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Space Science

JPL releases 20000 Mars Images 61

Posted by Hemos from the eyecandy dept.
Barbarian writes "The Jet Propulsion Lab has released 20000 new unprocessed Mars image to the public (both processed and unprocessed images may be found at the link). You can also read the press release. The importance of this is that previously images were not released in this quantity or without pre-processing and captioning. Stories also available online: MSNBC, Associated Press. "
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JPL releases 20000 Mars Images More

JPL releases 20000 Mars Images

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  • The conspiracy continues (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Not all the images have been released. None of the pictures showing alien missile bases were released

    Niether were the photographs of the equatorial crash site of the Polar Lander

  • Are the images... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    JPLed or did they make up their own license. Martian bastards.
  • i can see my house from here
    ------------
    a funny comment: 1 karma
    an insightful comment: 1 karma
    a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
  • Will they be making data available on DVD-ROM? I lookd through the site, but couldn't find out. I would love to have these new MGS images on a DVD. It would be nice to have a different X background every hour for a few months without having to change discs. :)
  • There's no point in replying to everyone who does that.

    --
  • I believe that the new images are catalogued by orbital pass and something like latitude and longitude, but you might have to go through a few to find them.

    --

  • Re:Joke? (Score:1)

    by PD ( 9577 )
    I'm sure that they named the server barsoom in honor of the Edgar Rice Burrows story. It's not a joke.
  • That was among the first targets of the Surveyor,
    I presume for publicity reasons.

    They've found other faces and objects,
    including Mickey Mouse and a heart crater.

  • Yes, several times during the first month.
    There is a hill there, but it doesn't look like a face.

    The 1976 images were highly distorted by computer
    "enhancemnet".

  • They no longer need to draw faces in the sand.
    They just read and chat on the InterNet in perfect
    anonymity.

  • I particularly like the latest series, which features that unique "zoom blur", looking almost as if the camera was zooming in on the target so fast that the image scaled up during the short time of the exposure. Anyone know how they got that effect?

    --
  • We used to joke about it: NASA traffic vs MSN traffic.

    The Clementine mission, was eventually a "failure" (due, possibly to "an excessively stressful mission-operations phase that was clearly exhausting to the team and may well have contributed to the ultimate demise of Clementine after the lunar portion of the mission had been completed but before insertion onto the asteroid flyby trajectory." -- Space Studies Board Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications, National Research Council).

    Still, the pictures from the Clementine mission generated more hits than the Microsoft Network did (MSN in those days was probably still subscription-based). The Clementine mission cost a total of $98 Million. If you compared the costs, Microsoft could have saved millions of dollars and gotten better traffic by launching a space probe rather than an online network...
    -
    bukra fil mish mish
    -
    Monitor the Web, or Track your site!
  • Actually, some Hoagland followers staged a picket for a while when the Mars Observer went missing. They claimed that that too was a coverup to avoid getting the truth.

    You know how it is. The absence of any evidence serves to show just how damn good the coverup is!
    -
    bukra fil mish mish
    -
    Monitor the Web, or Track your site!
  • Surface images are nice and all, but I still need to know how to get from place to place.
  • This topic comes up every time there is a successful USA space probe. While some photos are released immediately (PR), the bulk of the data collected by each instrument is exclusively available to that project that built and/or manages that instrument for one year after collection. This is a perk needed to attract top scientists from the universities and keep them working with the labyrinthine NASA bureaucracy for the years, sometimes decades, needed for the mission.

    Sure, some folks will release all of their data almost immediately, but it is up to them to do so.

    And, after the year is up, the taxpayers get their due. This system has been used since the dawn of the space program. It's a little late to gripe about it now.
    --

  • And the boulder that keeps changing position?

    George
  • Maybe they do, but it seems to me this site's been slashdotted.
    [Begin whiny rant] - I wanna see the pictures! :-(

    The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
  • Hrm. New around here, aye? The 'First Post' phenomenon has been going on for so long, I'm willing to bet before God created the Universe, someone yelled 'First photon!'

    What can I say, except: try it out for yourself, you'll see if you like it. I've been guilty of a few first posts in my days, until I realized what an empty pleasure it was... It's like cigarette, though, you just can't explain it.

  • Ummm, that's the entire POINT. He doesn't WANT to be e-mailed.
    Some people are so dense.

    Kintanon
  • I'll have proof of the alien civilization on Mars! Now the conspiracy can't `sanitize` the evidence! I've got them now!
  • Well, no program exists to remove the letters S,P,A,M and then rot13 the remainder, so your average geek will probably not email you. It's just too much work.

    Happy now?


    #!/bin/sh

    echo $* | tr -d [:upper:] | rot13

  • I knew it! Mickey Mouse is an Alien Conspiracy to brainwash our children sothat when they grow up they put their parents into Nursing Homes... Which we all know are Martian Space Alien fronts so that they can do all the Anal Probing and rectal Exams they want with out anyone being the wiser.
  • Did they take pictures of Cydoina and/or the face?
  • Do you realize that they could almost fund an entire space mission if they sold advertising on the JPL page where info on Mars missions is offered? Last time, they had over 90,000,000 hits in just over one week!

    That's not even close to enough money. 90,000,000 hits @ 100 CPM = $9M; 100 CPM is probably at least ten times more than they could charge, and $9M is still a factor of ten less than a mission costs.

    If you want to make money off of astronomical observations, sell your photos to calendars.

  • Check out photo #18181!
    That one would go great with front of the house!
    I think I'll save up for a down payment for that parcel of land.


    ========================
    63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
    ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
  • I looked through all 20,000 images and noticed they left out all the martians. Now what kind of PR is this really? I mean if I were going to want you to visit my planet wouldn't you want to see more than the scenary? Granted with an atomosphere that isn't breatheable and that whole problem of it taking three years to get there ... there really isn't any reason as to why this couldn't be a prime area for vacationing. If NASA was trying to impress me they truly failed ... there's no way that I would ever go there especially with the complete lack of staff ...
  • Well the site has been /.ed, but I was wondering if this is a joke? the url barsoom.mssc/moc_gallery seems a little suspicous to me.
    barsoom == ERB storie ans moc_gallery == fake_gallery?
  • That's not really a fair statement. "Principal Investigators" (PI) of NASA space projects gets "first cut" on the data, which they are allowed to keep for ONE year (propriety). However, once that one year is up, they HAVE to release the data. This is fair both ways : people who are PI put tons of time/money to bid and propose to NASA so they deserve a break, but NASA projects are funded by the public, so the public at the end should get the data. So this "big 20000 for free" thing is just another NASA twist on "how nice we are PR" despite being just a fact of life. Which they probably need after having the MPL/MCO f-u-c-k-u-p.
  • Did you notice that the 'color corrected' images rendered the rover a little bluer than normal?

    I especially liked his link to the guy who thinks turtles live on mars and has the pictures [netside.net] to prove it.

    carlos

  • Naw. Couldn't have been. John Carter's been dead many years by now.

    I've wanted to go to Mars ever since those pre-teen days reading The Martian Chronicles and Burroughs' Mars series.

    carlos

  • kinda like a public echelon looking down on the martians ? just think... martians could have their own lil spy network watching us too ?
  • What is this, has Slashdot become SCary's Shugashack?

    "First post, biaaatches!! blaaah, suck it down!!"

    I'm still trying to think of HOW anyone is so hopelessly depraved that they must withdraw pleasure from getting the first post. What a letdown it must be to these lemurs when they think they have it, and then find out they missed it?
    - Amon CMB
  • Actually no... I've been reading Slashdot for a while, only recently I noticed the "first post" problem on it.
    - Amon CMB
  • Slashdot readers who are interested in general science stories are invited to visit bottomquark [bottomquark.com]. Based on the slash [slashcode.com] code, it's a new web site devoted to the general science enthusiast. Please stop by and share your insights and opinions on the latest developments in the science world, and if you know of any interesting stories, let us know!

    GrnArrow
    grnarrow@removethis.bottomquark.com [mailto]

  • Unfortuately, they kept the ones the finger in the lens, and then those crazy shots of the after-party at the Best Western (TM) with that wacky intern, Matilda from the UK (maybe they can get the nubmers right now)
  • Cool pictures. Yes, I found Waldo after an exhaustive fuzzy search. He was hiding next to the rock.

    We'd undoubtedly have more pictures added to the global wealth if we'd given NASA/JPL failed Mars missions just 1% of the money the DMCA will cost the taxpayers by the time all the litigation is settled.

    So much power, so little idea of what to do with it.
  • Ok, ok. I agree that all the scientific info should be released. However, there are perfectly good reasons (or at least reasons) why its not.

    Let's start with the data output. First off, it needs to be parsed by some massive program when it comes off the satelite. In the format that it arrives in, it is not normally viewable. Ok, so you say 1) give everyone the parser or 2) release as soon as parsed. Right. Well, its not that simple.

    Yes, MSSS is an independent contractor, but they work for our govenment, and as such, there are certain laws they have to abide by or risk prosecution. Please note that I said *laws*, not guidelines or any other softer, fuzzier word. Some of these laws fall under the category of export control. Basically, export control laws govern what stuff, *including information*, can leave the country. Lean back in your chair and think about that one for a minute. Naturally, any information that is going to be posted on the web and is viewable anywhere is subject to these laws.

    Now, in order for an American company to work with (share data with) a company based in a foreign country, they have to get a permit that specifies only certain types of info in certain, pre-defined circumstances can be shared. The company I work for has at least one of these at this time. All of our employees are required to take export control training. Its not a joke to the company; its a really big deal. Companies can be fined for violations (read: loads of money, even for a large company) and the permit can be taken away, there by making it impossible to work with the foreign company, there by killing your business.

    So, how does this relate to the Mars probe pictures? Well, how do _we_ know what's comming down the satelite feed? In case you were wondering, NASA and official weather satelites (etc.) are not the only things that get launched into space and gather data. They're just the one's you get to hear about publicly. (Anyone who lives near the launch pads in Florida can tell you that.) And the outputs that you see from existing publicised satelites may not be the only things being returned by them.

    Now, I'm not trying to say that the FBI has three cameras on the mars probe and they're secretly filming the alien breeding grounds there. Nor am I saying that I necissarily agree with this process. What I'm saying is that some of the stuff comming back could be deemed as "classified" for whatever reason, and MSSS can't publish until the public material is separated from the non-public material. I'm guessing that they waited to release it all in one hunk because trickling the info wasn't deemed practical as they figured the folx looking at it would need it all in one big piece, they had to go through some approval process, etc.

    Food for thought.
  • Laws are probably an issue here, but I think how science works these days are more important.

    Whoever publishes something first gets all the credit for any discoveries that may have been done using those data. And, there's are race, I mean a race to get that stuff out. There are a bunch of people, if they get their hands on the data, they will publish stuff as soon as they can, even though they may never have been a part of the project at all, they have no investment in it.

    So as to make sure that they people who obtained the data gets a chance to publish it first, it is common, if not the rule, that data have a proprietary period of one year. It's not just NASA.

    I don't like this situation. I think science should be as open as possible, and it is not. Obviously, you can't have people running around "stealing" data who have not done anything to obtain it, but that needs regulating by a code of ethics, not by keeping things secret. As long as it doesn't work this way, it is perfectly understandable that MSSS keeps the data.

    I don't think they will keep anything secret in the long run, that would not benefit neither the MSSS nor NASA, it's publish or perish.

    BTW, have a look at some reductions [astro.uio.no] made by a friend of mine of the face.

  • They should have put up 20000 fine pr0n images instead.
  • The question is, can I get a prize or maybe even some government funding to attempt to find life at NASA?
  • These photo's should prove invaluable in the coming centuries toward the planning and inevitable colinizing of Mars - BION some day Mars will be a very familier place, with regular flights taking people there to work and study for extended periods. Venus is out as way too inhospitable, but there should be ways to find Martian resources such as water, energy, building materials, etc to bootstrap a small industrial civilization capable of building hydroponic greenhouses, farms of alge, fish, plants, etc. It's inevitable.
  • Perhaps you meant te Planetary Image Atlas [nasa.gov]. It has raw and processed images from many planetary missions. They have some neat utils to search and find the data you want too.
  • Who do I mail that I saw a martian? It wasn't green..

    //rdj
  • pic #19836, left of the big rock in the background. Marvin and Duck Dodgers having a picnic. and I think I can just see a little bit of Jimmy Hoffa behind the right rock.

    //rdj
  • &ltVOICE TYPE="old.fart"&gt

    Kids today, you don't know how good you've got it. When I was a whippersnapper, I was lucky, because my oldest brother worked for JPL, and I got all sorts of free pictures from Voyager (the good space probe, not the lame space show), Viking, Pioneer, and Mariner. I was special.

    Now anyone can download the pics from the 'Net, print them off on their 600dpi color printer, and have them.

    &lt/VOICE&gt

    Seriously: be thankful you can download these with a mouseclick. It wasn't that long ago that you'd've been lucky to get any look at these...

  • I took the time to write a ROT13 converter for the Windows Scripting Host (Win98/2000 - NT4 with Option Pack) myself. Visit my crappy Angelfire page:
    http://www.angelfire.com/boybands/98fe breze/ [angelfire.com]

    --
  • I just watched the Martian Chronicles, starring Rock Hudson, on the Sci-Fi channel.

    It's amazing how terrifically inaccurate it was! I love old science fiction :o)

    (The astronauts' bellbottoms didn't help things either).

  • The last time I was at JPL, there was a guy outside (well, at the corner of Foothill and Oak Grove) handing out a 10-page (or thereabouts) write up of why the "new" pictures of the Face on Mars were faked by JPL to cover up for the "old" picture of the Face on Mars.

    He went on and on about phase angles, etc., claiming that NASA deliberately avoided taking any picture under the exact same circumstances (but managing to avoid talking about the number of dust storms that would've taken place in the interim) so as to prevent people from really seeing what was there.

    It was especially clear to me that even if there WERE new pictures at exactly the same phase, etc. it wouldn't satisfy any of the believers.

    I wonder though if we can get stats on which images are requested the most. I'll bet that the Face on Mars location is ranked up there with Olympus Mons [solarviews.com], and Valles Marineris [solarviews.com]

  • Good, now we can keep that Blue Sky Mars [slashdot.org] kook^H^H^H^Hguy busy reprocessing all of the images to show how Mars is the Solar System's best vacation spot.

    Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
  • I wonder whether their site will receive the attention that it did when they first collected the images. Do you realize that they could almost fund an entire space mission if they sold advertising on the JPL page where info on Mars missions is offered? Last time, they had over 90,000,000 hits in just over one week!

    Oh, wait, the government only gets money from private industry from taxes and they do not even do a good job at collecting those!

  • /. is not posting the stories that I woul like to see today. I would prefer to have seen:

    JPL Goes After Usenet Posters

    Penthouse releases 20000 images

  • So, does this mean that we might get the opportunity to see if Warner Brothers was lying to us about Marvin the Martian? Perhaps we'll get a glimpse of Duck Dodgers too. =)

  • PDS image format (Score:3)

    by Barbarian ( 9467 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @09:52AM (#1052775)
    The images can be viewed in NASA PDS format...

    Viewers and tools are here:

    http://www-pdsimage.jpl.nasa.gov/PDS/ [nasa.gov]

    By the way, when you go to that page linked in the /. story (once it's not /.'ed...), there's three main choices for the images...the one on the right is the new stuff that was released.

    --

  • Re:Martian Face =b (Score:3)

    by orpheus ( 14534 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @10:51AM (#1052776)
    You damn Earthling internet pirates!

    The Cydonian Face is a copyrighted work of artistic expression protected by the DMCA. If tens of millions of miles of distance isn't access control, I don't know what is! Pirate websites like this which distribute images created by NASA hardware hackers with 'homemade' imagers and transmitters are taking food out of the mouths of starving artists like Lars "It even rhymes with Mars, how dumb can these humans be" Ulrich of Metallica -- not to mention the management and staff of the MPAA (Martian Protected Art Association) and RIAA (Rich Influential Alien Agents)

    Use licenses are available under the terms of the JPL (Jammed Pubic License) for noncommercial private use only. Retransmission or distribution of these images and videos, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of Martian League Baseball, is expressly prohibited.
    _____________

  • Re:Cydonia? (Score:3)

    by orac2 ( 88688 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @09:33AM (#1052777)
    The Mars Global Surveyor was sent specially to photograph the area as JPL got tired of all the constant "Face On Mars" stuff - these MGS pictures were released some time ago. [nasa.gov]

    As was suspected by most scientists, the face is just a photographic artifact, due to lighting conditions, low resolution and extensive image processing of the original Viking picture, similar in nature to the famous, but non-existant "Martian Canals".

    It's a pity De Palma didn't seem to bother to read this before creating lost oppurtunity that was "Mission to Mars"...

  • Martian Face =b (Score:3)

    by SirStanley ( 95545 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @09:10AM (#1052778) Homepage
    Now the big question. Did the little Poor martians that have had their Monuments Photographed Realize that its better to tear it down and let Earthlings think Mars is Uninhabited so that Earthlings don't flock to Mars like the Locusts they are and Try to Make Contact. They Obviously don't like Earthlings so Im thinking we aren't gonna see the face again, and if they did like us.... the anal probes would stop.. hmmm... need more Preperation H..

  • This should happen every day. (Score:3)

    by mkoeller ( 155622 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @09:23AM (#1052779) Homepage
    Every time I see these great announcements that the NASA again released pictures I think that this should be a normal thing. Wouldn't you say that the NASA's work is supposed to be for all the humans, or, at least, for all U.S. citizens (since they finance it)? If there is a big mass of interested people looking at this then they migth even find something new and exciting (life on mars?) that would have slipped through otherwise. Open Source for Space Exploration!

  • What no Flash intro? (Score:3)

    by acidmaple ( 157586 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @09:42AM (#1052780) Homepage
    What no Flash intro? No thumping, booty-shaking techno as we fly through the majestic canyons of Mars in full screen (but resizeable) glory? Now, I'm in awe of the amazing photograghs that JPL has posted in a suprisingly open-minded mood. But come on! This is the era of high bandwidth, graphically pleasing web-designs (emphasis on the design part). Now, I realize that they probably don't have the time, money, bandwidth ect. to make something that will please me, an ultra-jaded-slack-jawed-flash-bang-junkie. However, throw me a bone! Give me an interesting homepage at least.

    I'm sorry. I really am... I don't mean to pick on JPL. They mean well. It's just so damn frustrating. These georgeous images that have been given to us by amazing technology are framed by a completely lack-luster page that detracts from them so much that it's almost painfull. I just wanted so much more. To be a geek and an artist, sigh...

  • MSSS, NOT JPL (Score:5)

    by The Dev ( 19322 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @09:23AM (#1052781)
    Actually it was Malin Space Science Systems(MSSS), and not JPL that released the images. This is significant because MSSS has been holding the data from everyone (including NASA/JPL) for a year before releasing it. It is great to see MSSS take a more open and timely approach to mars data.


    It is sad however that a private contractor like MSSS could control the release of this data in the first place. All scientific data from planetary missions should be immediately released on the Internet.

  • In related news, (Score:5)

    by jesser ( 77961 ) on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @09:46AM (#1052782) Homepage Journal
    In related news, NASA [nasa.gov] has announced a $10,000 prize for the first discovery of evidence of alien life within the images. Distributed.net [distributed.net]'s Jeff Lawson said he plans to participate in the project, code-named "redplanet colonyfind five [distributed.net]". $1000 of the prize money will go to the winner, and $1000 will go to the winner's team (or to his cow if he doesn't have a team). $6000 to a non-profit organization, which will be decided by vote, but is likely to be Microsoft [microsoft.com] due to a confusing but popular abbreviation of the Mars Society [marssociety.org]'s name.

    Distributed.net will use the remaining $2000 to pay for efforts toward its next project, a non-commercial system that will compete with geek news site Slashdot [slashdot.org] for control of a dangerous weapon that Slashdot owner Rob Malda is rumored to not only have invented and built, but have tested repeatedly on friendly webmasters. World Wide Web leaders have previously met to decide whether it is better for one group to entirely control the weapon or for there to be a balance of power between two or possibly more groups, but no conclusion was agreed upon. The United States, where both Slashdot and distributed.net are located, has not yet signed treaties banning all tests of the weapon.

    --

  • Data available from NASA (Score:5)

    by waldeaux ( 109942 ) <donahue&skepsis,com> on Tuesday May 23, 2000 @09:18AM (#1052783)
    Actually, quite a lot of data is available from NASA. There's the Astronomical Data Center [slashdot.org] which has several thousand catalogs of objects obtainable over the WWW or on CD-ROM at a very reasonable price (I paid $5, it might be a little higher now).

    Also, if one is a Guest user of NASA facilities, one only has "rights" to the data for six months, after which it is available (unprocessed) to anyone who asks for it. Archives for different missions are available at different NASA sites.

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