How come NASA won't release the satellite photos of other planets?

With all the advanced technologies we have, such as satellite -

How come NASA won't release the satellite photos of other planets? Why only Earth that we can see on google?

That sucks. It'd be cool to see the civilizations on other planets! C'mon, NASA!

I guess they don't want the humanity to enter the space age, or yet anyway.

[edit on 17-11-2007 by TheoOne]

[edit: title - for relevance]

[edit on 17-11-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

There are satellite image viewers like Google Mars and Google Moon. So far they're the only other bodies that we've put satellites around.

reply to post by mythatsabigprobe


Both of them are just a single picture/strip being repeated over and over again.

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
There are satellite image viewers like Google Mars and Google Moon. So far they're the only other bodies that we've put satellites around.

details details

hey, nasa must have HD pics of the entire surface of every planet in our solar sytem, but they are hiding it because the reptialian masons in nasa don't want us to see it, I read that on the internet somewhere

Originally posted by Copernicus
Both of them are just a single picture/strip being repeated over and over again.

They're made up of thousands of film strips interlaced, the program just projects it as a repeating strip instead of a globe. All the same detail is there.

Not to put too fine a point on it, TheoOne, but I think you would do well to search out the photos of other planets that are available rather than griping about how there isn't a Google Mercury, Google Venus, etc. NASA's available data - photo, instrumentation, etc. - is available if you're will to put in a little time searching for it. I'll try to save you a little time...

Mercury: NASA maintains a helpful Mercury Atlas of Mariner 10 images of Mercury. Keep in mind that these photos are from 1974 and 1975, so they're not phenomenal. NASA's MESSENGER probe should start sending back fresh data when it makes its first flyby in 2008.

Venus: Venus is covered by a dense layer of clouds, so NASA sent the Magellan probe to map the surface using radar. NASA maintains a catalog of this data.

syrinx high priest has already linked to Google Mars and Google Moon, so I'll skip the Moon and Mars.

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune: These planets are gas giants - they are essentially nothing but atmosphere, with no notable "surface" to map. Like our own atmosphere, features in the atmospheres of these planets are constantly changing. However, the Galileo probe - which orbited Jupiter - sent back images of the planet, which are available at the Galileo Project Homepage. NASA's Cassini probe is currently orbiting Saturn, and is sending back images which can be found at the Cassini-Huygens Homepage.

Uranus and Neptune have never been the subjects of a dedicated orbiter mission, but images of these planets have been taken by the Voyager 2 probe are available at the Uranus and Neptune homepages.

Pluto: Pluto is so small, so far away, and reflects so little of the sun's light that it has neither been visited by probe (orbiter or flyby), nor are there any particularly spectacular images of it available from either ground-based telescopes or the Hubble. NASA's New Horizons mission, currently on a Pluto flyby trajectory and already past Jupiter - should fly by Pluto in July of 2015, hopefully returning some interesting images.

So there you go. The images are out there, if you know where to look - although some of them (Mercury, Uranus, and Neptune especially) are a bit dated. Maybe if NASA's budget was more than a tiny fraction of the US budget - $16.25 Billion this year, not chump change, but nowhere near the ~$500 Billion that goes to the military - we'd have more current images of all of them, and a nifty Google Earth-like interface to go with it.

First, images on Google Earth are not from NASA, they are from commercial satellites, anyone that wants to pay the money can have the photos.

Second, there is something that works like Google Earth called NASA World Wind that has full coverage of Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars and Jupiter. Mercury has less than half coverage.

If you download some plug-ins you can have access to photos from the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, Phobos, Deimos, Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Saturn, Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Iapetus, Uranus, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, Neptune, Triton, Pluto and Charon.

The quality is not that good for most of them, but it is interesting.

Edit: I forgot to say that having the photos is not enough to show them over a spheric model, the photos must be stitched together without faults, and that is the biggest problem for those that are doing that work.

[edit on 17/11/2007 by ArMaP]

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe

Originally posted by Copernicus
Both of them are just a single picture/strip being repeated over and over again.

They're made up of thousands of film strips interlaced, the program just projects it as a repeating strip instead of a globe. All the same detail is there.

Yes, but I meant its only showing very small parts of the planets, over and over again. It would be like taking a picture of some fields here on Earth and repeating them over and over again.

Its the usual fake NASA stuff. Its a wonder that anyone takes them seriously in my opinion. They have a long history of covering up as much as possible.


[edit on 17-11-2007 by Copernicus]

Originally posted by Copernicus
Yes, but I meant its only showing very small parts of the planets, over and over again. It would be like taking a picture of some fields here on Earth and repeating them over and over again.

Sorry to intervene in your conversation with mythatsabigprobe, but what do you mean by that?

Do you mean that they show always the same thing, repeated along the planet? Could you explain it better?

Thanks.

[edit on 17/11/2007 by ArMaP]

No, I think you'll find the moon and mars are mapped completely in those programs. There are probably better ones around like the NASA program ArMaP mentioned.

Originally posted by ArMaP
Do you mean that they show always the same thing, repeated along the planet?

Yes, on google mars and google moon, you can clearly see that its the same thing being repeated over and over. Zoom out to maximum zoom and drag the surface to the left and right with the mouse.

Google Mars
Google Moon

Originally posted by mythatsabigprobe
No, I think you'll find the moon and mars are mapped completely in those programs. There are probably better ones around like the NASA program ArMaP mentioned.

I havent tried any programs, perhaps I should take a look at them.


[edit on 17-11-2007 by Copernicus]

Originally posted by PhloydPhan

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune: These planets are gas giants - they are essentially nothing but atmosphere, with no notable "surface" to map.

Thanks for the information PhloydPhan but what you have stated is merely NAZA's take. We will never really know because most of us will never travel there. And there is no reason to suspect that NAZA has told the truth about any of their missions.

In any case I thought that the only "Gas Giant" in our solar system was NAZA itself. Thanks for the alternate opinion.

reply to post by Copernicus


OK, I think I understand it.

Being a flat surface, it scrolls the image like it was a cylinder with the image mapped over it, when you reach 360º you are back at 0º. It would work in the same way if it was a globe, but then it would better understood.

Originally posted by ArMaP
Being a flat surface, it scrolls the image like it was a cylinder with the image mapped over it, when you reach 360º you are back at 0º. It would work in the same way if it was a globe, but then it would better understood.

Yeah it works the same way as Google Earth, except you dont get any close up pictures of the other planets, and you dont see the entire globe, just a small area being repeated.

Just zoom in on the "small area". You'll find the entire planet/moon is there just like google earth.

I'm installing Nasa's Whirlwind program right now, that may be more like what you're used to seeing. I'll let you know.

reply to post by Copernicus


The area available looks smaller for two reasons:

1. Mars and the Moon are really smaller than the Earth
2. There aren't (as far as I know) any images from Mars or the Moon available with the same resolution than those that we see on Google Earth for the full surface of both. Mars Express is making a full coverage of Mars with a resolution better than 10 metres (if I remember it well), and some little areas of Mars have been covered by HiRISE with a resolution better than those photos from Google Earth (despite what mikesingh might say )

Since we're discussing the resolution of the images on Google Earth, it is worth remembering that not all the pictures available on Google Earth are examples of satellite imagery. From an article available from Google Librarian:

Most people are surprised to learn that we have more than one source for our imagery. We collect it via airplane and satellite, but also just about any way you can imagine getting a camera above the Earth's surface: hot air balloons, model airplanes – even kites. The traditional aerial survey involves mounting a special gyroscopic, stabilized camera in the belly of an airplane and flying it at an elevation of between 15,000 feet and 30,000 feet, depending on the resolution of imagery you're interested in. As the plane takes a predefined route over the desired area, it forms a series of parallel lines with about 40 percent overlap between lines and 60 percent overlap in the direction of flight. This overlap of images is what provides us with enough detail to remove distortions caused by the varying shape of the Earth's surface.

A specialized, airplane-mounted camera at 15,000 or 30,000 feet is going to have far better resolution than satellites - at least civilian satellites. Rather than being exclusively satellite data, Google Earth is a mish-mash of different images taken from different sources, often at different times of the day and year.

reply to post by PhloydPhan


Thanks for pointing that, the amount of ignorance surrounding Google Earth is astounding, some people even think that Google has a special satellite that shows images in real time...

A good source for high resolution Mars photos is the 'HiRISE/MRO' websites. Here's one from the team that developed the HiRISE camera:
HiRISE/Univ of Arizona

As stated above, look at NASA's 'Cassini' websites for great photo's of Saturn and it's moons, and the Galileo website has many high res pictures of Jupiter and its moons.

Plus, there is the Venus "Magellan" website form NASA which doesn't have many photos taken with visible light (since Venus is all clouds), but there are many "radar" images.
Magellan

Here's a NASA webpage that is a good archive for many of the planetary images thay have:
NASA Planetary Photojournal

Plus, don't forget about the Voyager Missions. They produced some spectacular images:
Voyager

Besides the pictures (which are fun to look at, the NASAand JPL websites provides links to other websites that provide a wealth of knowledge of what we know about planetary science. I willing to go as far as saying that EVERYTHING scientists know about the other planets is somwhwere on the internet, and NASA/JPL are a good lauching point for finding that information.

Damn, there are so many good posts, and good informative links, on this thread that I don't know where to start. So Will only say that I hit the applause button more on this thread than I ever thought possible.

Guys, this is the way to deny ignorance. Good posts, and good links, and everything so very much on topic.

I think this thread should be a poster child for how ATS works.

I am truly impressed by you people.

Edit to add: I can't flag everyone in this thread as I want to, because there's a rule barring me from beer at the pub for a week if I do. And I really like my suds.

[edit on 17-11-2007 by NGC2736]