars. Boggles the mind.
- H_L 14y ago
  While yes, the original pictures from the low res camera look bad, the new raw pictures from the higher-resolution cameras aren't really that much better. Better than the images from the iPhone 1, probably. But better than Viking 1 images from 1976? Honestly, it doesn't look like it. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Mars_Viking_11d128.png http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Mars_Viki... Just look at the detail per pixel. It's amazing. You can see tiny details in the sand. It's looks like if you took an image on a 20 megapixel DSLR with a high-quality lens, then scaled the image down to web size. The resolution isn't higher than a camera-phone, but the detail is remarkably better. And that's from nearly 40 years ago.
JunkDNA 14y ago
This is a great, detailed description about what it's like to do image processing from a space probe on Mars http://cdn.oreilly.com/radar/2012/08/Beautiful_Data_Chapter3.pdf http://cdn.oreilly.com/radar/2012/08/Beautiful_Data_Chapter3... It's from O'Reilly's "Beautiful Data", made available free in honor of the current mars mission. The short answer (covered in that document) is actually that the sensors have to be hardened for space use and are not consumer grade. They are incredibly expensive to produce.
ricardobeat 14y ago
These are still from the navigation cameras. The main camera, not yet deployed, can take 1600x1200 full-color pictures and HD video at 10fps. There's actually two of it, so it can also make 3D images/video. Other features are wide/telephoto lens, panorama stitching and 8GB flash storage. Before complaining about resolution, this is like having a GoPro 3D on Mars, it has plenty of detail. One of the articles mentions that the cameras are provided by the same manufacturer as the Viking missions, so they must certainly have improved. Expect some awesome images in the coming months! More info: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/cameras/mastcam/ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/cameras/mas..., http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/Mastcam/ http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/Instruments/Mastcam/, http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20110531.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/news/msl20110531.html

pramanat 14y ago

Looks like the image was stitched together from multiple images, judging by the jagged edges at the top and the "fold" to the right of middle in the image. Very neat, nonetheless.

ereckers 14y ago
I think that's why it's described as "two" high resolution images and they're only providing a single file to view.

mattacular 14y ago

This was taken by the camera whose sole purpose is to assist with navigation. That is why its B&W, low quality, and stitched. The main camera system will produce full color images that I assume will be much higher quality.

fletchowns 14y ago
Are there any examples of a picture taken on Earth with the main camera?
- capnrefsmmat 14y ago
  Here's a full-resolution picture taken by the descent imager as the heat shield fell away: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16021.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16021.ht... The descent imager uses the same sensor as the main mast cameras, but with different optics.
  - guscost 14y ago
    If that camera works for 10+ years, I'll take that resolution any day! Beautiful! If you want to blow up a giant printout wait for the stitched-together shots, I suppose.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  I haven't found any full resolution examples, but there's a resized sample here: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/cameras/mastcam/ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/cameras/mas...

hammock 14y ago

How far away are those hills in the back? I'm guessing they're farther away than we might think, due to Mars not having much of an atmosphere to reduce visibility.

awolf 14y ago
I think you think its a lot farther than it actually is. My estimate would be about a mile.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  From a topographic picture of Gale crater [1] with the landing area of Curiosity circled, its about 25km to the nearest crater wall or slightly more than 15 miles to the crater wall. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Topographic_Map_of_Gale_Crater.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Topograp...
LoganCale 14y ago
I believe that's the crater rim, and the crater is 96 miles in diameter, with the landing site closer to the edge than the center.

gdw2 14y ago

Has something been whited-out in the bottom right corner?

ben1040 14y ago
I might well be wrong, but I assumed that white spot was just the sun reflecting off of that part of the rover.
- grecy 14y ago
  I had to actually stop and think "hang on, does 'sun' mean THE sun, or....". It's cool thinking about a little robot on mars cruising around doing stuff for us, still showing reflections from THE sun.
  - jdpage 14y ago
    Worth noting that this particular "little robot", unlike the previous set, is about the size of a car. That's why they could fit more equipment on it. :D

7c8011dda3f3b 14y ago

Links to raw images that I posted as a comment on another article: Navcam Left A: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00002/opgs/edr/ncam/NLA_397681372EDR_F0020000AUT_04096M_.JPG http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/... Navcam Left A: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00002/opgs/edr/ncam/NLA_397681339EDR_F0020000AUT_04096M_.JPG http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/... Navcam Left A: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00002/opgs/edr/ncam/NLA_397673010EDR_F0010008AUT_04096M_.JPG http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/... Navcam Right A: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00002/opgs/edr/ncam/NRA_397681372EDR_F0020000AUT_04096M_.JPG http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/... Navcam Right A: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00002/opgs/edr/ncam/NRA_397681339EDR_F0020000AUT_04096M_.JPG http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/...

halitalptekin 14y ago
Some Curiosity's Photos From Mars: http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html
Coincoin 14y ago
Nice! You can actually use those to make pairs of stereoscopic images. You can even see features not otherwise visible from the raw pictures. It's a shame the left and right camera distances are not the same as a human eye ; it makes the 3D effect a little too strong. I guess it gives their nav software a better depth resolution that way.
- fooey 14y ago
  i put this together quick as an example: http://i.imgur.com/bNlkY.jpg http://i.imgur.com/bNlkY.jpg
  - leberwurstsaft 14y ago

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thetrb 14y ago

Looks pretty boring around there. I hope they can find something interesting somewhere around that area. I read that over the whole mission the rover is supposed to drive only ~20 miles, so there better be something interesting to observe :)

yellowbkpk 14y ago
There is an IMMENSE amount of stuff to observe and learn about this boring part of Mars. Geology, water formations, rock formations, sand composition, atmosphere, etc. Imagine if you lived on another planet and sent a probe that landed in the middle of the desert in Africa. You wouldn't exclaim "that looks boring!", you'd say "awesome, so much data to crunch!"
jakeonthemove 14y ago
well, what do you expect, red trees and volcanoes :-)? Mars is kind of a dead planet, and the most interesting things you can see are the dust devils and maybe/hopefully, ice formations.
- jcarreiro 14y ago
  > the most interesting things you can see are the dust > devils and maybe/hopefully, ice formations For the geologists who designed the scientific instruments on Curiosity, the most interesting things they can see are rocks. Lots of rocks, from different periods in the geologic history of Mars. This is why Gale Crater was picked as the rover's landing site; there are several nearby features, including Aeolis Mons, that will provide the rover with an opportunity to date and investigate rock layers from different eras.

magsafe 14y ago

On the NASA site, look for the "Full Size" link, then right click on the image and set it as your desktop wallpaper. Fits perfectly.

TomGullen 14y ago

I absolutely love this stuff. The photos to me are strangely eerie, and even perhaps a little sinister. I have trouble comprehending the size of other planets, photos like these make me feel uneasy (in an exciting way) because they are strikingly similar to landscapes we might find here on earth - yet it's a completely different planet! I'm no longer looking at mars as a red circle as shown in textbooks, but now as vast unseen landscapes that have never been explored before - a new perspective and a new age of discovery and I can't wait to see what else happens in my life. It's also a stunning achievement. As I lie in bed looking up into the darkness, a boundless expanse of tens of millions of miles of absolutely nothing lies between me, and a small man made robot with the martian wind gusting and whistling gently over it. A robot that is cautiously making small movements, buzzing and whirring going about it's business with no one there to hear the sounds or see the movements it's making. A machine who's intentions are totally pure - it's sole purpose is simply to learn. A small beacon in a far-reaching expanse of barrenness and nothingness. One thing I found recently I'd never heard of before is 'Venera 13': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_13 A Russian rover that landed on Venus in 1981 - designed to last the harsh environment of Venus for 32 minutes but actually lasted 127 minutes. An extraordinary engineering achievement to have a rover go from freezing space temperatures to temperatures of over 450c. And it managed to transmit images of the surface: http://mo-www.harvard.edu/microobs/guestobserverportal/Galileo/ThenNow/Venus/mObsVenusWeb_files/image007.png http://mo-www.harvard.edu/microobs/guestobserverportal/Galil... Absolutely stunning, and in some ways even more eerie and provocative to me than the Mars pictures as the environment it briefly operated in is far more hostile and as time was so limited the images are even more precious.

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stuartcw 14y ago
That's exactly how I felt at 7 in 1975 : http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/viking/viking-20060714.html http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/viking/viking-20060714.htm...
jcarreiro 14y ago
> I have trouble comprehending the size of other planets I'm not sure this will help, but the surface area of Mars is about 1/3 that of Earth. Given that roughly 2/3 of the Earth's surface is covered by water, one can think of the surface of Mars as being roughly equivalent in area to the entire land area of the Earth.

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halitalptekin 14y ago

Some Curiosity's Photos From Mars: http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html

halitalptekin 14y ago

Some Curiosity's Photos From Mars: http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html http://www.halitalptekin.com/yapay-zekali-curiosity.html

dgregd 14y ago

Without caption someone may think that pictures were taken on some Earth desert. It is surprising that mountains look quite "normal".

rokhayakebe 14y ago
To me seeing Mars looking like somewhere on Earth just changes everything.

arturadib 14y ago

In cased you missed this released by NASA in July, it's also amazing: HD panoramic view of Mars by the Opportunity rover: http://www.panoramas.dk/mars/greeley-haven.html http://www.panoramas.dk/mars/greeley-haven.html

hybrid11 14y ago

There's a good stitched together panoramic view of all those images at Gizmodo - http://gizmodo.com/5932952/curiosity-opens-her-eyes-for-the-first-time http://gizmodo.com/5932952/curiosity-opens-her-eyes-for-the-...

sheraz 14y ago

I thought it was interesting to learn about the different ways we get data back from mars. Excerpt from [1]: The data rate direct-to-Earth varies from about 500 bits per second to 32,000 bits per second (roughly half as fast as a standard home modem). The data rate to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is selected automatically and continuously during communications and can be as high as 2 million bits per second. The data rate to the Odyssey orbiter is a selectable 128,000 or 256,000 bits per second (4-8 times faster than a home modem). [1] http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/communicationwithearth/data/ http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/communicationwithearth/...

aortega 14y ago
Some one has a link with more technical data about the communication stack? algorithms, modulation, etc.
- sanxiyn 14y ago
  Some information is available here, including variable bit rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_(radio) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_(radio)

hypnocode 14y ago

Really brings home the fact that we have reached beyond the place where life sprung up, and are probably getting ready to move beyond the earth.

ck2 14y ago

The highlight of my day is to watch the NASA daily press briefings each day this week. (1pm EST or 10am PST on all NASA channels)

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tomkit 14y ago

Random tangent, but I wonder what procedures NASA goES through to scrub all living organisms from the robot itself if one of their aims is to see if they can detect life on the martian planet.

jonesbb 14y ago
NASA adheres to planetary protection procedures and requirements. For MSL... "Selected components were heated to temperatures ranging from 110 to 146 degrees Celsius (230 to 295 degrees Fahrenheit) for durations up to 144 hours. Tools and other equipment that could come into contact with rover hardware were also cleaned routinely with alcohol wipes." More details here: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/pdfs/MSL_Plan_Prot_FactSheet.pdf http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/pdfs/MSL_Plan_Prot_FactShe...
kyleslattery 14y ago
You might find some info here: http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/ http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/
GregBuchholz 14y ago
"NASA uses a variety of methods to measure, control and reduce spacecraft microbial contamination for planetary protection purposes. Assembly of spacecraft hardware is carefully controlled and often takes place in clean-room facilities using, aseptic techniques in order to meet planetary protection requirements. Dry heat microbial reduction techniques first used on the Viking spacecraft are still used today..." http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/methods/ http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov/methods/
kamaal 14y ago
On the same lines. Why can't we send some robust organic life to Mars and dump it there, Just to see what happens?

bialecki 14y ago

Random question: Is it silent on Mars? I'm looking at this picture and can't help but wonder what it sounds like. Just curious if Martian weather tends to be windy or calm.

skeletonjelly 14y ago
They didn't pack a microphone! Bastards! :P Considering the propensity for dust storms I'm going to say windy. But the atmosphere is thinner, so this makes it harder to hear? Or quieter?
- jcarreiro 14y ago
  > But the atmosphere is thinner, so this makes it harder to > hear? Or quieter? Sound intensity for a plane wave is given by the equation $I = \xi^2 \omega^2 c \rho$. Here $\xi$ is the particle displacement (the amplitude of our wave), $\omega$ is the angular frequency, and $c \rho$, typically called $Z$, is the characteristic acoustic impedance, where $c$ is the speed of sound and $\rho$ is the density of the medium. Given that the speed of sound is roughly independent of pressure, and keeping all other variables equal, as $\rho$ decreases, $I$ also decreases. So yes, on Mars, sounds are much quieter. Sources: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/672/what-is-the-relation-of-sound-propagation-to-air-pressure http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/672/what-is-the-r... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_intensity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_intensity
  - skeletonjelly 14y ago
    I knew my bait would bring someone smarter than me out of the woodwork! Thanks, very informative. Can I ask what's your background that led you to this?
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  There was a microphone sent to Mars once, but it was on a lander that crashed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_polar_lander#Scientific_instruments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_polar_lander#Scientific_in... Edit: Correction, twice, one was also sent on Phoenix but due to a design defect it was not used: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(spacecraft)#Mars_Descent_Imager http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_(spacecraft)#Mars_Desce...

powerslave12r 14y ago

In case anyone's curious- List of missions to Mars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars

desireco42 14y ago

To sum up sentiment of many here: NASA should have got Canon as a sponsor and give us some decent images. It's ridiculous to travel across the system and not being able to send good images.

Difwif 14y ago
Okay I've heard this from a couple people already and I think this needs to be said. For one these are the Navigation camera shots and have no reason to be any higher quality. The craft has only been on the ground for 5 days and hasn't initialized all 17 of its on board cameras yet. The one in particular interest to us is the MastCam which features true-color 1600x1200 stereoscopic CCD's, can shoot 720p video at 10 fps, can telescope out to objects seven football fields away, and detect a wide range of wavelengths. And before you complain about it being only 2 Mp or that it can only do snails pace HD that your camera phone can achieve I ask you to think about how resilient these cameras must be to the environment along with how slow our communication speeds are with the rover. With a max uplink of 2Mb/s for 8 minutes per day and a 32kb/s connection otherwise, 3D 1080p at 60 fps really doesn't seem worth the network resources it will hog from more important mission data.
- desireco42 14y ago
  People who support NASA and it's projects are the reason why you should make room for good cameras. Even scientists are people and would be motivated by good pictures. Having a sense of how it is on Mars is whole point of this and good pictures provide that. Also arguments about how it would be hard to add good camera, simply is not true. I agree about uplink and understand.

nymrulez 14y ago

It's time to put men on Mars and not just robots. It's embarrassing that in the 40+ yrs since Armstrong we haven't gotten anywhere else.

hk_kh 14y ago
Woosh.. really it's time to put men on Mars, or is it just "for the lulz"? Robots are meant to provide scientific data about Mars ecosystem, explore further on the surface and so on. What does a men, right now, add there? Nothing. Just danger and wasting money. Now, investigating technology that could put a man on Mars, that's interesting. But not just for setting foot on the surface, just for bringing to reality new tech that allows that. Curiosity is an achievement itself. Great technology, and for now, greatly executed. How many different proves went to the moon before a man could set its foot on there? It's not embarassing that in 40 years "we" haven't gotten anywhere else. To me it's embarassing that in 40 years we do not have yet sustainable way of keeping life on our own planet. Energy, on Earth and beyond, it's what could set a new standard for human race.

redwood 14y ago

Wait, so this is just one photo right? I see a range... assuming this is the edge of the crater? I don't think Mt. Sharp is visible here?

y4m4 14y ago

This is just blows my mind! - Hopefully one day we will walk on that surface and have a thriving colony.

jsilence 14y ago

Rocks!

zerostar07 14y ago

Another random question: In pictures like this: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/800px-Opportunity_Lander_Petals_PIA04848-615.jpg http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/800px-Op... the rover is in a clean chamber, with the staff wearing suits. Why is the clean chamber needed for assembly?

jcarreiro 14y ago
This is part of NASA's Planetary Protection directive [1]. Their goal is to ensure that we do not inadvertently contaminate the pristine environments that we visit with our spacecraft. If we did, we would be destroying an invaluable scientific resource! They are also responsible for ensuring that samples returned to Earth from outer space are handled safely. [1] http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov http://planetaryprotection.nasa.gov
vacri 14y ago
Hollywood movies to the contrary, archeological research is very concerned with avoiding contaminating the subject with crap from the researchers. Imagine if life was found on mars... and we introduced the diseases that killed it.

hessenwolf 14y ago

Why are they in black and white?