Mars Pheoenix - this is interesting

Here they're showing a picture of the lander with a mini-dvd that was included with it for future Mars explorers.

phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu...

DVD media is supposed to be stored between 39 and 68 degrees F, avoid extreme temperature changes and avoid UV light.

I wonder whey they would send it to a place that is between -20 and -114 F over the course of one day, with little or no atmosphere [i.e. tons of UV].

I think that's quite interesting. What do the rest of you think?

I think it's a fun little PR stunt that cost them next to nothing to do. I'm sure one day after man has explored Mars they'll pop off the DVD, bring it back to earth, and keep it in a case in the Smithsonian, so why does it matter if the disc is readable at that point?

I am wondering about the american flag beside the DVD. Isn't that flag supposed to have RED stripes? So why are they BLUE in the image..?

reply to post by jbecker

After landing, the spacecraft's scientific instruments will come alive, and begin their search for water ice in the harsh Martian environment. Nestled among busy instruments, a small and very special DVD will wait patiently for its turn. This unique DVD is made of silica glass, and designed to last hundreds if not thousands of years into the future, when its true mission will commence.

It carries nothing less than a message from our world to one centuries away, when humans will roam the Red Planet.
In a unique project called Visions of Mars, the Phoenix DVD carries personal messages from visionaries of our own time to future visitors or settlers on Mars. There is Carl Sagan near his home in Ithaca, New York, addressing the future Martians with a cascading water fall in the background. There is Arthur Clarke seated in the comfort of his home in tropical Sri Lanka. There is Planetary Society Executive Director Louis Friedman, speaking from Society headquarters in Pasadena, and there is Phoenix mission PI, Peter Smith, providing mission information and a greeting to the future.

Read more here:
www.planetary.org...

I guess that they sent a Mini DVD tested in order to keep the data unaltered during that long lapse of time.

Originally posted by ziggystar60
I am wondering about the american flag beside the DVD. Isn't that flag supposed to have RED stripes? So why are they BLUE in the image..?

Thank you ! I asked that question in a thread i started and got told about 'light refraction' and such like making the red look blue. My thought is that if the red was blue because of the light then why is there red on the DVD ???

It makes little sense to me either.


as for that super special DVD made of sillica, awesomeness indeed.

Originally posted by Dan Tanna

Originally posted by ziggystar60
I am wondering about the american flag beside the DVD. Isn't that flag supposed to have RED stripes? So why are they BLUE in the image..?

Thank you ! I asked that question in a thread i started and got told about 'light refraction' and such like making the red look blue. My thought is that if the red was blue because of the light then why is there red on the DVD ???

It makes little sense to me either.


as for that super special DVD made of sillica, awesomeness indeed.

Thought you guys would find this interesting.

I didn't have to alter the image other than selecting the area's of the picture that were coloured the same colour as the lines in the flag and then increased the luminosity.



As you can see the flag is indeed the correct colour. The reason it appears the way it does is due to the material used for the flag absorbs light differently than say the DVD which is more reflective.

If you want to learn more about Luminosity then Wiki has a good page.

Wiki: - What is Luminosity?

Here is an image of the flag and the dvd as they were being installed while it was obviously still on earth



As for the contents of the DVD and how it is able withstand a martian atmosphere internos is 100% right... Please review the following link:-

Projects: Messages from Earth

the silica glass mini-DVD with a quarter million names on it (including all Planetary Society members) has been installed on the Phoenix spacecraft and is ready to go to Mars!

In addition to the names, the disc also contains Visions of Mars, a collection of literature and art about the Red Planet. The names and Visions of Mars were written to the silica mini-DVD by the company Plasmon OMS using a special technique. The resulting archival disk should last at least hundreds of years on the Martian surface, ready to be picked up by future explorers.

After the disc was written, a special label was applied to the disc to identify it for future explorers.

Hope that helps.

All the best,

NeoN HaZe

[edit on 4-6-2008 by Neon Haze]

reply to post by Neon Haze


Actually, in the first image you posted, now the buttons above the american flag looks red too... Even the blue area in the flag has red in it, just as many other features. Can you explain this?

Could the material effect it so much that even you 'work' on it makes it look obscenely colour tampered ?

I am up for a lesson if you know more than I do which I assure you 100% that you probably do!


Dan.

As I posted in your other thread, it has to do with two factors. The fact that the camera does not use the traditional color filters used in consumer digital cameras, and the fact that the white balance is different because of the sun being filtered through the Martian atmosphere and all the red surface reflecting.

Color images from Phoenix are only approximate. They lack the the filters to take a true color image like the human eye sees. If they adjusted the image so the red stripes matched the red from the photo taken on Earth, everything else would be off.

Most pictures are black and white, the color pictures we see is added and altered to make the pictures "look pretty".

reply to post by nataylor


What do you mean by "They lack the filters to take a true color image"?

As far as I know, they have the filters needed, reg green and blue, but it looks like they did not used those filters to make that image.

The ground does not look like the ground on this photo, on which we can see one of the many colour targets.

reply to post by Shadow_Lord


No, the colour is not added, the images are created by using different image from the red, green and blue filters as the source images for the red, green and blue channels of a RGB image, I have done that many times with the Rovers' photos.

I don't believe they have the filters for the same wavelengths as you'd find in a consumer camera. Instead of red, they have near-infrared, and instead of blue, they have violet.

reply to post by nataylor


The camera has 12 filters, including visible light.

This photo is a combination of three filters (but not really a red filter, according to the wavelength something like an orange-red filter) to give an approximate RGB photo.

Isn't that what I said? Yes, they're visible light filters, but they're not the exact same wavelength filters you'd find on a consumer camera. That's why I said the color images were approximate. Which is an explanation for why some colors might look "off."

Edit: Some quick searching finds that digital cameras tend to use 670nm (red), 530nm (green), and 440nm (blue) filters. The image you posted used 600nm (red), 540nm (green), and 380nm (blue) filters.

[edit on 4-6-2008 by nataylor]

reply to post by nataylor


You also said that "Instead of red, they have near-infrared, and instead of blue, they have violet", and that is not true, as you have just pointed out.

Well 600nm is orange-red, 540nm is yellow-green and 380nm is violet. I was trying to illustrate a point, that the wavelengths were not the same. I guess I should have put "for example" in front of my sentence. I didn't mean that instead of red they always used near-infrared, just that was one of the closest choices to a consumer camera's red.

Originally posted by ziggystar60
reply to post by Neon Haze

 

Actually, in the first image you posted, now the buttons above the american flag looks red too... Even the blue area in the flag has red in it, just as many other features. Can you explain this?

Of course no problem..

The image I showed was never meant to look normalised, in any way. it's purpose was to satisfy that the flag was in fact coloured correctly.

The reason the colours are not exact is due to colour bleed. It happens when you increase the luminosity of colours, the value becomes so great that it encroaches on less luminous area's around the selected area of change..

If you like it breaks it's previous boundary to satisfy the values.

Hope this helps,

All the best,

NeoN HaZe

reply to post by nataylor


I only noticed now that you say that one of the wavelengths used in that photo is 380nm, but it's not, it's 480nm, and that is blue, not violet.

To me with the colors look the color shade but just lighter.With mars atmostpheric condictions and being radio signaled i dont think they would be perfect.