Phoenix Mars Lander Updates 138
spandex_panda writes "There are a few pictures of the Mars Lander on the ground — you can see its parachute and its heat shield a few kilometers away, too. There's a very cool looking picture of it floating down, actually captured while it's in the air with its parachute out!" We also have a YouTube video all about the robot arm that will dig down and probably find a groundhog who we all hope will see his shadow.
so let me ask the question (Score:1)
Answer: (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:so let me ask the question (Score:5, Informative)
Today's lesson in Internet humor will discuss text-based simulations of real-life behavior.
Sometimes, it aids for delivery of humor to juxtapose two replies or comments together in such a way that one is hidden and the other is the official or formal one. A good example in common speech would be in Top Gun when the main character says one thing to the teacher and "coughs" a different response into his hand. The hidden, coughed, reply is shared with those nearby so they can share the deceit.
For the humor impaired, or non-human readers out there, humor is often a social construct of sharing the joke or hidden meaning. Get it?
A long time ago, before chat rooms or blogs, a common internet medium was a program called "talk". The primary difference of modes today was that each "talker" got half the screen and just typed away. You could type something and then backspace it away but the person on the other end would see the entire exchange. So they knew both the early response and the second.
"^H" is representative of Control-H which in several terminal types is basically backspace. When people now type one thing followed by a series of "^H" they are simulating this early behavior of "talk" or even earlier and more mundane habit of hiding a hidden response or comment (cough, cough).
Now, be sure to return next week (especially those semi-sentient programs out there) to tackle the more difficult topic of sarcasm.
Re:so let me ask the question (Score:4, Funny)
Re:so let me ask the question (Score:5, Informative)
"^H" is representative of Control-H which in several terminal types is basically backspace. When people now type one thing followed by a series of "^H" they are simulating this early behavior of "talk" or even earlier and more mundane habit of hiding a hidden response or comment (cough, cough).
There are two more facts that will help people and machines trying to understand the funny:
1) The "talk" program would send the literal backspace key to the talk client you were communicating in order to erase the character off their screen.
2) Different terminals may be using different codes for backspace, such that it was possible that when someone tried to erase something they typed it would look to be properly deleted on their end, yet on the other end it would appear as a literal series of "^H"s, making both the original word and attempt to erase it obvious.
So an additional layer of the humor in the case of using "^H"s is that it is supposed to simulate the hidden comment, revealed unintentionally and unwittingly.
Re:so let me ask the question (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:so let me ask the question (Score:5, Funny)
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As they start digging, they'll continue to ex
First Mars Blooper Released by NASA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First Mars Blooper Released by NASA (Score:4, Interesting)
What is keeping NASA and the ESA from working together to create a tiny habitat to send to mars? I'm not talking anything fancy. How about sending a plant to Mars and keeping it alive? You have all the challenges of putting a living organism into space, getting it to mars, landing it on mars, and getting a habitat inflated, powered up, and surviving, all without having to risk the life of a human being.
Think about it. Establishing green houses on mars, while a daunting task, will be incredibly valuable, and incredibly interesting. It will challenge our ability to remotely deploy and manage habitats, and provide the appearance of starting a human habitable colony on another world (even though scientists will know, and openly and repeatedly explain that it isnt, people will still come to that conclusion and be fascinated) without having to sacrifice human life.
All we need to do is start with just 1 little plant.
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Will be an excellent story for a hollywood movie. The angsty criminal vs. the good scientist vs Bad-ass martians
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Criminals probably aren't such a good idea, since if they're on death row already, they're probably not the kind of people you can trust.
I've often thought that offering the chance of a "one way trip" to suitably qualified people would still bring in a lot of volunteers. Some might be perfectly healthy and fine, but I expect a lot of the volunteers would be people who don't really expect to be alive much longer anyway.
Right now, personally, I wouldn't take it... but if, for example, I found out tomorrow
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Criminals probably aren't such a good idea, since if they're on death row already, they're probably not the kind of people you can trust.
I've often thought that offering the chance of a "one way trip" to suitably qualified people would still bring in a lot of volunteers. Some might be perfectly healthy and fine, but I expect a lot of the volunteers would be people who don't really expect to be alive much longer anyway.
Right now, personally, I wouldn't take it... but if, for example, I found out tomorrow that I have a terminal disease with only 5 years to live TOPS (but sufficiently close to 100% chance of survival within 3 years), I'd happily take a research job on Mars to live out the end of my days doing research in the most amazingly DIFFERENT place that I can imagine.
The contract could even say that when someone is too sick to work, you simply chuck them out the airlock (what's the point in prolonging their life at that point anyway)
That's a noble sacrifice, but suppose that they develop a cure within five years, and you're stuck up there on a frozen dustball with no way to come back and recover?
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Re:First Mars Blooper Released by NASA (Score:5, Funny)
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I've heard comments from people (not claiming you Mr AC!) that "if we find life on Mars, even bacterial, then we should leave it alone"
This is actually something I have a pretty big problem with... In the name of science, I'm quite happy to wait a while to DISCOVER what is and was around on Mars, but regardless of the results, I think we should colonise when we are reasonably able to do so (starting with the "simple" controlled habitat of scientists, going through "Mars hotels", and then finally (probably
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"Most of the cells in your body are not your own, nor are they even human. They are bacterial. From the invisible strands of fungi waiting to sprout between our toes, to the kilogram of bacterial matter in our guts, we are best viewed as walking "superorganisms," highly complex conglomerations of human cells, bacteria, fungi and viruses...."
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/10/65252 [wired.com]
Re:First Mars Blooper Released by NASA (Score:4, Interesting)
I am WELL aware of how important the bacteria and other little organisms in my body are to my life. I'm also even well aware of how important Earth bacteria are to our entire ecosystem. However, Martian bacteria can all be blasted off the face their planet once we've studied them for all I care.
We are a conquering species, and we can "conquer" the bacteria of Mars and commit genocide if you want to look at it like that. I have no issues with this concept.
We, as a species, need to get out in the universe, and if we have to crush some bacteria in to non-existence to do it, that's fine. I only draw the line once I see creatures exhibiting intelligence (the natural "intelligent behaviour" of chemicals up to and including very complex multicellular life such as bacteria does NOT count in this case! But get much more complex than that (plants, dumb fish, etc) and at that point I wouldn't be fine with it)
(and yes, it IS an arbitrary line I'm drawing, and I'm comfortable with that too!)
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Maybe YOUR leader - not mine!
Re:First Mars Blooper Released by NASA (Score:5, Insightful)
Aliens everywhere agree with you! We're not their concern until we're at least as intelligent as a very stupid Narfeneg.
Don't let the big filter hit you on the way out.
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If there's an alien race that's as advanced compared to us as we are compared to simple bacteria, then yes, I see no problem with them wiping us out without even thinking. As they re-shaped out planet in a microsecond in to exactly what they want, I doubt we'd even notice.
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Yep, but I don't think it's really a linear progression. We took a LONG time to get from simple multicelled life to "basic animal life". From there, we got to "complex animal life" pretty quickly, but since then, we haven't really advanced that much at all. I wouldn't have a hard time believing an alien race even half a billion years older than us is necessarily as advanced compared to us as we are to the simple bacteria.
And, if they are, well, I won't hold it against them for not thinking of us as anyt
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Because there's nothing to be gained from doing that that we can't do on Earth.
With the exception of gravi
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Interesting story: dot-com billionaire Elon Musk was planning on funding something like this personally, b
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Re:First Mars Blooper Released by NASA (Score:4, Funny)
Great, the first interplanetary privacy breach. Good work NASA, you've managed to upstage everybody on this one.
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I was just thinking how we humans have a hard enough time gathering equipment to read popular data formats from 30 years ago - if DVDs go the same way, why bother?
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Anonymous Coward (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Informative)
Abandoned Spaceships on the Moon [redorbit.com]
Basically, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter [nasa.gov] will get some 0.5 meter resolution pictures of the Apollo landing sites. It launches sometime after November 28th of this year (which really is 2008 - the government's telling the truth on that one). Enjoy!
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer is very simple: because the Apollo moon landing equipment is on the moon, not on Mars.
They have never done mapping of the moon on such a detailed resolution because the moon is not considered as interesting as Mars. Since there is no reason to believe the moon has ever had the smallest chance of developing life, it doesn't have the same scientific and popular appeal as Mars, where the possibility that life existed at some time in the past hasn't yet been disproved.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:4, Funny)
Fixed that for you!
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When the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launches we'll be able to get images (albeit fuzzy) of the equipment on the surface.
It won't shut up the Moon Hoax theorists but it will make them look even sillier.
Eternal Winter (Score:2, Funny)
hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
See more... http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3232035.ece [timesonline.co.uk]
Shame they did not land near the other probes, then they could have filmed each other. Yes, I know that is scientifically pointless, but you have to admit it would have been cool.
On the same note I always thought that Spirit or Opportunity should have been sent to visit Beagle crater...
Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080527.html [nasa.gov]
Not quite what you want, but close.
Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/230838main_PSP_008579_9020_descent.jpg [nasa.gov]
The wikipedia also has a link to an image from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that lcoates the Phoenix spacecraft. It is 10 pixels wide but you still recognize the solar arrays.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/press/PSP_008591_2485_RGB_Lander_Inserts.html [nasa.gov]
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Surely if Phoenix was in a crater, it wouldn't be able to see the horizon, just the sides of the crater?
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
You MUST look at the photos (Score:2)
Think about it: The MRO, stuck in a more or less fixed orbit with a period of two hours, managed to line up its camera to capture a lander that came screaming in at initially 12,000 miles per hour (probably a few hundred mph at time of photo), with an unclear amou
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Unfortunately, no, we didn't get Phoenix in our color swath. In fact, it's going to be difficult to produce an image of much better quality than what we have already released (we're trying though).
There are two main problems: 1) The signal to noise isn't very good because we were looking through a lot of dusty atmosphere to get the shot, and 2) all the movement that was going on makes it very difficult to create a good seamless mosaic of all the CCD's together, which is what we usually do.
In short, there
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False color? (Score:5, Interesting)
This issue was discussed in a series of posts on the last Mars mission, that left me more confused than I was before: is the red color in these photos and the other Phoenix images the real color of the Mars surface (or at least an accurate reconstruction of what a human eye would see with ambient light there) or is it something NASA arbitrarily adds to impress viewers with notions about "the red planet"? Previous discussion focused more on whether the people complaining were or were not NASA-denialist kooks than on whether they were factually correct.
Re:False color? (Score:5, Informative)
It's as close as you can get to reconstructing the real color from a series of monochrome images taken with different color filters.
or is it something NASA arbitrarily adds to impress viewers with notions about "the red planet"?
That Mars is pretty much reddish all over, with some white at the poles, can be easily verified from Earth with a telescope.
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Thanks! That's precisely what I'd meant by "an accurate reconstruction of what a human eye would see".
That Mars is pretty much reddish all over, with some white at the poles, can be easily verified from Earth with a telescope.
Even without a telescope you can look up and see that the thing is red. But a) even that was disputed here last time and b) that aside, it seems like t
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IIRC, before the Viking mission the Mars sky was expected to be blue from the surface.
The colour of the sky as seen from Mars will change depending on the weather. As there is typically a lot of dust in the atmosphere on Mars, the blue and green components get scattered so all you see is the red, giving you a red sky. This is the same effect as looking at a sunset with a lot of smoke or pollution in the sky here on Earth - the sunlight goes through more of the atmosphere than normal and the blue is scattered away leaving the red.
If you managed to look up on Mars when there was little du
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Idiots will dispute anything. Don't let them bother you.
Re:False color? (Score:4, Funny)
No they won't!
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No they won't!
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Meaning they are at least as accurate as photos from your digital camera, which work exactly the same way. The three primary colors combined to make up your digital color photo are made using color filters.
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The scientists are not really that interested in the visible light spectrum, the camera captures other wavelengths which are more telling of material composition and the like. They then use software to approximate that to colors the eyes would see, and which takes into account the likely appearance of objects (eg, Mars is likely to have a reddish ti
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I don't know if this is true with Phoenix or not, but it is true for Spirit & Opportunity and I have no reason to suspect it would be different for Phoenix.
The scientists are not really that interested in the visible light spectrum, the camera captures other wavelengths which are more telling of material composition and the like.
This is half-true. It's more accurate to say that scientists are interested in a lot more than the visible light spectrum. The MER Pancam actually mostly operates in the visible portion of the spectrum. The CCD itself is sensitive from about 400 (violet near the edge of UV) nanometers to 1100 nanometers (near IR) and the two cameras have different sets of filters (and the "left eye" camera has a filterless setting).
The Mini-TES instrument on the rovers operates mostly in the IR (167 bands!). Both V
Re:False color? (Score:5, Informative)
The second issue is when the filters do not represent the wavelengths that the human eye sees (even if they do use 3 or more). Most missions since the Voyagers carry approximately a dozen filters that span into infrared and ultra-violate, as well as the visible spectrum we are familiar with. It is usually too expensive to send back an image of the same scene through all 12 available filters. Thus, they tend to pick a few that span a wide range or that highlight features of a particular subject[1]. In most cases, these don't match what the eye sees, even if there are filters that could if used. But often one can approximate what the eye sees if the colors of the subject are fairly well known based on previous images or earth-based observations. One can then re-process the images accordingly in the lab. This was done a lot with rover images.
The bottom line is that the color images are usually only approximations for one or both of the above reasons. Because transmitting images costs lots of money, picking filters that match the human eye accurately often conflicts with the scientific goals of the mission.[2]
I'm sure better color images will come in the coming weeks and months. They're just getting their bearings right now. But they are likely to still be only approximations.
[1] For example, it was discovered from Earth scopes that one can see the surface of Titan through its clouds on a very specific wavelength. The Voyagers didn't have such a filter, but one for that very specific wavelength was added to the Cassinni probe.
[2] Another compromise technique is to send very low-resolution images of a given scene in more filters, such as human-friendly wavelengths. These are then combined with hi-res images such that the detail (texture) is clear, but the colors may bleed a bit. This is because the texture info comes from the hi-res image but the color info from the low-res ones.
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It's a fairly accurate representation of what Mars would look like to the human eye.
The thing is none of the cameras on board the rovers or Phoenix take pictures in a "conventional" manner. Instead the imaging devices [arizona.edu] have a series of filters designed to focus on a specific range of wavelengths (ultraviolet, infrared, etc.). Those black and white images [arizona.edu] you see are the results of a picture being taken through one
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to help with the color-
http://news.ucf.edu/UCFnews/index?page=article&id=002400410f556ad3011a10e25439031e [ucf.edu]
They're called color-calibration targets and are about the size of hockey pucks. Each device is covered with color chips, designed by University of Central Florida Physics and Astronomy Professor Dan Britt and two students. When Phoenix's camera takes pictures of the terrain, it will also capture the calibration targets, allowing scientists to compare the colors in each photo and determine the actual hues.
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More Pictures at NASA Website (Score:5, Informative)
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There should always be a link to the source on all news descriptions.
Resolution (Score:2)
Re:Resolution (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the best we have at the moment:
the shadow of a lander is just visible [tass-survey.org]
relevant earlier AskSlashdot [slashdot.org]
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There have been various satellites orbiting the moon taking images since Apollo, but it seems that they send the most powerful cameras to Mars instead of the moon. The moon is not "in style" at the moment. The moon orbiter budgets have been small compared to the Mars counterparts, even if you factor in the distance.
One thing that bothers me (Score:5, Interesting)
That is the true advantage of Spirit and Opportunity, not only did they use airbags instead of rockets, they could drive away from the disturbed landing site.
Re:One thing that bothers me (Score:5, Insightful)
Blowing away the top layer of dust may have helped.
Re:One thing that bothers me (Score:5, Informative)
In the case of Phoenix, no - as the stuff NASA is interested in is a couple of inches down. At any rate, they use multiple small thrusters to minimize the amount of disturbance and contamination.
That advantage comes with a pair of powerful disadvantages: First, the airbag systems sharply limit the size of the probe - both in dimensions and in weight. Secondly, the airbag systems are heavy - they take up a higher percentage of the possible landed weight.
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wouldn't... (Score:1)
area man (Score:2)
Trash (Score:1)
Martian printer ad? (Score:2)
holding up pages for the lander to see?
Anyone got a link?
We can land things on Mars.... (Score:2)
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Should be called to photo mission (Score:2)
the original photo (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This might be a dumb question... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes.
If there is no atmosphere/air on Mars, why in the world do we have a parachute on the lander?
Because Mars does have an atmosphere, complete with weather, sandstorms and such.
Also, "captured while its in the air" might not be an appropriate way to summarize the article as there is no air on Mars.
Mars does not have "air" (as in: 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, some random other stuff). Its atmosphere is mainly CO2, and is at much, much lower pressure than Earths. Still, it is definitely an atmosphere and not a near-vaccuum like you'd find on the moon.
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But does it have giant sandworms?
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If so, it's gonna be pretty pissed off when it gets a drill poked in its back...
Re:This might be a dumb question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes
If there is no atmosphere/air on Mars,
Wrong. Mars does have an atmosphere though it is much less dense than our own. Read the Wiki [wikipedia.org] about Mars exploration which talks about the parachutes. A quick Google will turn up much more information about atmospheric density, size of parachutes to compensate for a less dense atmosphere, size of objects to be parachuted, etc.
why in the world do we have a parachute on the lander?
Because it was too big and heavy to use the bouncing airbag routine the two rovers used to successfully land on Mars. Further, bouncing creates much more shock to the system than a one-off parachute deployment.
Also, "captured while its in the air" might not be an appropriate way to summarize the article as there is no air on Mars.
See my second comment. You are assuming something which is not correct.
Can someone please explain why we are wasting our money putting a parachute on the lander?
I just did.
And to think I gave up the opportunity to mod you a troll to explain something so basic.
Re:This might be a dumb question... (Score:4, Insightful)
Modding him troll would have been wrong, and an abuse of mod points. Clearly, it was a VERY dumb question, showing a COMPLETE lack of knowledge about the topic at hand, but it appeared to be a genuine question. It certainly didn't deserve any up-mods, but the down-mods would be equally as inappropriate.
Re:This might be a dumb question... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yep, that would be nice, but I'd say it should be the negative version of "Funny" from a karma perspective - stupid posts don't lose karma, just as funny posts don't gain it.
(but of course, it still affects the score, and you can set a preference for further score adjustment if you like)
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Personally, I find it hard to believe that anyone would think that there is no moisture content in feces [slashdot.org], but maybe I'm being too generous. He even throws a Rickroll [slashdot.org] at us.
Re:This might be a dumb question... (Score:5, Funny)
When will the government care about science?!
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What? Mars DOES have an atmosphere.
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Re:This might be a dumb question... (Score:5, Funny)
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