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Science

Spirit's First Mars Images 406

Posted by CmdrTaco from the isn't-that-special dept.
An anonymous reader writes "First panoramic and overhead polar views of Mars, a quarter billion miles away are available. Some spectacular examples and accompanying commentaries are at NASA's Astrobiology Magazine, and JPL."
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Spirit's First Mars Images More

Spirit's First Mars Images

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  • first panoramic (Score:5, Funny)

    by chimpo13 ( 471212 ) <slashdot@nokilli.com> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:27AM (#7872815) Homepage Journal
    Hey, that's just Tatooine. Man, what a rip-off.
    • Yeah, someone should call RIAA or something.
      Wasn't supposed to be the red planet? eh? this is eh, like, a purple planet.

    • Re:first panoramic (Score:4, Funny)

      by Wavicle ( 181176 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @01:10PM (#7873657)
      Looks like they are reusing the soundstage used to fake the moon landings. Be on the lookout for shadows going in unusual directions and a hoax special expose produced in a joint venture between Art Bell and that megalith of journalistic integrity and fair reporting, Fox.

  • Awe Inspiring (Score:5, Insightful)

    by linux_user_31337 ( 737587 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:29AM (#7872827)
    No matter how many space missions are made, this stuff still puts me in awe. I know that quite a few NASA guys lurk on /., and all I can say is: good work!

  • Hey! (Score:5, Funny)

    by twoslice ( 457793 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:30AM (#7872836)
    I think I see Beagle2! - or what's left of it.....

    • Re:Hey! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by tsa ( 15680 )
      You can laugh about it but that's not really fair. I think the Beagle2 was just unlucky. Congrats to NASA for this achievement of course, but I don't think it feels good to be a Beagle2 team member just now. O well, wait till they find Beagle2 and it sends back images of living martians from the bottom of the chasm it fell in!

  • Camera Details (Score:5, Informative)

    by jmichaelg ( 148257 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:30AM (#7872837) Journal
    Details on the panoramic camera are available from Cornell [cornell.edu]. Check out the popup test image links which show the test shots they shot in the lab and at Cape Canaveral. They're pretty spectacular.

    • Too Bad... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by BTWR ( 540147 ) <americangibor3NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @12:04PM (#7873345) Homepage Journal
      Speaking of Cornell, my professor at Cornell was the Rover's principal scientist Steve Squyres (great guy and perhaps the best professor I ever had there, by the way...). He said that at one point they had considered using radiactive power cells. That woulda made the rovers last like 6 years, not up to 6 months. The Viking Landers lived from like 1976 until like 1982. Imagine how far the rover coulda crawled in 6 years! I mean, someone do the math... it woulda been amazing. Oh well, glas-half-full-and-all, 6 months is infinately better than shattering in the atmosphere/rocks...
  • Which desktop (windows, kde, gnome, mac) is shown in this [spaceflightnow.com] image?

    The leftmost titlebar button resembles MacOS9, but the rightmost buttons don't.
    (The image appears washed-out because it's a photo of a canvas.)

  • Better panaroma shot (Score:5, Informative)

    by ch-chuck ( 9622 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:34AM (#7872854) Homepage
    here [nasa.gov]

  • Please... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:34AM (#7872857)
    Could someone please tell NASA to upload some pictures at 1280X1024, I really need some new wallpaper.

    XP's rolling hills are starting to get old... although I could isolate the red channel and tell people it was pictures from Mars, but I digress.

  • Those aren't the real pictures... (Score:5, Informative)

    by mOoZik ( 698544 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:35AM (#7872864) Homepage
    These are the real pictures: First Pictures [nasa.gov]. It should be noted that these are black and white and not color or false color, as the submitter may lead some to believe, to that magazine's tweaking of the original.

  • Nice Work (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:35AM (#7872873)
    We hurl the craft towards the planet millions of miles away on a gigantic explosive rocket, just so the robot can land and take pictures of itself. Sounds like my last vacation.
    • For proper vacation photos, you need more people/objects to run through all the combinations and permutations: "Here's me. Here's Susan. Here's the dog. Here's me and Susan. Here's me and the dog..."

  • Full Images (Score:3, Informative)

    by FrostedWheat ( 172733 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:36AM (#7872876)
    You can get the full quality version of these images and more here [nasa.gov].

    Great stuff so far! The landscape seems a lot flatter than where Pathfinder landed.

  • To all the NASA drivers: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by twoslice ( 457793 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:40AM (#7872896)
    Squyres said of the Gusev landing site. "It is a place that is almost, when you look at it, it looks like it was tailor made for our vehicle. Our vehicle was built to drive, our vehicle was built to explore.... We see rocks, we see enough rocks that we can do great science with them but not so many that they're going to get in our way. So we're going to be able to really motor around this place. So I'm looking forward to some good driving in the weeks and months ahead."

    That is exactly what the driver of the last mission to Mars said when he hung up the rover on a rock and got it stuck.

    I would hate to be the person who got the rover stuck on a rock with all those rocket scientists looking at me really steamed...

  • All the images (Score:5, Informative)

    by Cee ( 22717 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:53AM (#7872971)
    Here. [nasa.gov]

  • This is a-w-e-s-o-m-e!! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lispy ( 136512 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @10:54AM (#7872981) Homepage
    I was following the Nasa TV broadcast from Germany, meaning I had to get up at 5am. My girlfriend called me nuts. But I don't regret a single second. The six minutes landing phase was more stunning than any movie could ever be. I smoked chains when the signal disappeared. But now that I see the images I must say "Good work, Nasa!"

    I am eagerly looking forward to the landing of Opportunity and the rover mission. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for ESAs Beagle2. Chances are we can pick up a signal these days using Mars Express Orbiter!

    The landing sequence for the MERs seemed quite complex and I was wondering if they were overdoing it! But I am deeply impressed now. Ever since I was a little boy I was dreaming about a real Rover on Mars and now I get two (hopefully). This is better than xmas! Thank you, Nasa! You rock! ;-))))

    Lispy

  • Congratulations to the team (Score:5, Insightful)

    by haggar ( 72771 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @11:05AM (#7873048) Homepage Journal
    In case anyone of the NASA guys is reading /. (I know some are), I'd like to express my congratulations on an excellent job. I really enjoy following each step of the mission.

  • Nerd Information about Mars Cameras (Score:5, Informative)

    by Danathar ( 267989 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @11:12AM (#7873080) Journal
    In case anybody wants to know what resolution the cameras will be taking the photos at you can get the whole technical specs for the pan cameras at

    http://athena.cornell.edu/pdf/tb_pancam.pdf

    It's quite interesting actually. Real News for Nerds!
  • Tiny Mars..OR X-Box huge rover..place bets NOW!

    http://astrobio.net/articles/images/spirit_polar .j pg

  • Color Pictures (Score:5, Informative)

    by ironwill96 ( 736883 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @11:21AM (#7873123) Homepage Journal
    People keep commenting on the black and white quality of these pictures. AFAIK, these are lower resolution black and white photos taken for initial analysis to keep the file sizes low. The nice color pictures we all want to see should be here later today (around 12:00 P.M. PST 3:00 P.M. EST). Overall, i'm impressed that we have once again gotten something on Mars without unit conversion issues or just plain bad luck. Now it could only be topped if our President (or the next one) would announce a manned mission to mars challenge, similar to the one issued by Kennedy to go to the moon in the 60s.
    • IIRC the Kennedy mission challenge was only taken in earnest after he was shot. One can only dream though.

    • Re:Color Pictures (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Atmchicago ( 555403 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @01:44PM (#7873854)

      I don't really see the point of sending people to mars. What can they discover that the robots can't? Sure, they can say "Hey! It looks different and there is less gravity!," but we knew that anyway. It is far simpler to send robots. Sending people requires food, life support, oxygen etc., whereas a robot needs solar panels.

      The price and inconvenience of sending people far outways any reason to send people over there.

  • I used to go out with a girl who looked just like the one in that OSDN personals ad that keeps appearing on slashdot... I wish it would change....

    On a more OnTopic note I have to admit that all the fuss about the current set of pictures from Spirit are a little dissappointing although one or two of them do seem to have some unusual white looking patches (like frost) but we'll have to wait for some better quality ones to filter through before anyone can make any real analysis

    nick

  • News Coverage (Score:2, Interesting)

    by FrostedWheat ( 172733 )
    Is it just me or does the media have an obsession with pretending there was a race between the US and Europe to land on Mars? The BBC certainly has!

    "US beats Europe to Mars" was the text they had onscreen at one point. Very annoying. I expected more from them. I really gotta stop doing that ....

  • HIGH RESOLUTION Panoramic (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aardwolf204 ( 630780 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @12:57PM (#7873595)
    High-Res Panoramic [spaceflightnow.com]

    As mentioned before, there are a lot more images if you look here [slashdot.org]

  • Battlebots (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04, 2004 @01:30PM (#7873765)
    If Opportunity lands and Beagle is still alive, they can play Battlebots!

  • More Raw Photos (Score:3, Informative)

    by iamghetto ( 450099 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @03:38PM (#7874498) Homepage
    All of the individual raw photos (which are clearer and in black & white) are available at:

    http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit. html [nasa.gov]

    Enjoy.

  • Some stereo 3D views I made. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bowie J. Poag ( 16898 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @05:46PM (#7875266) Homepage


    Enjoy. [ibiblio.org]

    I tried submitting this as a story, but it was rejected.

    Hooray.

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