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As NASA's Curiosity rover rolls across the lonely surface of Mars, it leaves in its tracks a message from home—in Morse code.
The tracks in the photo above, laid down during Curiosity's first test drive, contain embedded marks that the rover can use as reference points to estimate how far it has traveled. The rover's zigzagging wheel treads are punctuated by straight bands, which leave a telltale mark in the Martian soil on each revolution of the wheel. According to NASA, Curiosity's visual-odometry systems can use those wheel rotations, in the absence of prominent landmarks on the surface, to estimate how far the rover has driven.
The tread bands are not simple straight lines, however. They are embellished with cutouts of different sizes that correspond to the dots and dashes of Morse code. In dot-dash notation, each wheel carries three characters (• – – – / • – – • / • – • •), which spells out "JPL." Those letters, of course, are the acronym of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which manages the rover mission for NASA.
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8 Comments
Add CommentCurious. I (like most of us...) never thought through the problem of measuring distance traveled on Mars. I suppose wheel slip throws off an odometer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh well, too bad Curiosity is not equipped with a smartphone and GPS!! : )
Here is a nice layout of the first tracks on Mars from Curiosity:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJOtQMH7g8w
Happy Mars Exploration!
Due to some oversight Mars does not yet have a network of satellites to support GPS.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Curious. I (like most of us...) never thought through the problem of measuring distance traveled on Mars. I suppose wheel slip throws off an odometer"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWouldn't wheel slip also throw off their Morse code method?
Traveler, the difference is that on the tracks you can *see* the wheel slip, and compensate for it so you still get a more realistic measure than with an odometer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey are not counting the distance that precisely. How easy
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thispeople go off on a tangent of detail.
As a traveler of the American Southwest, I was amazed by the Mars/Earth landforms similarities:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq0MHQ2y4KE
Curiosity's High Resolution Panorama Reveals Liquid Water Past Activity On Mars
Happy Mars Exploration!
kienhua68 writes "How easy people go off on a tangent of detail."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this... How eas(il)y people get annoyed by others...
C'mon, what's the problem with a bit of musing?