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Mars NASA Science

4-Billion-Pixel Panorama View From Curiosity Rover 101

Posted by samzenpus from the take-a-look dept.
A reader points out that there is a great new panorama made from shots from the Curiosity Rover. "Sweep your gaze around Gale Crater on Mars, where NASA's Curiosity rover is currently exploring, with this 4-billion-pixel panorama stitched together from 295 images. ...The entire image stretches 90,000 by 45,000 pixels and uses pictures taken by the rover's two MastCams. The best way to enjoy it is to go into fullscreen mode and slowly soak up the scenery — from the distant high edges of the crater to the enormous and looming Mount Sharp, the rover's eventual destination."
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4-Billion-Pixel Panorama View From Curiosity Rover More

4-Billion-Pixel Panorama View From Curiosity Rover

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  • it sure would be nice to get a PNG.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Thursday March 28, 2013 @08:04PM (#43307987)

    Flash player embeds are great and all, but I would rather have a good, high resoluton image that I can span over my multi monitor setup instead as my desktop image.

    You know, because I think its cool? I understand that the photographer worked hard to make it, and can release however he damnd well wants, but I would still like this in PNG format.

    • Re:it sure would be nice to get a PNG.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by one eyed kangaroo ( 215202 ) on Thursday March 28, 2013 @08:15PM (#43308061) Homepage
      True enough, but I'm just enjoying it for what it represents, a startling view of another planet.
      I am quite awestruck by this, and find that all the cynicism has drained out of me ;-)

    • Re:it sure would be nice to get a PNG.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Thursday March 28, 2013 @08:16PM (#43308063)
      Here's one I found [nasa.gov] within 1 minute of searching on Google.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Uuum, he *already* has released it as image files. Or what do you think the SWF requests from the server?

      Just use Firebug's network tab, to look at the requests, and make a wget command out of it. You're not a Internet child anymore, are you?

      • You know, not everyone has the luxury of a full browser + suite of tools to do such things, and get fed the crippleware "mobile versions" of webpages?

        Because some of us have to sneak access using mobile devices because of corporate firewalls?

        Yeah. That.

        • Laptop + "mobile devices" = problem solved.

          This wasn't about PNG's, nor "my internets is crap" because the two contradict each other - and the obvious solution, if you weren't trolling, is shown above. ;-)

          • While "a" solution, not a workable one in my situation. When I say "sneak", I literally mean it.

            We work with proprietary aerospace engineering data and processes, including DoD funstuff.

            Seriously, there is no way in hell I can sneak in a laptop. It's hard enough sneaking in a smartphone. I am literally stuck with mobile view webpages until after 2am, and limited to the tools available for an android platform running froyo. It isn- by choice that I play in the pool with orange floaties on, ok?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by hawguy ( 1600213 )

              While "a" solution, not a workable one in my situation. When I say "sneak", I literally mean it.

              We work with proprietary aerospace engineering data and processes, including DoD funstuff.

              Seriously, there is no way in hell I can sneak in a laptop. It's hard enough sneaking in a smartphone. I am literally stuck with mobile view webpages until after 2am, and limited to the tools available for an android platform running froyo. It isn- by choice that I play in the pool with orange floaties on, ok?

              If you have unusual client side restrictions, then state them when you state your problem or don't whine when someone gives you an "unworkable" solution to your problem.

              But if your computer is locked down tightly enough to prevent you from browsing the internet freely, how do you copy images that you've downloaded to your phone over to your dual-monitor desktop computer without violating your employer's security policy? At my company, when we lock down a computer, not only do we restrict webpages to a small

              • I email the picture to myself later, once I go home. :D

                I log in to the corporate webmail portal, using the crippled browser client, attach the file, and set myself as the recipient.

                Pull the image out once I go back to work the next day. It looks for all the world like an internal email.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by hawguy ( 1600213 )

                  I email the picture to myself later, once I go home. :D

                  I log in to the corporate webmail portal, using the crippled browser client, attach the file, and set myself as the recipient.

                  Pull the image out once I go back to work the next day. It looks for all the world like an internal email.

                  Then why don't you just use your home computer to download the images, as others have suggested?

                  • Because right now I am at work, and I may forget to push the images later. My house is a 50 minute drive away, and I have another 3.5hrs before the buzzer rings, and I can go home.

                    Pulling the image now keeps it in the phone, so that even if I forget about it, I still have it, and can push it later without incident.

                    The OP I made was more intended in the tone of "Nasa often offers large PNG files for these kinds of things, even on their mobile version pages. It would sure be nice if this article did the same,

                    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

                    • Re: (Score:1)

                      by Anonymous Coward
                      Why don't you just email the link to yourself?

                    • Naw, Shit happens man.

                      I didn't mean it in a snarky way, even if the replies came out that way due to responding in kind.

                      I just like being able to grab the image and keep it. Totally agree about being to pan and zoom on the martian landscape from a POS android phone. Totally diggin it.

                      I'm glad you submitted the article. :D

                    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:it sure would be nice to get a PNG.. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Spikeles ( 972972 ) on Thursday March 28, 2013 @08:39PM (#43308189)
      Not the exact same picture, but here one with a 88mb TIFF [nasa.gov]. Here's another with an 88mb TIFF [nasa.gov], and here is a whole lot more [nasa.gov] for your desktop pleasure.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      well, it's three years since 'thoughts on flash' and it's steve jobs that's dead, not the ubiquitous and stubborn little plug-in.

      who'd have thought it eh!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Here is FULL uncompressed TIFF image:

      http://marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20121109a/PIA16440_McMurdo_Merged_Cyl_L456atc.tif (164Mb)

    • You do realize that would be ~ 11gb of data (uncompressed), right? Even assuming that PNG managed an 80% compression, you'd still have more than 2gb of data.

      • Yes, I know the filesize will be enormous. Been there, done that with NASA HIRISE images.

        I have a 16gb card in the phone, and yank the big image out of it when I go home. I can then resize and reformat the image to suit my own personal needs myself, with an artifact free source. JPEG files meant for webpages look horrible on a high contrast display as the desktop image.

    • Flash player embeds are great and all, but I would rather have a good, high resoluton image that I can span over my multi monitor setup instead as my desktop image.

      Especially since the controls are backwards.

      • Especially since the controls are backwards.

        No they're not. Just pretend you're controlling the camera.

    • I have just finished doing a music video for a song I have about the Mars rovers [youtube.com]. I was very impressed with the image data that NASA makes available on the Mars Science Laboratory [nasa.gov] - RAW images from cameras as well as annotated images with explanations.

    • You have a 90,000 pixel wide monitor setup and a GTX Titan or Quadro to calculate the zooming manually? Wooooow.

  • Sometimes science gives me a woody (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gubon13 ( 2695335 ) on Thursday March 28, 2013 @08:11PM (#43308041)
    I'm trying to understand the sheer awesomeness of the technologies necessary to get to this point where I can have some sense of what it's like to be on Mars, and it's a bit of a pant-tenter...

    • Re:Sometimes science gives me a woody (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rsmith-mac ( 639075 ) on Thursday March 28, 2013 @09:09PM (#43308351)

      We really do live in the future. I'm looking at a panoramic, high definition landscape of another planet from my couch. How can you not get excited about it?!

      People spend all of this time bitching about all the things that are wrong in the world, and they only half-realize all the awesome things that go on such as this. We live in the future and I wouldn't have it any other way.

      P.S. Not all of us are male, you insensitive clod. Though the realization that I'm now wetter than Mars from looking at Mars has a certain tinge of irony to it

      • This is awesome. In the original meaning of the word "awesome".
        We are looking in great detail at the landscape of another planet. Give it another couple of decades and this picture will include astronauts high fiving each other. Ray Bradbury would have had a word or two to say about that.

        It looks kinda desolate, tho. Makes one appreciate good ole Terra a little bit more. An inhabitable planet? Wot, wif green an all? Awesome! Let's frack it!

      • People spend all of this time bitching about all the things that are wrong in the world, and they only half-realize all the awesome things that go on such as this..

        Well yeah, we bitch about THIS world. Awesome stuff may be happening on MARS, but here in this world, there's nothing but suckiness and things going wrong. Must be because there's nothing living on mars to fuck up shit. Dr. Manhattan had it right the first time.

        Okay, that started out as a joke making fun of your word choice, but now I've gone from awestruck at the panorama to depressed...

  • In a year ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Thursday March 28, 2013 @08:25PM (#43308111)

    ... something will have snuck up on the rover and written WASH ME in its dust with their tentacle.

  • Is it me or is the cylinder on the back covered in duct tape? Times are tough at NASA...

    • Times are tough? What are you about?

      That's NASA's lucky duct tape. You'll find it on any mission.

  • Not having much success with the new feature: appears there is no thread on the new upvote feature.

    So here's the thing. We can use this for good, or we can use this for evil.

    Good: Voting up story submissions that don't end in woolly assertions soliciting a lather of unfocused submissions.

    Good: Voting down story submissions that leave out critical bits of context as if everyone goes off to immediately RTFA.

    Bad: Voting down perfectly geeky submissions because it's just not your particular kink.

    Let's raise th

  • Here is a panorama stitched using 936 images taken with a low-cost PTZ camera.. http://nuspectra.com/pano/ [nuspectra.com] Fully-automated and for under $2K.

  • So I was noticing how filthy the wheels are... and I'm wondering, if the planets as dry as it's supposed to be, why would dirt be sticking to anything? What's making it sticky? Static? I'm a bit perplexed by what seems to be moist earth rather than desert sands as I'd expect.

  • The UI for navigating the image has N pointing ahead/upward. Is it same as Earth North ? And, Martian East is the same as the direction of sunrise ?

  • That's approximately one pixel per person on Earth.

    I'm that rust-colored pixel on that rust-colored rock next to the dusty soil.
         

  • ... so why limit people to browsers?

  • Wow, the rover! (Score:3, Informative)

    by m.alessandrini ( 1587467 ) on Friday March 29, 2013 @03:47AM (#43309901)
    Am I the only one looking amazed at the rover and ignoring the landscape? It's like my child's robot dreams starting slowly to come true.

  • That looks like quartz veins on the horizontal lying rock about north east by east. I wonder if it is.

  • Sure is weird seeing the Sun from another planet. Looks pretty much the same, though through a dustier atmosphere.
  • I took a look at the panorama and it is indeed awesome. But I found myself immediately trying to identify "objects" and patterns. Not because I believe that there are non-natural artifacts there, but because my brain started saying "Ok, let's see what kind of ridiculous things Richard C. Doucheland will claim as proof of aliens".

    I like the guys enthusiasm, and I share a very small percent of his views, but I honestly cannot take him seriously at all. I've never seen someone so intelligent be so purposefull
  • Stunning image. And yet, I can't help but think it looks at lot like parts of New Mexico. It's easy to do a mental subsitution of low-growing, evergreen-type shrubs for what are actually rocks in the picture. :D

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