Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

http://www.360cities.net/image/curiosity-rover-martian-solar-day-2

by Plnt • 14 years ago

185 81 14 years ago

360cities.net

b_k3• 14 years ago

Details: Panoramic photo stitched together by Andrew Bodrov from images provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech.

OhArgh2• 14 years ago

There is something hidden by a black square at the far end of the vehicle.

Synthetase• 14 years ago

That's definitely the MMRTG or its nuclear battery. My guess would be the Department of Energy doesn't want too much about it floating around.

biesnecker5• 14 years ago

Though it's not like photos of the MMRTG don't exist (e.g., http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av028/111117mmrtg/)

nikic• 14 years ago

What are the reasons for hiding it?

nollidge• 14 years ago

There are already lots of pictures of it. Quite sure the DoE doesn't care at all.

nullc• 14 years ago

Nothing is 'hidden'— the image is a stitched panorama from many smaller images, and they didn't (yet?) transfer some of the images which only cover the rover, presumably because looking at the rover is scientifically uninteresting. The black areas are just the boundaries of the missing images.

seanlinmt• 14 years ago

wouldn't that black spot just be the mount that's holding the camera?

smackfu2• 14 years ago

It seems to just be a glitch in this copy of the pano. This other one is fine: http://www.360pano.eu/show/?id=731

biesnecker5• 14 years ago

A high-res panorama of Mars, taken by a semi-autonomous robot that was landed via rocket sky crane, transmitted 14 light minutes across space, then transmitted on demand through a global information network to my computer.

And people say the future isn't what it was made out to be.

ricardobeat3• 14 years ago

But 3D HD 4k streaming in real-time!

pyre• 14 years ago

No one said that the future isn't amazing (or maybe they did), but the "future" imagined in the 1960s is mostly still science fiction.

Where is my flying car? Where is my robot personal assistant? Where is my food replicator? Where is my day trip to the moon? Where is my space colony on Mars?

Just sayin'. :P

elliottcarlson• 14 years ago

And yet two posts away is: http://www.bostonherald.com/jobfind/news/technology/view/202...

biesnecker5• 14 years ago

It's a good point. I've thought about this before. I think the 1960s imagined future was predicated on basically infinite energy availability. That clearly hasn't happened, but what did happen most people in the 1960s didn't predict.

Makes you wonder what 50 years hence things will be like, given that the microtrends to which we pay so much attention will likely not continue.

opminion• 14 years ago

And it you watch it in your iPad 2, you will be holding the viewport in your hands.

SoftwareMaven• 14 years ago

If I had looked at this on my laptop, I would have said, "Cool". On my iPad, though, I was transfixed, especially after removing browser chrome and maximizing the image. It felt lie FaceTime with Mars.

To the creator I say, "Well done!"

ungerik• 14 years ago

"We wanted flying cars, instead we've got 140 characters" -Peter Thiel

ragmondo2• 14 years ago

What does N,S,E and W mean ?

biesnecker5• 14 years ago

North, South, East, and West?

ragmondo2• 14 years ago

and what's your definition of those on another planet that doesn't have a magnetic pole ? Is the "North" the "top" of the rotation - which way is the top ?? (here's a link that shows what a compass would do on the surface of Mars : http://mgs-mager.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications/grl_28_connerney... )

jan_g• 14 years ago

Absolutely great stuff. I wonder if images were processed in any way (besides stitching) or is Martian landscape/atmosphere really so bright-yellowish.

I found it much easier to use navigation keys instead of click+drag (which web page suggests).

b_k3• 14 years ago

"I used color filter to make it more representable,” Bodrov wrote to TPM via email. “Color photos of Mars look different, but NASA still has not published enough source materials to assemble a complete panorama. I am just waiting for new photos." (http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/mars-curiosity-...)

mojuba• 14 years ago

If you point at the NASA logo on the rover you will see how big the color shift is. It's supposed to be blue but it's yellow and red. Whether it's the lighting on Mars, or the camera, or post-processing to blame for this - I have no idea, but the picture doesn't look like it reflects the reality from the human eye's perspective.

whileonebegin• 14 years ago

Here is the original panorama image http://goo.gl/8a41M I think this is original color.

barefoot• 14 years ago

Works exceptionally well on an iPhone (appears to use accelerometer/gyroscope).

juriga• 14 years ago

On GNex/Chrome the page just shows a flat low-res panorama and a "flash not supported" message.

Apparently 360Cities uses[1] krpano[2], a HTML5 panorama viewer on iOS devices. I tried a gyroscope example from the krpano page[3] on my GNex but it was rather buggy (jumpy and unreliable panning, only parts of the panorama visible at a time).

It seems that the fragmentation of Android devices/browsers has proven problematic for the 360cities developers. Since the krpano viewer might only work on a fraction of Android devices I can understand dropping the support for interactive viewing completely.

[1] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/360cities/188tbS9Pwj4/U8gF7O...

[2] http://krpano.com/

[3] http://krpano.com/examples/10815/examples/plugin-examples/gy...

EDIT: formatting

lt• 14 years ago

Wow. This was nice on a computer, but it's really, really impressive on an iPad. I suggest everyone to try it.

harold• 14 years ago

Fantastic on iPad in full screen. Very smooth.

checker2• 14 years ago

This image reminds me of starting in the morning: sun's up, there's plenty to do, let's get started.

On another note, I would love to hear the sound of whatever Martian breeze is blowing while Curiosity's wheels crunch over the gravel.

ricardobeat3• 14 years ago

There is hardly anything to hear since the atmosphere is so thin.

checker2• 14 years ago

Looks like JPL was planning on making recordings with the Mars Polar Lander but we know how that turned out:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/lidar/microphone/mic_found.ht...

vecinu• 14 years ago

This is not true. There was a post in another topic that had a citation...there are a lot of sand storms on Mars and there is actually sound, it is just attenuated.

humanfromearth• 14 years ago

Why is there a black patch on the back of the rover?

freehunter• 14 years ago

It does almost look like something was edited out. Not sure though.

bulltale• 14 years ago

I assume that this is where the connection between the camera and the rover is (a robot arm or the like), and which thus cannot be photographed.

b_k3• 14 years ago

It might be missing image data (not sent / not photographed yet).

smackfu2• 14 years ago

Glitch in this pano, it's fine in this version: http://www.360pano.eu/show/?id=731

DanBC• 14 years ago

I'm not sure which patch you're talking about. Maybe it's labelled in one of these images?

(http://www.americaspace.org/?attachment_id=23297)

Scroll down, end of page.

(http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=29242)

Gravityloss2• 14 years ago

What's with the recent surge of upvotes and naïve comments about ad plastered pages that just take content from NASA?

Here the picture is really small and the ads block a large percentage of it.

edit: That said, NASA doesn't do a very good job with photos itself either: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/gallery-ind...

edit2: Ah, nevermind, it was a flash problem! The content is certainly valuable!

ricardobeat3• 14 years ago

These panoramas are "hand-made" from NASA's images, not just reposted content.

Gravityloss2• 14 years ago

Yep, sorry, I see that now, had a browser problem originally...

jjaques2• 14 years ago

Any body see the little arcade-style joystick towards the back left of the rover?

duskwuff• 14 years ago

That's actually the rover's color calibration target, not a joystick.

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft_instru_calibr.h...

jjaques2• 14 years ago

Thank you for pointing that out. That's actually more interesting than a seemingly useless joystick. :)

moe• 14 years ago

Impressive.

nkoren3• 14 years ago

Note that this is actually missing a very major feature of the landscape: Aeolis Mons, or mount Sharp. The NASA panorama that this was adapted from failed to image the upper 2/5ths of the environment (roughly), and therefore did not capture the 15,000-foot mountain that is looming above the rover.

The maker of this panorama cleverly edited the image to show a false horizon where the mountain would actually be. It looks good, but gives the misleading impression that the rover is surrounded by a band of low hills, when the truth is rather different.

Here's a picture of mount Sharp, taken from a different camera than did the panorama:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4271

If you look at the foreground terrain, you'll see that it matches the WSW terrain of the OP. There should be a gobsmackingly big mountain there!

360pano2• 14 years ago

nkoren: you are very careful ;)

Thanks for the comment, but I really did not have source materials to recreate this mountain

nkoren3• 14 years ago

Yeah, I know the material is missing. Sorry if that came off critical of you -- your panorama is really truly gorgeous! I'm honestly feeling a bit petulant towards NASA for failing to include the mountain in their initial panoramas[1] -- they've missed 80% of the drama in that landscape! When they finally get around to imaging the mountain properly, I hope you patch that back into your panorama, because that'll be stunning.

[1] And yes, I'm well aware that in the litany of First World Problems, "Whaaaa, NASA landed a giant rover on Mars but didn't take exactly the photo I wanted" has got to be pretty high on the list...

ipt• 14 years ago

Lovely nod to the conspiracy nuts by specifying this pic as being taken in New Mexico!

rjv• 14 years ago

I wouldn't have expected the sun to look so big on Mars.

m_for_monkey• 14 years ago

Try right click, Little Planet View!

mmcnickle• 14 years ago

I love seeing these pictures showing all the dust and dirt sitting on top of the rover, knowing the years that it sat spotless in a cleanroom[1]. It's like unpacking a toy and actually getting to play with it.

[1]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Mars_%27C...

noonespecial• 14 years ago

True that. It's so visceral and so real that for a moment I worried about what would happen to all of those connectors and wires when it rained. Then, "oh. Mars. Right."

baggers• 14 years ago

Aye, I must admit I looked around the landscape for a bit and then spent a good 5 minutes just looking at the rover. It is quite beautiful.

sukuriant• 14 years ago

Only one complaint: looking around from within Firefox, my entire URI history is now full of 360cities.net pages with slightly different x, y, z values.

Other than that, not bad :D

joshlegs• 14 years ago

Coming soon from Google, Mars Maps!

biot• 14 years ago

I assume the author did a very thorough job removing the pole on which this should be mounted? When you look straight down, there's no sign of anything... almost as if this is a levitating camera detached from anything.

bicknergseng• 14 years ago

I find it incredibly ironic that an ad for Mitt Romney's campaign is splashed across the bottom with the words "Support a smaller government." I know it's just Google's ad service, but really now....

waterlesscloud• 14 years ago

Sadly, it's looking like NASA in general and planetary science in particular will face cuts under either candidate.

Not the kind of budget cut that means "you get less of an increase than you'd planned", but "You get less money next year than you got this year" kind of cuts.

magrimes• 14 years ago

Maybe I'm just dull, but how is it possible to see the entire robot? Where is the camera mounted?

sjm• 14 years ago

You can see where the camera is mounted by looking directly down — you can also see in the rover's shadow where the camera you're looking through is.

tsahyt• 14 years ago

Well, since Flash seems to crash on me here (and on numerous other occassions) it's time to say that:

Can we please, pretty please with sugar on top, finally let Flash die? I've seen panoramic image viewers that didn't rely on Flash, they were brilliant. HTML5 video works a whole lot better than Flash, etc. In 2012, there's no need for the bug-ridden mess we call Flash anymore.

mdrejhon• 14 years ago

Isn't Mount Sharp ALREADY in the 360 panorama? I SEE IT. It just only looks "small". The mountain in the same direction in the shadow?

The mountain looks small mainly due to camera distortion (but it could also be incorrectly stretched image). But it's not a small mountain -- that's a big one. It is an optical effect caused by the panorama stretching. Zoom in the mountain, and it's exactly identical to the photograph by NASA.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4271 ... Look at the details; they match exactly the mountain that's already in the panorama. (the little-looking 'hill' in the direction rover of the shadow, and slightly to the right, is actually Mt Sharp)

Mount sharp just looks small in the panorama, due to optical effect. But zoom in using the mousewheel, and you'll see the surface features match Mount Sharp, even though it's a little smeared (low-resolution). Let's wait for higher-def transmissions, it's still a slow dial-up-style link over 500 million miles...

Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

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