Behold the Mountains of Mars!

Scioch · 13-08-2012 5:38pm

Delphi91 wrote: »

That's a fantastic picture......

Its a photo of the surface of another planet........... another planet !!! Its amazing. Its just amazing.

B.A._Baracus · 13-08-2012 7:03pm

Those images are amazing.

But one thing comes to mind. Its not really red for a planet thats nick named 'The Red Planet' - also, total recall really had it wrong. lol.

Scioch · 13-08-2012 7:08pm

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

Those images are amazing.

But one thing comes to mind. Its not really red for a planet thats nick named 'The Red Planet' - also, total recall really had it wrong. lol.

Think I read somewhere once that the original images of mars were developed wrong or had the wrong colour layering on them or something (because the pics were sent back in black and white and had the colour added based on sciency things) which shows it to be red while it was actually brown. So the whole red planet thing came from that I think.

Open to correction though.

Seedy Arling · 13-08-2012 7:19pm

Scioch wrote: »

Think I read somewhere once that the original images of mars were developed wrong or had the wrong colour layering on them or something (because the pics were sent back in black and white and had the colour added based on sciency things) which shows it to be red while it was actually brown. So the whole red planet thing came from that I think.

Open to correction though.

If thats the case the brown planet sounds fairly naff!

Blair · 13-08-2012 7:29pm

all these little pebbles are on mars!

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00003/mcam/0003ML0000125000E1_DXXX.jpg
Im seeing a lot of faces in those pebbbles :eek:

alchemist33 · 13-08-2012 7:40pm

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

these color pictures are amazing, the place looks just like a massive earth desert, hope i get to see humans on mars in my lifetime

That would be amazing. I was born in 1970 and often wished I'd been born before the first moon landing, and old enough to appreciate it.

Andrew76 · 14-08-2012 1:10am

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

these color pictures are amazing, the place looks just like a massive earth desert, hope i get to see humans on mars in my lifetime

Pretty sure I heard or read that they're thinking of a manned mission in the 2030's, so not that long to wait.

Awesome pictures.

Captain Chaos · 14-08-2012 1:18am

Andrew76 wrote: »

Pretty sure I heard or read that they're thinking of a manned mission in the 2030's, so not that long to wait.

Yeah, they are thinking alright but no one has the money. NASA's budget has been slashed year on year. They can't even afford to go to the moon now if they wanted to. They could do a manned mission to Mars in the next 10 years but it would be one way only.

Realistically you are looking at 2050/60 for a manned Mars mission. You can blame a few things on that, the end of the Cold War, shrinking defence budgets, the War on Terror and the Global Recession.

If we got back to the Moon by the 2030s we would be doing well.

TheIrishGrover · 14-08-2012 12:21pm

http://www.360cities.net/image/curiosity-rover-martian-solar-day-2#-297.15,38.93,70.9

Icyseanfitz · 14-08-2012 12:54pm

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Yeah, they are thinking alright but no one has the money. NASA's budget has been slashed year on year. They can't even afford to go to the moon now if they wanted to. They could do a manned mission to Mars in the next 10 years but it would be one way only.

Realistically you are looking at 2050/60 for a manned Mars mission. You can blame a few things on that, the end of the Cold War, shrinking defence budgets, the War on Terror and the Global Recession.

If we got back to the Moon by the 2030s we would be doing well.

whats Chinas space program like? they havnt got any shortage of cash

Delphi91 · 14-08-2012 1:06pm

The clarity of the photos coming back is incredible!

http://news.discovery.com/space/photos-mars-rover-curiosity-week-one-120811.html#mkcpgn=twdsc2

Dionysius2 · 14-08-2012 1:16pm

Awesome stuff !

LK_Dave · 14-08-2012 1:32pm

While I agree that the quality of the pictures returned are fantastic – especially TheIrishGrover 360 degree image link. Is anybody curious what Mars sounds like? Are NASA releasing any AV from Mars?

Blowfish · 14-08-2012 2:00pm

Scioch wrote: »

Think I read somewhere once that the original images of mars were developed wrong or had the wrong colour layering on them or something (because the pics were sent back in black and white and had the colour added based on sciency things) which shows it to be red while it was actually brown. So the whole red planet thing came from that I think.

Open to correction though.

It's much simpler than that really, the 'red planet' thing came about because Mars is red to the naked eye due to the dust in its atmosphere.

Rabies wrote: »

Red somewhere that the camera sends back 4mb pictures. That seems very small. Was expecting high res images. Too much data to send back?

Actually, the data between Curiosity and the Orbiter is up to 2mb/s mark and it sends back about 100-250mb a (Martian) day.

It's actually pretty depressing that NASA can create a better data connection between 2 objects 100,000,000 km away than you can get in a lot of rural Ireland.

LK_Dave wrote: »

While I agree that the quality of the pictures returned are fantastic – especially TheIrishGrover 360 degree image link. Is anybody curious what Mars sounds like? Are NASA releasing any AV from Mars?

Since the atmosphere is fairly thin, I'd imagine it's fairly quiet out there.

RoyalMarine · 14-08-2012 2:04pm

Blowfish wrote: »

Since the atmosphere is fairly thin, I'd imagine it's fairly quiet out there.

would still be amazing to find out. hopefully NASA will release something

Scioch · 14-08-2012 2:15pm

TheIrishGrover wrote: »

http://www.360cities.net/image/curiosity-rover-martian-solar-day-2#-297.15,38.93,70.9

Is that mars or new mexico ?

Turtwig · 14-08-2012 3:50pm

LK_Dave wrote: »

While I agree that the quality of the pictures returned are fantastic – especially TheIrishGrover 360 degree image link. Is anybody curious what Mars sounds like? Are NASA releasing any AV from Mars?

There's going to be a full hi-res video (no sound afaik.) of the actual entry and descent. Everyone is looking forward to that, the thing is it's quite a big file for a tiny processor and like any parent they want to know how their child is doing health wise before they see the amazing pictures of where they've been. Communication time and speed is limited, so other things take priority and we just gotta wait.

Here's the thumbnail version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlKW1KG8ies

Franticfrank · 15-08-2012 8:15am

Really great stuff. Space exploration has been so boring recently, now I'm enjoying this. If anybody's on Twitter, follow Curiosity, NASA have an unusually funny, non-boring feed.

15-08-2012 11:34am

LK_Dave wrote: »

While I agree that the quality of the pictures returned are fantastic – especially TheIrishGrover 360 degree image link. Is anybody curious what Mars sounds like? Are NASA releasing any AV from Mars?

Looks like you got your wish

Curiosity Audio

face1990 · 15-08-2012 3:03pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Looks like you got your wish
Curiosity Audio

I'm so disappointed! And on top of that I'm not even sure what the joke is!

tayto lover · 15-08-2012 7:06pm

Scioch wrote: »

Is that mars or new mexico ?

It's a bit like the Main Road round here.

15-08-2012 7:22pm

It's so hard to wrap my head around the fact that those images are actually a completely different planet and what we're looking at is millions of miles away.

Turtwig · 16-08-2012 5:00pm

LK_Dave wrote: »

While I agree that the quality of the pictures returned are fantastic – especially TheIrishGrover 360 degree image link. Is anybody curious what Mars sounds like? Are NASA releasing any AV from Mars?

From the current AMA ongoing on reddit.

Curiosity EDL Team. wrote:

WHY NO MICROPHONE???

We took a microphone on the Phoenix Mars Lander, and we turned it on but essentially heard nothing (white noise) so it was never released. We don't really need it for any experiments.
We do have the landing signal sound as it sounded from one of the orbiters.

Thank you.

ScumLord · 16-08-2012 6:11pm

GAAman wrote: »

:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

What's the second sun looking thing?

Zirconia · 16-08-2012 6:30pm

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

Those images are amazing.

But one thing comes to mind. Its not really red for a planet thats nick named 'The Red Planet' - also, total recall really had it wrong. lol.

All the pictures published so far have been "white balanced" to match lighting conditions on earth. Without these artificial corrections, the scene would be intensely red in colour and significantly darker as well. The corrections are made in part to aid analysis by geologists, to enable them to make comparisons based on Earth geology.

--Kaiser-- · 17-08-2012 9:13am

ScumLord wrote: »

What's the second sun looking thing?

That's a photoshop. The sun as visible from Mars is miniscule (think about it, it's much further away than here). The other body would have to be one of its moons, Phobos and Deimos, neither of which is spherical and, as the sun is in the foreground, would not have a source to illumincate them so.

Here's an actual photo of the sun seen from Mars.

norrie rugger · 17-08-2012 2:05pm

Captain Chaos wrote: »

They could do a manned mission to Mars in the next 10 years but it would be one way only.

I would still volunteer

B.A._Baracus · 17-08-2012 2:13pm

Zirconia wrote: »

All the pictures published so far have been "white balanced" to match lighting conditions on earth. Without these artificial corrections, the scene would be intensely red in colour and significantly darker as well. The corrections are made in part to aid analysis by geologists, to enable them to make comparisons based on Earth geology.

Wow.
Would be cool to see an actual untouched photo of it so.

up for anything · 17-08-2012 3:02pm

JupiterKid · 24-08-2012 1:03am

Mount Sharp in glorious colour as seen by Curiosity. Mount Sharp is 5,500 metres (18,000 feet) in height and is the ultimate destination of the Curiosity rover. It stands at the centre of the huge Gale Crater.

http://galegazette.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/mt-sharp-col1b.jpg

A close up of part of the lower slopes of Mount Sharp shows up the layered rock formations that Curiosity will study.:)

http://galegazette.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/promised-land-mosaic-1c.jpg

Behold the Mountains of Mars!

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