Mars Panorama: Next Best Thing to Being There

NASA releases the most spectacular picture of Mars ever taken
Taken from the rover Opportunity the pictures show the terrain where the rover spent the martian winter

From fresh rover tracks to an impact crater blasted billions of years ago, a newly completed view from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows the ruddy terrain around the outcrop where the long-lived explorer spent its most recent Martian winter.

The pictures mark two milestones: Opportunity completing its 3,000th Martian day on July 2, and NASA continuing past 15 years of robotic presence at Mars on July 4

www.jpl.nasa.gov...
www.dailymail.co.uk...
Nasa's new rover Curiosity lands in August so it should not be long before new material from this is released

Cran

S&F.

Great resolution! I hope they release an approximately natural color image - I prefer those. I know that the false color is more useful for highlighting the differences in material, but all those blue rocks just doesn't look "martian" enough for me. Personal preference...

I can see my house

The part of the alien equipment you can see at the bottom looks like some kind of weird factory lol nice pic. looks like earth

reply to post by cranspace


Awesome photo.

Looks like they were having some fun to!

reply to post by freelance_zenarchist


hahaha yeah i saw that too maybe they found something interesting and had to loop around for another go

Awesome Photo
Loop around for another look
Thanks
Or the operators doin Donuts just for fun

Cran

Originally posted by phroziac
The part of the alien equipment you can see at the bottom looks like some kind of weird factory lol

nice pic. looks like earth

Yes -- that equipment you see in that image actually IS alien to that planet.

reply to post by cranspace

makes you wonder


love and harmony
Whateva

reply to post by cranspace


So they've finally stopped photoshopping their photos of the Mars atmosphere being "red"... one step at a time

reply to post by six67seven

Mars atmosphere being "red"... one step at a time

It would seem so

Cran

Originally posted by cranspace
reply to post by six67seven

 

Mars atmosphere being "red"... one step at a time

It would seem so

Cran

The image is in false color, as the article states:

It is presented in false color to emphasize differences between materials in the scene.

Not sure why they would think we would prefer false color images. I would like to see how it would look to human eyes myself

You can find more awesome panoramas going back to 2004 here:

Spirit: marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...
Opportunity: marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

I was thinking about this the other day, maybe someone with a little expertise could enlighten me.

When that rover's solar panels get too covered with dust/grime will it cease to work? In other words, without anyone/anything to clean off it's energy source, will it stop being able to power itself?

I just noticed how dirty it's panels were getting when looking at APOD's photo of the rover and was curious as to what would happen to this expensive equipment wihtout proper maintenance.

reply to post by MmmPie

When that rover's solar panels get too covered with dust/grime will it cease to work?

The more dust, the less effective the solar panels are. The only way to clean them off is to wait for some wind to blow off some of the dust. The Spirit rover got stuck and could not point it's solar panels to the sun during the martian winter and lost all power. Opportunity should keep on rocking until a mechanical failure or it too gets stuck.

Found a full 360 Mars interactive panorama here - www.panoramas.dk...