NEWEST ROVER TO LAND ON MARS 8/6/2012

@Irishk,

love it

@farmerman,

More photos

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/nasa-s-newest-mars-rover-slideshow/mars-science-laboratory-msl-entry-descent-landing-engineer-photo-081519256.html

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https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/533009_389673231097978_2029185601_n.jpg

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I just want it to roll on over to the mountain, prod some rocks with a pick and have a big-ol' fat FOSSIL fall out. And not some blob of hardened bacteria or anything they would argue about, but something striking like a martian starfish or something. Wouldn't that be AWESOME! Smile

(I know I know, it's never gonna happen. But wouldn't it be awesome if it did)

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@rosborne979,

What would really be awesome from MPOV is to see life forms on mars have sexual organs.

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@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

I seem to remember a lander from a few years ago which carried a microphone so that we could "hear" the sounds of Mars. Probably just wind I guess. But we'll never know, because I think it crashed and was lost.

I thought the microphone was a good idea. Do any of the other rovers have the ability to record sound?

I think if there were such an ability, they would have been playing the sound recording on the news now and then, and they haven't been. So I'd suspect they don't have the capability.

But I don't know that definitively.

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@oralloy,

Picture of the heat shield just after separation:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA15988.jpg

Picture of dust being kicked up by the sky crane thrusters:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA15990.jpg

View from orbit of the parachuting orbiter (top) and falling heatshield (bottom):

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA15993.jpg

View from space after landing:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA16001.jpg

View from front:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA15994.jpg

View from front, processed to remove fisheye effect:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA15986.jpg

View from rear, processed to remove fisheye effect:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA15987.jpg

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@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

View from orbit of the parachuting orbiter (top) and falling heatshield (bottom):

Doh!

That would be the lander that is parachuting down to the planet, not the orbiter.

(Was watching Olympics while composing.)

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@oralloy,

good shots, now I guess we wait for shots of the surface details and more techy data
Look for anything that is a sulfosalt or a anion hydrate,
gypsum, pyrrsonite, natron, Stuff like that is a clear indicator of evaporated water depoits.
I am wondering whether they will use a laser point or some other heat source to fry the suspected organic content and get it into the analyze

1 Reply

@farmerman,

More news from Mars.

http://news.yahoo.com/curiosity-sends-back-flood-views-mars-135443082.html

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http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/Milkovich-1ANNOTATED-pia16001-br2.jpg

I'm guessing that the line between the heat shield and curiosity is related to re-entry velocity and direction. But the crane is in the same line and it was powered after a stand-still release, so I'm not sure why it's in the same line unless it's due to prevailing winds. ???

Then the parachute and shell are in a different line. Is that because they "floated" for a while and caught a different air current?

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Surface Detail (pebbles):

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/PIA16018_fig1_malin_06_rocks_with_ano-br2.jpg

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First Color Image:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/PIA15691-first-MAHLI-br2.jpg

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@rosborne979,

*Boy, there is a lot of structure in the upper right segment of that shot where the rover and its parts landed

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@farmerman,

I wonder what created those "hills" in the background?

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@cicerone imposter,

they look lie sedimentary layering with some domal uplift . Or else its "onion peel-like" wasting on igneous rocks

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@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

PASADENA, Calif. – The Mars rover Curiosity took a first gander around its neighborhood and found it looks just like home, officials said Wednesday.

"You would really be forgiven for thinking that NASA was trying to pull a fast one on you and we actually put a rover out in the Mojave Desert and took a picture," project scientist John Grotzinger said.

"The first impression you get is how Earthlike this seems looking at that landscape," he said.

Launched in November from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the car-size rover landed Monday inside the 96-mile-wide Gale Crater, just south of the equator on the eastern side of the planet.

Four navigation cameras at the top of Curiosity's raised mast took a 360-degree look around on Tuesday, imaging the rover's deck as well as its surroundings. The cameras captured a view of Aeolis Palus, a pebble-strewn plain between the northern wall of the crater and Aeolis Mons, an 18,000-foot-tall mountain taller than any in the contiguous United States.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/story/2012-08-08/mars-curiosity-first-look/56891026/1

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@Lustig Andrei,

I think most of us neophytes understand how mountain ranges on earth have developed, so I was wondering how those hills developed on Mars. Do they also have land shifts like earth? How about volcanic activity? Did they ever have them?

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@cicerone imposter,

I was wondering the same thing re: volcanic activity, Tak. Maybe farmerman will be able to enlighten us non-scientific types.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

I wonder what created those "hills" in the background?

Asteroid impact.

1 Reply

NEWEST ROVER TO LAND ON MARS 8/6/2012

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