Mars photo mystery solved (?)

There's an explanation of what they did to know if that was the dust from the crash of the sky crane here.

I know that Curiosity has 17 cameras, but I don't see how they could be expecting it to capture the dust cloud from the crash of the sky crane.
1 - the photo must be taken just after the landing, if the camera came on some minutes later it wouldn't capture it
2 - the first camera to be turned on should be pointed in the right direction
3 - I suppose they don't really know how long a dust cloud from a crash takes to dissipate on Mars

But it looks like, even if they weren't expecting it, they thought it was a possible explanation when they saw it.

Originally posted by ArMaP
There's an explanation of what they did to know if that was the dust from the crash of the sky crane here.

I know that Curiosity has 17 cameras, but I don't see how they could be expecting it to capture the dust cloud from the crash of the sky crane.
1 - the photo must be taken just after the landing, if the camera came on some minutes later it wouldn't capture it
2 - the first camera to be turned on should be pointed in the right direction
3 - I suppose they don't really know how long a dust cloud from a crash takes to dissipate on Mars

But it looks like, even if they weren't expecting it, they thought it was a possible explanation when they saw it.

On point 1: Curiosity was programmed to start taking pictures ASAP. It was fortuitous that on the day, Mars Odyssey had completed it's turn and burn and re-deployed the HGA in time to catch the first images from Mars. In fact, Odyssey performed much better than expected.

On point 2: Not sure what you mean by that. Those cameras were "ON" from the moment the inertial sensors said, "We're not moving." All 8 hazcams were active and snapping pictures, we just got those particular images first.

On point 3: According to Adam Spetzner the final descent stage crashed with a fairly reasonable amount of fuel on board. Even in Mars' low oxygen atmosphere it would have made a big "bang."

Thank you for that link.

Eve though Curiosity has 17 cameras, I can understand why NASA was somewhat surprised by that photo.

reply to post by PW229

On point 2: Not sure what you mean by that. Those cameras were "ON" from the moment the inertial sensors said, "We're not moving." All 8 hazcams were active and snapping pictures, we just got those particular images first.

That's what I was thinking. And I assume that with those 8 haz cams they had full 360 degree vision. No sense in leaving blind spots.

So I don't see why they are surprised.

Check out what this guy finds from Curiosity. I tried to read all post up til now and I didn't see a post about this werid anomoily.

What do you think...?

And I total agree on OP's post concerning landing, this has nothing to do w/ landing...I don't think...


www.youtube.com...

reply to post by tracehd1


Wow!!
That video shows everything in a VERY different light...
Thank you very much Tracehd1 for posting that.
I recommend everyone to watch it.
Why would an object move towards the "explosion/crash-site"? Unless the YT poster has put together the pictures in the reversed order.

reply to post by tracehd1


Good find.

Hope this turns out to be legit.

reply to post by tracehd1


I took the liberty to embed the video for you.

I think it is pretty suspicious that we already have these anamolies and the mission just started.

Almost like it's on purpose.

Originally posted by PW229
On point 1: Curiosity was programmed to start taking pictures ASAP.

I was referring to the "AP" part of the "ASAP".

On point 2: Not sure what you mean by that. Those cameras were "ON" from the moment the inertial sensors said, "We're not moving." All 8 hazcams were active and snapping pictures, we just got those particular images first.

From what I have read about it (and it wasn't that much) I got the idea that the instruments are not all activated at once. Could you point me to a source of that information? Thanks in advance.

On point 3: According to Adam Spetzner the final descent stage crashed with a fairly reasonable amount of fuel on board. Even in Mars' low oxygen atmosphere it would have made a big "bang."

I think that, even if they expect a "bang" they did not really know what to expect from an explosion/crash on Mars, as (as far as I know) there wasn't any data about that, at least until now.

reply to post by tracehd1


What video is that that he is talking about? I thought that what is shown on that video was just one photo, not a video.