Spirit & Opportunity

Rxke · 2004-01-05 14:26:28

here: re:zine

pic on 04 jan, last one

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-05 14:26:44

hmm, which one did you post and retract Rxke?

edit: nah, that's the false color one: telling quote "artificially colorized the last image below."

It's a very very beautiful image, though, and I did see it before.

clark · 2004-01-05 14:26:48

Ladies, gentlemen, I give you MARS! :laugh:

Funny, it looked bigger on TV.

Now, anyone want to try for the first respectable color picture of Mars from Spirit?

Edit: the second one you posted (the link) Rxxe is to an artifically colored photo, so it dosen't count. but it is very nice, so thanks for the link.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-05 14:28:55

4 AM EST, I'll post it.

BTW, who won? :;):

edit: nevermind (we ought to not be usin' this as a chatroom!)

clark · 2004-01-05 14:31:37

D'oh! Looks like we were posting at the same time...

Who won?

Why anyone who wanted to see the color photo of Mars without having to hunt it down. That's what the contestants are for.

So the picture isn't slated for release until 7AM (PST)?

Let me see if I can go speed that up.

Rxke · 2004-01-05 14:31:55

wait... I am confused, what's the diff 'tween artificially coloured and coloured, or do you mean color-photo (thus a real colour pic...)

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-05 14:33:15

That little tiny thumbnail I posted? Blow it up 15 times, then spread it over an area of 12 images. That's how big the Pancam picture will be. I really recommend ging to the athena site and checking out the sample image from the labs. It's rather... striking.

clark · 2004-01-05 14:34:17

artificial means that the color is added in afterwards. So it's like coloring in a black and white photo. A real color photo would not need to have color added back into the picture.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-05 14:36:30

More like 1AM PST clark.

BTW, Rxke, what happened was that we took the color image yesterday, but we haven't had a chance to downlink it to earth, but we were able to downlink the thumbnails since they're so ridiculously small. In fact, the thumbnail I linked is only 1.3kb, which could come down the stream in a one second frame, it's really small. The full image is going to be far larger than that, though. It's going to take a few days to actually get a full pan.

Rxke · 2004-01-05 14:43:19

clark, Josh, i know all that, hey, i've been following this virtually non-stop...

but clark why did you say 'first 'colored' picture? that's what got me confused... i thought that meant an artificially coloured one...

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-05 14:45:52

Yeah, he was being vague intentionally.

That's why I asked him to clarify, but I went and posted the thumbnail anyway.

Rxke · 2004-01-05 14:53:56

So Josh won, or is there another picture?

(Gawd, that's why i hate chat sessions, i'm getting confused too fast....)

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-05 15:14:16

Rxke, hehe, I won't confuse you any further.

There are no other color pictures currently available. Though, like I said, there are some waiting to be downloaded from Odyssey late tonight.

clark was talking about the only, truely, color image we have of Mars, and that would be the thumbnail that they recieved to pretty much say "the Pancam works." That's all. Sorry for the confusion. I was in fact confused, too, because I didn't know what criteria clark needed to be met with his little contest. I at first thought he was talking about the artificial image because I hadn't seen the thumbnail in the gallery last I looked; when I looked again, it was available, so yeah, obviously that's what he was looking for.

Sorry if I'm not making sense, I should take an afternoon nap.

Palomar · 2004-01-05 15:14:45

Sundial

*An interesting tidbit about Spirit (and Opportunity...both have one) which I don't remember having seen before.

Also, a message to future human explorers: "To those who visit here, we wish a safe journey and the joy of discovery."

By the way, I saw Sean O'Keefe about 45 minutes ago, being interviewed on FOX. Shepherd Smith asked him if we need to consider anymore sending humans to Mars, because of the capability of robots, rovers, etc. O'Keefe answered very diplomatically and in favor of humans on Mars: He outlined the time lapses required to send a command to the rover, for it to be received, and for the rover to begin action (12 to 14 hours, not to mention the initial 10-minute communication lag). He said instantaneous human decision making/rational volition -- not to mention flexibility, etc. -- can't be beat when it comes to exploration.

They've also named a depression in the ground not far from Spirit "Sleepy Hollow"...because it's a depression (hollow) in the ground and the folks at JPL, NASA, etc., are sleep deprived...sleepy hollow, get it?

Also they've seen (in front of "Sleepy Hollow") three patches of darkness, which they currently believe are the bounce marks Spirit made.

I've caught a few faintly colored pics on TV (2 or so).

--Cindy

Rxke · 2004-01-05 15:35:51

Josh, thanks, now i can stop hunting (heh, i'm an idiot, easily fooled)

That's great news, Cindy! A prudent guy like o'Keefe... Having to weight every word he says...

Hope he does not get a reprimand for that

(ok, he's the boss, but it's the people that pay him that essentially pull the strings....)

clark · 2004-01-05 15:41:03

Yeah, he was being vague intentionally.

me? [wide eyed]

naw.

Sorry to confuse. Still waiting for the first color photo from Spirit though (the non-thumb variety)

Rxke · 2004-01-05 17:10:28

Sorry to confuse.

That's ok, Clark! I used to walk around, when young (duh...) wearing a T-shirt that said 'Confusion is **x' so...

Called myself a confusionist too, kiddingly...

Palomar · 2004-01-06 06:44:56

First Stop: Sleepy Hollow!

*"The first stop for a golf-cart sized rover designed to search for signs of life on Mars may be a hole in the ground nicknamed 'Sleepy Hollow' that NASA (news - web sites) scientists on Monday called a 'window into the interior' of the rugged planet."

These "shallow bowls" on Mars' surface are of especial interest in the search for evidence of water in the past: "[They are] A window into the interior of Mars."

--Cindy

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-06 10:30:39

Hey folks.

::waves::

Going to have a press conference soon, look about 35 minutes from now. Hopefully the Pancam images will be available. I stayed up until real late last night hoping they'd be shown on NASA TV, but nope.

Going to email NASA TV and see if they can't give us a live webcam of one of the rooms where the scientists hang out (the MER control room, perhaps?). It's a flippin shame that all they did last night was rerun the same film. I don't mind seeing if over and over, but back to back? How about once an hour? Okay, I'm rambling now.

Just wanted to give you guys a heads up. Conference in half an hour or thereaboust.

This link should become active either during or awhile after the conference. It will probably have the Pancam images in full detail.

See ya in an hour and a half.

Stu · 2004-01-06 10:53:08

Here again, sat in front of monitor, front seat for Press Conference... can't *wait* to see the new images!

Take a look here for a pretty good fake photo from one of our tabloid newspapers today... not entirely sure they *know* it's a fake yet, I've emailed them to ask. Doesn't reproduce very well on the screen, too small. The actual printed version is much better - lovely accurate colours, and the little "blob" top left is a mini Beagle 2!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004001986,00.html

* Caution: the newspaper's site contains pictures of an adult nature. (wow, I can hear those mice clicking now...! ;-) )

S

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-06 11:01:12

Ahh, this conference is going to be very exciting! It's starting now.

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-06 11:10:08

i.am.at.a.loss.for.words

Stu · 2004-01-06 12:02:46

(Some!) Highlights of Press Conference:

Before showing the pictures everyone had come to see, it was revealed that the team had enjoyed a 10 min phone conversation with President Bush, in which he was full of praise for the team and its efforts, congratulating them many times. Apparently the call was full of humour and laughter, and the team invited Pres Bush to JPL to see them in person, and even invited him to "drive" the rover. ("After that the President just discussed string theory and quantam physics..." a team member laughed :-) )

( Later in the conference a reporter asked the panel if the President had given them the OK for a manned mission. Response: laughter, then "Maybe we'll tell you later..." )

* Unveiling of first PanCam picture - absolutely stunning! Any digital camera users on the List will be familiar with how impressive the resolution of even a 3 mega-pixel camera is... well, PanCam is a *12* mega-pixel camera, and the image shown at the conference was just stunning. The colours were very subtle, and features on the horizon were resolved with great clarity (including a flat-topped mesa approx 25km away)

* Rocks: individual rocks were shown in *amazing* detail - one shows what appear to be vessicles ("bubbles") caused by volcanic processes, others showed VERY smooth surfaces, which Steve Squyres suggested were typical of rocks "sandblasted" by fine dust in high winds; many rocks showed "tongues" of material deposited behind them, blown there by the wind. The landing site shows a great variety and diversity of rocks, which the team are looking forward to exploring, and although it appears that the rocks are exceptionally clean the abrasion tool will still be used to make some even cleaner, and to allow microscopic investigation of their interiors.

* "Strange material": when the airbags were deflated and dragged back to the lander, they disturbed soil close to the lander, effectively "raking" it and leaving trenches. However, the material exposed by this dragging has behaved in a very odd way, clumping and fracturing rather than just hissing apart like sand or dust would. S S described it as being "cohesive", suggesting that it could be similar to the duricrust seen at the Viking landing sites. Perhaps, he speculated, we were seeing soil and dirt cemented by salts left behind after moisture, seeping up from below, evaporated away. This is going to be a very important feature for the team, you could tell that from the excitement in their voices when describing it. ("It looks like mud, but it can't BE mud!" - a puzzled S S)

Also mentioned:

* Temperature issues: Spirit is a little "overdressed" for the conditions, as one of the panel put it - its temperature is a little high. Not expected to be a problem tho, as the internal temperature will drop once Spirit drives off the lander. In the meantime, they are "working around" the problem by turning off certain systems at times to allow Spirit to keep cool, and will even turn it off for an "afternoon siesta" later today.

* Air bag obstruction: simulations using the test bed lander at JPL have shown that retracting the air bag shown partially obstructing the egress ramp shouldn't be a problem.

* Full Panorama - available when? Within 4 to 5 days we should have a "full" 360 degree panorama.

I know exactly what you mean Josh... That is some machine those JPL guys landed on Mars... !!

Stu

Josh Cryer · 2004-01-06 12:07:18

The conference is over... I just wanted to say two quick things about the rovers, and link the Pancam image.

First, two bits of good news, it seems that the rover will cool down as soon as it gets off the lander, so the charge on the battery, etc, ought to be far better. And second, the UHF antennae was boosted to 128kb/s last night, so now they'll be getting stuff down at optimal speeds. So whew. That's really great news.

Anyway, here's a link to the full image, a very big, 8 megs, so watch out! http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery....995.jpg

Stu, I can't wait to hear what you have to say about it. I was awestruck seeing it on a TV. The Real Player stream does not do it justice.

Other interesting tidbits; apparently the MarsRover site got just over a billion hits already, which translates to like 3000 hits a second over the past three days (if I did my math right). That's just mind boggling.

Rxke · 2004-01-06 12:25:22

Thanks people! just got home, downloading pic now, goes real fast, NASA has got his act together on the server side, that's for sure... Imagine how many people are downloading it now...

Thanks stu and josh.... Wow amazing, and they didn't even had to get close to those rocks

(i'm off, looking pic...)

EDIT: BTW, Clark, Josh won, again!

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