SCI/TECH: Opportunity Sends Pictures to Earth

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Opportunity rover zipped its first pictures of Mars to Earth early Sunday, delighting and puzzling scientists just hours after the spacecraft bounced to a landing on the opposite side of the red planet from its twin rover, Spirit.

Yahoo

This image taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's panoramic camera made available on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2004, shows where the rover's airbags left impressions in the martian soil. The drag marks were made after the rover successfully landed at Meridiani Planum and its airbags were retracted. The rover can be seen in the foreground. The unmanned, six-wheeled rover landed at 9:05 p.m. PST Saturday Jan. 24, 2004 in Meridiani Planum, NASA said. (AP Photo/NASA)


The marks made by Opportunity's airbags on the surface hint that the Martian soil at the Meridiani Planum landing site may have unusual properties.
Image taken FromBBC website




[Edited on 25-1-2004 by SkepticOverlord]

[Edited on 26-1-2004 by Nerdling]

Does anyone else think those little black splotches at the bottom of the picture look like trees?

Trees? Are you joking? Meridiani Planum in Color Opportunity Images

i'm sure these are the first of many pictures...but will they be in color.....you know, after all the hub-bub and very deep digging to explain the color 'variances'.....

If it still within the realm of possibility that there is indeed water on Mars...why in the pratel is in not still in the realm of possibilty that there might be trees...especially right on the edge of terrain such as this? You're dis-belief of my query in a public forum like this sk. ovrlrd. is offensive. I had a post removed for the same reason!!! (but I ADMITTED it was insensitive) Thankyou for showing the rest of the board members how encouraging future "MODERATORS" should act.

Yes. I can't see how there is any possibility of anything that looks like trees in those images... so... I thought you were joking.

Maybe they're microscopic trees and maybe Mars has a population of Lilliputian people. Maybe the real reason for Spirit's tiny camera is to search for tiny people having picnics on Adirondack Rock.

Sometimes I get the feeling that civility is of no importance on this board.

I'd like to see more color pictures, too. I clicked on the link that SkepticOverlord supplied and there's only one color photo, which is the one that SkepticOverlord posted above.

Originally posted by dugzdanglindiner
If it still within the realm of possibility that there is indeed water on Mars...why in the pratel is in not still in the realm of possibilty that there might be trees...especially right on the edge of terrain such as this? You're dis-belief of my query in a public forum like this sk. ovrlrd. is offensive. I had a post removed for the same reason!!! (but I ADMITTED it was insensitive) Thankyou for showing the rest of the board members how encouraging future "MODERATORS" should act.

Actually they are drag marks from opportunity.



"This image taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's panoramic camera shows where the rover's airbags left impressions in the martian soil. The drag marks were made after the rover successfully landed at Meridiani Planum and its airbags were retracted. The rover can be seen in the foreground."NASA


[Edited on 25-1-2004 by TrickmastertricK]

The grains appear to be uniform in size, but not really like sand. Weird!

marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

"Do you remember my movie Total Recall? We were so right about what Mars looked like and everything, we were well ahead of you guys. Is the chip on the Opportunity a neural net processor, a learning computer?
Wait until you find the cave with the device the aliens left behind so that we can breathe on Mars. I'll go there and kill all the bad guys first if you want?"

lol johnnada, we couldn't help but make ARNOLD jokes either when we saw him last night.

BUT my question for anyone who can answer, those round circular marks??? are those from the rover bouncing??? or natural patterns??
ty in advance

WorldWatcher, I do believe that those circular marks are from the airbags before they were deflated and drawn in. You can see the disturbed soil where they were dragged along in the foreground.

As for the soil, it appears that something similar was noticed about the granular appearance of the soil at the Spirit site.

Squyres said scientists were also puzzled by what he called a "chemical glue" that was holding the fine grains of reddish soil together in minuscule clumps.

Reuters

worldwatcher: Yes those circular marks would be most likely from the rover rolling to a stop with its airbags. I don't know if you've see a pic of what the airbags look like when fully deployed, but if not, they look like a bunch of spheres all around the thing, so if it were rolling across a surface it would leave circular shaped 'foot' prints.

The ground seems very clay like to me. I mean if you were to drag those airbags over a sandy beach (or some kind of desert sand) it wouldn't keep the imprint on it so well like that. So i find that very fasinating. I can't wait till they do some science with these things. And i must say the environment that Opportunity is in looks really differnt from the previous places which is great.

EDIT: Oops. I didn't really pay attention to what you wrote there William, just went and replied to worldwatcher's post right away. Oh well

[Edited on 25-1-2004 by jra]

They are saying where the "Opportunity" landed was the equivalent to an "interplanetary hole-in-one". This MSNBC article in the link refers to where it landed as a "geologists dreamland", by safely landing inside a shallow impact crater, coming face to face with the first exposed bedrock ever seen on the Red Planet.

�We have scored a 300-million-mile, interplanetary hole in one, and we are inside an impact crater,� Steve Squyres, the principal science investigator for the rover mission, told reporters at a Sunday afternoon briefing."

Beat that Tiger Woods!!!



www.msnbc.msn.com...

hmmmm landing in a hole doesnt sound like a good thing