Why did NASA delete this image from June 2017 yet it's on another rovers page?

It's a space turd.

a reply to: mblahnikluver

Looks like we found out what happened to Luke Skywalkers hover car after he sold it on Tatooine.

lets say it is the landing pad. why delete it?

a reply to: jidnum

It's not the landing pad.

It's debris from the heat shield.

The rover was 2km away from the landing pad by sol 324. This is where the heat shield impacted.

As for the pictures being moved around: it's the internet. Mistakes get made.

Just like threads on here that we go to move and sometimes get lost.....then found again.

No big conspiracy. Just things being put in the wrong place then moved.

originally posted by: mblahnikluver

...

Directly from NASA

Nasa description:
Right Panoramic Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 348 of Opportunity's mission to Meridiani Planum at approximately 12:45:41 Mars local solar time, camera commanded to use Filter 1 (436 nm). NASA/JPL/Cornell

SO what do you guys and gals think? If you say rock I'll ignore you!

I have always been fascinated by Mars and the images that come up. Some get attention and some don't. This is a pretty good picture of something anomalous!

Interesting - I first thought it was something on the ground, farther from the camera.
Now it seems like something in the air, closer.

There is no shadow of it anywhere, which is odd.

S+F

a reply to: Uberdoubter

The object is not unknown; it is part of the heat shield from the rover "Opportunity".

if you look on this page of Opportunity's images from Sol 348, you can see this image at the top of the page. If you scroll down a little, you can see other images showing another piece of the heat shield.

Opportunity Panoramic Cam_Sol 348

a reply to: mblahnikluver

looks like a land cruiser from tattoine!

At least this rock is interesting. It sort of looks like a convertible. The left side sort of looks like it has a windshield and two headlights. But the right side looks a little odd.

Hell maybe the rover is in the desert somewhere, and the operator accidentally snapped a photo of their ride. A while back I saw a video pointing out video fakery in an ISS interview, so that opened my eyes a little bit. I think we do have stuff in space, but I don't think they're honest with us about what they're actually doing up there.

a reply to: peskyhumans


It's not a rock.

It's a piece of the heat shield that dropped away before Opportunity and its air-bag landing system were deployed.

This picture (and other pictures of pieces of the heat shield) were taken 12 years ago in 2005, and have been publicly available for those 12 years on the Opportunity mission website. In fact, I remember threads about the heat shield pictures on ATS back then.

a reply to: peskyhumans


If it's a convertible then its a pretty small one.....


But nice to see a Mars thing that is not just more rocks.

This is a very peculiar-looking rock.


Oh wait...

originally posted by: solve
a reply to: mblahnikluver

It looks smallish, hard to tell how far or close that thing is...

Actually, it is unusually easy to determine its size and distance from the camera using 15 seconds of googling the camera specs and trigonometry that I learned in the 8th grade (thank you Mr. Mihalik!).

The bottom line is that the object is about the size of a large pizza box, and is sitting on the ground roughly 60 feet from the rover.

Here is the analysis:

For starters, here is a detailed technical description of the Pancam: Link

The relevant numbers are that it is on a mast 1.5 meters above the Martian surface, its field-of-view is 16°x16° and its images are 1024x1024 pixels.

- Note that this means each degree is 64 pixels.
- 16° is a narrow angle, which minimizes distortion near the edges of the frame.
- The object in question is near the center of the frame, which makes the distortion negligible.

What really makes this analysis so easy is...

...that the both the object and the rover are on level ground with respect to each other.
...that the horizon is visible, flat and on the same level as the object & rover.
...that the camera is ~level to the horizon (actually, it's tilted 0.336° to the right, but this is negligible).

If the rover was looking up a hill or down into a crater at the object, or if there were hills closer than the horizon, this would be much more difficult.

Anyway...

The camera, at 1.5 meters off the ground, is looking down at the object. It is ~306 pixels below the horizon, which equates to 4.8°

sin 4.8° = 1.5 meters / x

x = 1.5 meters / sin 4.8°

x = 1.5 meters / 0.084

x = 17.85 meters

This is how far the object is from the camera.

Now then, the object is 106 pixels wide, which equates to 1.66°

sin 1.66° = x / 17.85 meters

x = sin 1.66° * 17.85 meters

x = 0.029 * 17.85 meters

x = 0.518 meters, or 51.8cm

This is how wide the object is.