Curiosity rover tags Mars with Morse tire tracks

slashgear.com ^ | Aug 6th 2012 | Chris Davies

[Bobalu]

NASA’s Curiosity rover may not look like an urban menace, but the robot explorer will in fact be steadily tagging the Martian surface as it trundles, leaving a name-check of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory back home. The clandestine graffiti is thanks to part of the rover’s visual odometry system, John Graham-Cumming points out, which tracks the marks left by a series of asymmetrically arranged holes in the wheels. The position of those holes, however, isn’t random: in fact, it’s Morse Code.

[Bobalu]

This is the sort of thing you get when radio hams are involved in a project :-)

I often use morse in my embedded systems projects as a debugging aid.

[bigbob]

di dah dit!

[ClearCase_guy]

There was a recent article about an elderly Radio Operator who (according to the journalist) used to use Morris Code to send messages.

[rockinqsranch]

He quit his job at the cat food advertising agency to become a journalist?

[stormer]

._..
_ _
.._.
._
_ _ _

[spokeshave]

best bent wire

[Paladin2]

Taggers are everywhere these daze.

[onedoug]

I want color pictures.

[righttackle44]

Do you suppose the martians have any of the old 1950s magazines with the LEARN TO BE A TELEGRAPH OPERATOR ads?

Isn't it true that the only people in the world who read Morse code are elderly, retired telegraphy operators, ham operators and American jet pilots? Couldn't we have just found those guys here on earth?

But it does remind of the old joke. What's black and white and black and white and black and white? A penguin rolling down hill. What's black and white, rolls in the grass and moans? A wounded nun.

I'll be here all week.

[Bernard Marx]

an elderly Radio Operator who (according to the journalist) used to use Morris Code to send messages.

Did he get together with guys dressed in funny outfits to dance with them too?

Morris Dancing

[Beowulf9]

Ahh, scientists. What a bunch of cutups they are!

[KingLudd]

The Morse Option was only like $400,000 extra.

[epluribus_2]

Y’know Morris Dancing?... Well, ‘e’s be’’er than Morris!

Benny Hill

[AnAmericanMother]

You beat me to it.

Another "Morris" though not the classic Oxford type:

Abbots Bromley Horn Dance

[N. Theknow]

The position of those holes, however, isn’t random: in fact, it’s Morse Code.

Drink more Ovaltine.

[AnAmericanMother]

And then there's the Britannia Coconut Dancers

Great fun. You don't get this kind of long-running earnest eccentricity anywhere in the good ol' U.S. of A.

[bert]

I would suggest that the tread design print is actually the product of an engineer’s mind, not that of a scientist.