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August 7, 2012 | 16
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which yesterday delivered a stunning photo of the Curiosity rover descending on its parachute toward a safe landing, has followed up with another look at the mobile laboratory.
The orbiter's High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, or HiRISE, can zoom in on Mars to photograph surface features less than a meter in length. HiRISE's superior visual acuity has enabled it to spot other small Mars robots, such as NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers, even as it zooms along in orbit some 300 kilometers overhead.
Curiosity, at three meters long and 2.8 meters wide, is nearly twice the length of Spirit or Opportunity. So HiRISE was able to photograph the newly arrived Curiosity, along with the discarded rocket-powered platform (the "sky crane") that had lowered the rover to the surface. Also visible in the photo is the spacecraft's thermal shield, which protected the rover from intense friction-generated heat during its entry into the Martian atmosphere at more than 20,000 kilometers per hour, as well as the parachute that further slowed the rover's entry before the sky crane took over.
The massive rover touched down at 1:31 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time on August 6, beginning its mission of exploration at Gale Crater. Inside the 150-kilometer-wide basin, Curiosity will investigate the chemical and geologic record of Mars's past climate, with an eye toward determining whether the Red Planet was ever hospitable to life.
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16 Comments
Add CommentFantastic!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWay to go. Now who is going to volunteer to go there and pick up all that litter we put all over the place?.....Im game!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHmmm. Wonder what the darkening is around Curiousity? Area cleared of dust by the downblast during the skycrane maneuver, maybe?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYummy, four black spots and one white. What an excellent image!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hope that parachute is not going to head for Curiosity during the next dust storm..... That would be a disaster!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease don't worry about the parachute blowing into the Curiosity Rover which is quite mobile and can quickly move aside.. To photograph the Chute blowing in the Martian wind will itself give us useful information..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSalvag for the martins, MutantBuzzards recycling on Mars, all kinds of good stuff just laying around, talk about terraforming, stupid government-enviromentlists will probably declayr this junk to be untouchable "artifacts" the way they do with the abandoned trash of primitive culturs so that we can never "clean up".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisuntill it gets stuck, then it could reddeploy that chute and unstuck its self.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is an engineering marvel to land something that heavy so perfectly in a place so far away. Wow!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCongratulations to all those amazing engineers, creative thinkers and support team that designed and executed this fantastic feat so perfectly. It is, simply, a scientific triumph. I cant wait to hear the data outcomes....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA hearty hip hip hooray for all those involved in this feat.They will get to keep their jobs for at least another 2 years.Had this mission failed many of them would have ended up on the unemployment line.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems like a rather meaningless goal, just to see if there was once life there. Either way, so what? Not so much if we were able to find evidence of their chemistry and body structures, or how they destroyed their own biosphere. I'd rather have seen a probe going prepared to mine, refine and build solar cells and greenhouses, in preparation for the time when we're evicted from Earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt least that $2.5 billion gave a few folks here on Earth some jobs. Actually, there is no point in looking for life there unless someone figures out how complex codes can possibly bubble out of mud puddles without the benefit of an intelligent Author. Just the right recipe won't do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder if there really are any mud puddles on Mars anyway, since the surface pressure and temperatures are so low that free water cannot exist. Oh I know, there USED to be mud puddles on Mars! Actually, Percival Lowell was sure there were even canals connecting population centers! Oh well, back to the multi-billion dollar drawing board.
I wonder what the Martians think
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIntelligent life on Mars?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about we find it here on EARTH first?
Well, in a 1000 years or so, we will have made Mars a giant garbage dump, just as we've done to poor Earth.
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