You are not logged in.
... and we have our first named feature :-) Recent posts have discussed the possibility of the large, roughly circular bright feature halfway between the lander and the horizon being a bounce impact mark... Steve Squyres just said they think it's actually a shallow impact crater filled with dust (he also said two dark markings within it *may* be bounce marks, so I'm claiming that point! ;-) ) with hints of an exposed rim on the far side... and to recognise the fact that the team have all had precious little shut-eye since landing, they have named the feature "SLEEPY HOLLOW" :-)
Nice one.
Steve is obviously VERY keen to get over to there when Spirit drives off the lander. From what he was saying he's hopeful that there could be some rock layers exposed, which would be great. He also discussed the possibility of Spirit "dipping a wheelinto the dust" to test its depth and consistency... wow...
Sleepy Hollow beckons folks...
S
Should be having the press conference in ~30 minutes, just wanted to give you guys a heads up.
Thanks for that Josh, I've just come back in from work - having spent all day wishing I was at home looking at pictures from Spirit, of course! - so time to grab a coffee and sit back to watch the conference.
This is wonderful, isn't it? :-) Like we've all got our own seats there at JPL.
Did anyone else put their names on the CDs via the "Send your name to Mars" website, by the way?
S
*::eyebrows up::
Where/how did you get those??
--Cindy
It's really not as exotic as it sounds Cindy :-)
I collect meteorites, and use them in my work in schools - kids love handling the cool "space rocks", as you can imagine - and among my collection is a very small amount of what is basically Mars dust, in phials. You see, meteorites from Mars are very, very rare - I think we know of about 15 or so- and they're so rare they're much (much!) more expensive than "normal" meteorites. Because they're worth so much, when they're cut up to make smaller pieces, even the grit and dust from the process is saved and sold... and it's some of that dust that I have, cos I couldn't possibly afford a whole stone! Some was bought by me looooong ago, some was given to me as a present.
Anyone on this list could buy some bits of Mars, if they had the money for it. You could buy a small piece tonight, right now, for a hundred dollars or so, from one of many dealers.
So, okay, my Mars dust looks like it could have been beaten out of a rug, or banged off the bottom of a boot, but it really is from Mars, and today, watching Spirit's pics coming in while I held my little bits of Mars, I felt just a *little* bit closer to it :-)
S
If Gusev really *is* an ancient lake bed then, like lake beds here on Earth, it will be an EXCELLENT place to look for meteorites, and the instruments on Spirit will easily be able to identify any it finds. We have quite a few "martian meteorites" here on Earth (I've had my tiny pieces of Mars beside me here at the computer all day, as a celebration and good luck charm!), so chances are good we might find rocks blasted off Earth on Mars too...
How cool would it be for Spirit to travel all those millions of miles and then find a rock which came from Earth many millions of years ago - maybe even in the impact which helped speed the demise of the dinosaurs..? ;-)
The possibilities offered by this landing site are making me dizzy...! :-))
Stu
Looking at the panoramas released so far, I'm struck by the two light, roughly round areas between the lander and the horizon. There appears to be a hint of a third one closer to the lander too, but elongated, more like a trench. And all appear to be aligned with the lander...
Is it possible these are areas where the lander bounced before coming to rest? Brighter in the images because the impacts disturbed the dust and removed some of the rocks?
Wouldn't that be something? :-)
Loving the pictures, and grateful to everyone for providing links as they become aware of them (when I click on your latest link tho, Rxke, I get nothing..?). Really looking forward to those first hi-res panoramas now!
Here's an ironic note for you. According to the 2004 Sky & Telescope THE YEAR IN SPACE desk calendar, on this day in 1970 NASA cancelled the production of further Saturn V rockets, effectively killing the end phase of the Apollo missions, and, realistically, all hope of staging a manned mission to Mars any time soon after. And yet today, here we are, marvelling at pictures of an ancient lake bed on Mars, thru the eyes of a robot that would fit in one of a Saturn V's engine nozzles with room to spare.
Makes you think, huh?
Looking at the pics, you know I can't help thinking that when people do eventually go to Mars they'll almost certainly walk to Spirit's landing site, and mount a plaque on it, dedicating it to Steve Squyres and the rest of the JPL and NASA team behind the project, celebrating the incredible day in the first week of 2004 when NASA exorcised the ghosts of Mars Polar Lander and the Climate Orbiter, and, in the pioneering spirit of the astronauts lost on Challenger, Columbia, and Apollo 1, showed us that the universe is our real home, and not just this one blue and white planet.
Good job NASA. Very, very proud of you.
Stu
I'm going to hit the hay now, I just wanted to say, really great stuff goin' on here.
Well, go get some zzzz's Josh, you deserve it! Thanks for keeping us company on here, and for the link to the first pictures too.
What *wonders* are in store for us these next 90 sols..! :-)
From first glance looks like there aren't many rocks *at all* around Spirit - are we sure it hasn't actually landed on Tatooine or Arrakis? ;-)
Few rocks = good news for when it trundles down the ramps and sets off to explore :-)
Can't wait to see some clearer images, and colour ones too.
S
Thanks Josh! Sitting here trying to see something - ANYTHING! - on my 2"x2" Real Player window, and I can hear lots of cheering and "Wooo!!" ing but can see nothing! Thanks SO much for the link to the pic, you gave me my first view of Gusev, I appreciate it :-)
Stu
Just think...
If you were standing beside Spirit right now, you'd see the Sun half-way up in the western sky, bathing everything in a warm, peach-hued light and casting long shadows behind you, the lander, the airbags, and every jagged rock around you. Although you couldn't see it because of the glare of the Sun, Earth would be just a hand's width above the horizon, minutes away from slipping out of view...
When the Sun gets a little lower, the sky will darken from orange to brown, then, eventually, a rich blue... Earth will have long set by the time the airbags have fully deflated and Spirit's solar arrays have deployed, but as the rover unfolds like a butterfly from a chrysalis, Venus will be shining above the western horizon, brighter than it looks from Earth after sunset right now... possibly even bright enough to cast a reflection on the solar panels...
Wow, I wish I was there...
Stu
That was UNBELIEVABLY tense and cruel!! The high of the initial signal, then that awful "Everyone be quiet!" and the minutes of silence after... you could see the worry etched on everyone's faces, just awful... I was feeling physically sick here, I swear...
My audio went out at the crucial moment, so when I saw everyone leaping about and hugging that was when I realised the signal had been detected...
Excellent job JPL, fantastic!!
Some crucial times ahead yet, but wow, what a night...
Time for a calming cuppa I think.
Stu
Good NASA TV weblink here for anyone without access to it on a real TV but wants to watch what's happening...
http://www.unitedspacealliance.com/live/NASATV.htm
Stu
Is that opportunity via your astronomical society or New Mars?
Well, of course I plug New Mars whenever and wherever I can ;-) but this thing tonight was via me a) being a regular "guest" on my local BBC radio station's news and magazine programs as an "astronomy expert" (ha!) whenever there's a spacey story making the headlines, and b) because I contributed to a phone-in show on the same station on Christmas Eve, the day before Beagle landed. The station invited me to go on the panel because they kept my details on file and I guess they thought I'd provide balance with the two *genuine* experts on the panel ;-)
No way I'm going to bed yet, even tho it's 03.24 here in the UK. Watching a 24 hr news channel (they're showing a live feed from the control centre right now as I type this) and checking New Mars every few mins for postings... nice to have everyone's company :-)
Stu
*Of course, that guy probably wouldn't bat an eye if many millions of pounds/dollars/whatever were to be spent building a new multiplex sports arena or speedway, etc.
I think he was being quite sincere to be fair to him, he was arguing that the money would be better spent on medical research. We tried to explain in our precious "ten seconds each" that equipment, software and techniques used for processing space imagery is now used by the medical profession for scanning the human body (Ian Ridpath) and that valuable medical research is being conducted all the time onboard ISS (me) but nope, he wasn't having it.
The irony is, the guy probably didn't think twice about the newspaper he bought today, or the cup of coffee, or the money he spent on the licence he pays the BBC to allow him to watch TV and listen to the radio. The money he paid for Beagle, thru his taxes, was probably less than the price of those things combined, on just one day.
Of course, I wish I'd thought of that a couple of hours ago... :-/
Stu
Sorry, forgot to put a link to the "new picture" I mentioned. Here you go...
http://www.marstoday.com/viewsr.html?pid=11430
Stu
Lots of us over here on this side of the pond are eagerly anticipating the first signal from Spirit too... best of luck to everyone involved!
Seeing the amazing images from STARDUST meant it had been an exciting day already, but I've just been on a BBC radio program for the last hour, as part of a panel discussing the imminent arrival of Spirit (and the various Mars missions) and the chances/importance of finding life on Mars and in the Universe, and it was good to be able to personally wish one of the JPL MER team "good luck" over the airwaves...
But SOOOO frustrating that while all 3 of us panel members were trying to discuss the benefits of space technology (unmanned and manned programs) and stress how space exploration is just part of our nature, the presenter was ***obsessed*** with the cost of space missions!! He kept harking on and on about how many millions of pounds or dollars each mission has cost, and asking us why it really matters if we find life, or even water, on Mars. We tried to make him see that money spent on space is spent here, on EARTH, in wages for the people who design, build and fly the probes... and how medical research, engineering, computing and all fields of science benefit from space research... and how finding life on Mars will ultimately tell us about our *own* origins, and help us understand our place in the Universe... but the guy just didn't get it, and the very last phone-in caller (a sheer coincidence, I'm sure...) was a vehement anti-space gentleman, who wanted all space research expenditure stopped because it's a waste of money. We each got about 10 seconds to reply, then he was given the last word, calling us - and space researchers etc - "Pathetic", and that was it...
No, not angry, I was delighted and honoured to be invited on the show, but sad that there are still people out there who don't see The Big Picture, and don't realise how much we gain spiritually and emotionally from space exploration. Very sad.
I mean, Beagle cost around the same as a big budget Hollywood film, and Spirit and Opportunity less than a Stealth bomber. What would you rather see, PEARL HARBOUR 2 or BAD BOYS 3, or pictures of martian microbes with consequences for the whole of mankind? What represents the better use of a couple of dollars - phoning in a vote on POP IDOL or contributing to a rover which will send back pictures of the deserts of Mars which will be hailed all around the world, and alter our perception of both Mars and our own place in the universe?
Like I said, frustrating. But it was pretty cool to be sitting there (on my own :-( Everyone else was in London, I am 300 miles further north, so it was just me, headphones and a microphone - and a cup of cold BBC coffee!) actually listening to one of the guys at JPL giving a life update on Spirit, and to wish him luck, and it was personally satisfying to be able to stand up for Beagle too.
I hope that by this time tomorrow we've all got something to celebrate - the recovery of Beagle's signal by MEx, and the successful arrival of Spirit :-)
Good luck everyone!
Stu
P.S. A newly-released MOC image of the Gusev interior shows, what looks to me at least, LOTS of dust devil tracks right across the centre of the landing ellipse. Hey, maybe Spirit will get some fantastic shots of a dust devil whirring across the horizon...
Hmmm... what would you do if you had to light 20,000 candles?
... or ask the guy who lights all those candles floating in mid-air in Hogwarts dining hall how *he* did it ;-)
Stu
Stu: This Yankee is still "pulling for" Beagle 2...definitely NOT forgotten.
Thanks, I know a lot of people over there and indeed all over the world are wishing our little lost puppy well. All is not lost yet, a point I'll be making VERY forcefully when I'm on a BBC radio show tomorrow night (Well, so late tomorrow night it will actually be Sunday morning!) I gather they're talking live to one of JPL's MER scientists too, so I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say - if he can speak with his heart in his mouth, poor guy! :-)
Stu
Just wanted to wish all the people involved with it - and all the US newmars members out there - the very best of luck with Spirit and Opportunity as they close-in on Mars. I'm sure we're all going to be drooling over stunning pictures and celebrating major science results in a couple of weeks, and I'm really looking forward to sharing some exciting times with everyone here on the forums... :-))
... and I really, *really* hope you don't have to go through any of the torture we Brits are suffering here whilst waiting for Beagle 2 to "phone home"... :-(
Stu
Very interesting website here for people looking forward to seeing results from MEx's hi-res camera. Apologies if I'm repeat-posting an earlier link from somewhere!
(Hint: before going to the image at the bottom of the page, track-down the pair of 3D glasses from that old Pathfinder pics copy of National Geographic... ;-) )
http://sci.esa.int/science....gid=657
Stu
P.S.: Does anyone know what "Quadrans Muralis" means? Quad refers to "4" I know...not sure about the rest.
Cindy,
It meant "The Mural Quadrant", and was one of the constellations proposed by the astronomer Bode, circa 1775. Mural as in "big picture" and "Quadrant" as in the scientific instrument I guess.
Happy New Year everyone
Su
Stu, my oppinion is a little bit different. I think that inside us, hidden (all over the place...) in our DNA, is only one desire, only one basic instinct: survival of the species. Nothing else.
Actually, we agree :-) That desire to ensure the survival of the species is absolutely tied in with the "explore itch" I spoke about, because only by exploring, and finding new places to develop and exploit, can we *give* ourselves the new options you spoke about.
Space is full of new options - they're on the Moon in the form of minerals and metals ripe for processing, on Mars in the form of water, and in the asteroid belt in the form of city-sized metal ingots.
I say let's go get 'em.
Stu
Why send people into space when it's a dangerous, expensive, frustrating place to go to and get anything done in once you're there? Why not just send cheaper, expendable, replaceable robots instead?
Because somewhere, hidden in the microscopic coiled-up universe inside our DNA, there's a genetic program that makes us want to explore, makes us *need* to explore, a program which if ignored would literally send us crazy.
Our ancestors had that program, it made them climb down from the trees and start walking, as has been pointed out in previous posts. And as Earth continued to roll around the Sun their descendants felt that same program start-up too - urging them first to cross the great icy wastes from continent to continent, then explore their new lands. Earth rolled around the Sun more, and as "civilisation" spread across the globe and Man started to live in larger settlements, villages, towns, cities, that urge, that need to explore remained and, if anything, grew stronger.
When we ran out of land in our own countries and on our own continents, we took to the seas, crossing vast oceans in flimsy ships on journeys that took months and years, not in search of trade routes, or spices, or slaves, but because we were pulled to the horizon by this primeval urge inside us. It would have been safer for Columbus, Magellan, the Chinese traders to have stayed at home, but they didn't, they set off into vast oceans without even knowing what lay ahead. For all they knew, the dark, deep waters beneath their vessels might have been populated by serpents and demons, as stories said, but they went anyway, because they had no choice. Something was over the horizon, they knew it, they could feel it, they just didn't know what it was. But they could hear and feel it calling to them, so they went.
Nothing has changed centuries later. We still find places to explore even on this crowded planet. Adventurers scale mountains so they can stand on their summits so they can see farther than anyone else, so they can look beyond the horizon. Others drop to the ocean floor in submarines, to places darker than midnight, because they want to know what amazing things are hidden down there, even tho they know that any minute a technical failure could crumple their submarines like a can of Coke in a gorilla's fist. Still others hack their way through rainforests, or trek across polar wastelands or sun-baked deserts just because they feel something inside them pushing them on, on.
And everyone on this list is exactly the same. You can feel it right now, there inside you, that itch. It's the same itch that made you join this board in the first place, and keeps you coming back each day to check on what others have said during your absence. You're exploring every time you log on to newmars, because this is a new place, an original place. You want to Know, to Learn. And outside, in the "real world", that itch is always there. When you go hiking, something inside you makes you determined to get to the top of that hill so you can see farther than you have done before. When you walk through a city, you look up at skyscrapers and wish you were on their top floor so you could marvel at the view. When you stand on a beach, and look out to sea, if there's an island on the horizon it's *that* your eye is drawn to, not the waves, or the clouds above, but the island. I defy anyone to tell me otherwise.
It's just the way we are, we can't help it; it's as much a part of what we are as is breathing, or reproducing. It's like a shard of glass lodged inside our hearts and minds, driving us crazy.
And today we, as a Race, are standing on a shore, only it's Earth that's the shore and space is the ocean. The islands in that ocean are incredibly far away, but we can see them, and they call to us just as loudly as any of the mountains, deserts, rainforests or ocean floors of the Earth. We have swum out to the nearest island, only to lose our nerve and turn back again, just as the ancient Chinese trading fleets did all those centuries ago. I don't know why we came home. Some say money, some say politics, I think maybe we were just scared by how far it was to the next island, but whatever the reason all we do now is occasionally pull up our pants and tiptoe into the surf before running back again, convincing ourselves we're taming the ocean, one footstep at a time. We're not. We're cowering from it, and we should be ashamed of that.
So, instead of swimming out ourselves we send camera-carrying robots to the other islands, and they send us back pictures of amazing canyons, cliffs, volcanoes and mountains, and what do we do with the photos? We imagine we're there! We show them during lectures and tell our audiences "If you were on Mars this is what you'd see..." when the fact is that if we all pulled together and worked together we actually WOULD be able to see those places for ourselves, for real.
Because that's why, as impressive as robots and their multi-jointed arms, onboard laboratories and spectrometers are, they're no substitute for being there in person. It's about experience, personal experience, and empathy too. If there's a sports event you really want to see, and can go to, you don't give a friend a digital camera and tell them to go on your behalf and take photos to show you later, you go yourself. If there's a city, or town, or cathedral or natural landmark you want to see, and can get to, you don't look for a webcam showing you a view of it, you go there and see it for yourself. Why? because pictures don't tell you what it was actually like to stand in the crowd at the Superbowl, or stand on the edge of Yosemite Valley and peer into its depths. They don't convey the feelings of excitement you felt as the score changed hands, or the shiver that ran up your spine when you felt that breeze wafting up from the valley floor, carrying the scent of pine with it. Photos are a record, not an experience.
So why should we send people into space today, when spaceprobes are cheaper, replaceable and easier to operate? Because people are versatile, they can make decisions, quickly, they can change their minds and react to situations. They can take advantage of changing situations. They have intuition, instinct, gut-feelings that spaceprobes will never have. Give them water to drink, food to eat and air to breathe and they will work their fingers to the bone for you out of duty, stubbornness, or both.
And because people only really empathise with other people. True, we humanise our spaceprobes, giving them cute or bold names so they reflect our own ambitions, dreams and philosophies, but at the end of the day they're just mega-smart PCs with lots of fancy add-ons, we don'tr relate to them. They send back pretty pictures, but they're never going to be able to describe what a sunset on Mars is really like, or convey the wonder of seeing Earth rising into the martian dawn, which is what we all want to experience, either for ourselves, in person, or through the eyes and the words of others of our species.
No place is real until someone has been there and told others about it. Until Apollo, the Moon was just a ball of cold, dead, cratered rock going around the Earth, but astronauts walked on its surface and made it a real world, with canyons, plains, and a black sky decorated with the Earth. Mars is the same. Viking and Pathfinder sent back stunning pictures of its surface, but they could have been taken in Death Valley, or the middle of the Atacama, they look *too* familiar, if anything. Mars won't be appreciated as a truly alien world until someone has stood on its surface and told the waiting world what the wind sounsd like rasping against their helmet visor,or how it feels to watch a dust devil dancing across the plain in front of them.
On Sunday the first MER lands on Mars, and it's carrying proof, of two kinds, that the future of space exploration is human and not machine. Firstly, it's tens of thousands of names on it, the names of people who submitted their names to NASA via a website so they could be etched onto a CD and carried to Mars by the rover. For each and every person whose name is on that CD, they will be "on" Mars from Sunday.
And Spirit's cameras are mounted on a pillar which will place them roughly the same height above the surface of Mars as an astronaut's eyes would be, specifically so we will see Mars as a human would see it, instead of how a turtle would.
So why send people? Because that's what we've always done, and will always do. We left the trees, and for a brief, wonderful time decades ago we left Earth too. In years to come we'll leave Earth again, first to return to the Moon and then to go to Mars. Children born on Mars, frustrated with their own near horizons, feeling their own itch, inspired by the stories of Columbus, Magellan and Armstrong will leave their home and strike out for the miniature worlds of the asteroids, then stand on their surfaces and stare longingly at the pinprick worlds of Europa and Ganymede circling Jupiter. When they are conquered, Europans or Ganymedeans will scratch their own itch by striking out for Titan, and so on and so on, until one day a handful of men and women will burst through the Oort Cloud and, turning their backs on the Sun, plot a course for Alpha Centauri...
Why? Not for science, not for pretty pictures, or to discover new chemicals or minerals, but because it's what makes us human.
Happy New Year everyone, wherever you are :-)
Stu
Charlie's finding a ticket was pre-determined by the magical genuis of Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder). The other ticket holders were pre-determined as well.
What? You're saying it was a FIX?!?!?! That nice Willy Wonka criminally rigged the lottery?!!?!?!?!
What was he, Governor of Florida or something?
(Jodie Foster bewildered 'Contact' voice:) I had no idea...
So I guess that means that there's no Father Christmas and no tooth fairy either...
I have to go away and think about this.
Stu
*Stu: I have a confession to make.
I am a heretic.
I've never read any of Kim Stanley Robinson's works. In fact, I'd never even heard of him until I joined the Mars Society.
Based on what comments I've seen many others make of his works, much of it seems to be brilliant; he has garnered lots of rave reviews around here.
Aw, that's okay, I'm sure there are quite a few people in the group who haven't read The Trilogy. You are missing out on some amazing writing tho - some of Stan's imagery (even the images of a terraformed Mars... boooo!!!!) is just spellbinding... gems like watching a polar bear stalking a colonist on the ice; thousands of settlers gathered on the summit of Olympus Mons to watch a comet deliberately crashed into the atmosphere to thicken it, after which, for the first time, the stars twinkled; the enormous space elevator falling to Mars after being severed, wrapping itself around the equator; the view from the floor of Marineris... I could go on and on, honestly. He's the guy who made Mars "real" for me, I have to say. It's no exaggeration to say that reading RED MARS changed my life.
I live in hope that when/if I ever get some of my Mars fiction published it would affect its readers in the same way, but I seriously doubt it!
Stu