Posted on 09/11/2007 9:38:48 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
NASA's Mars rover Opportunity is making its way into a giant impact crater to learn more about the Red Planet's geologic past.
Engineers sent commands to Opportunity to drive into Victoria Crater and received a confirmation signal from the rover. It will be several hours before NASA knows how well the drive went.
Opportunity is expected to drive all six wheels into the crater and back out before making the full plunge several days from now.
The drive comes two months after a massive Martian dust bowl kept Opportunity and its twin Spirit hunkered down to conserve energy.
Dirt devils had helped in the past, they don’t have a cleaner built-in.
It’s a panorama from the edge of the crater looking down. You only see dust there. And the crater edge or floor. I’m not trained in looking at these photos and don’t spend 8 hours a day (or more) looking at them like the mission scientists do so I can’t tell you anything more about them. The black areas are “dead zones” for the camera, considering there would be parts of the rover in the way (solar panels/wheels) even if the photos exist.
I am not a “Richard Hoagland fan”, but part of the image seems strange, and I don’t understand if it is just a distortion from the presentation and format it has been delivered to us, or what.
On the left 1/3 of the image, left of center of that section, above the black (no image) area at the bottom, there are two very symmetrical features that appear to be some type of “arms” (camera or sensor booms?) of the rover. Not an issue.
But, just to the right of them and in what appears to be the foreground (landscape) appears another very symmetrical area. It has the appearance/shape (we know it isn’t) of what a “neighborhood” would look like in an earth sattelite image. I am using that description only to describe its symmetrical appearance, not to imply that that’s what it is.
The strangeness (to me) is not that it is such a thing (a neighborhood), but how symmetrical it is. Nature rarely ever creates such very symmetrical (look how the little “rows” line up) features in landscapes - the weathering aspects, and affects, of nature contain too many variables to create them.
Maybe, like I said, there is a distortion in the presentation of the image. I’m just intrigued, not “spooked”.
You are sooooo bad! ;) (I love it)
Mike
Cool, I see it now.
It’s a remarkable accomplishment, certainly, but I wouldn’t want a car that cruises at the speed of those rovers!
The hamster in the rover must be getting tired by now.
Bump and Ping.
Good news, thanks Norm.
Isn’t it inspiring to think of our descendants seeing these little guys in a museum some day?
And the museum is as likely to be on Mars as on Earth.
Have you noticed the brush on Marvin's helmet?
It’s a Martian city. Not big though, about a foot across.
I’m starting to think more and more it is some sort of static effect.
Left side: antenna, arm, solar panel.
Center: arm (possibly camera boom)
Right side: solar panel.
Makes ya homesick, don’t it?
It’s part of the rover itself. The photo is a mosaic of a bunch of images. In a couple of the images, the panels of the rover are in the very foreground.
Cute little buggers!
Solar cells have a lot to recommend them. Except cost. If solar cell panels were actually cheap, like 1/100 what they cost now, a lot of people would have them and maybe cheap electric cars that really would last a lifetime.
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