NASA rover photographs Mars moon crossing the sun (Deimos)

Sac Bee ^ | 3/4/04 | AP - Pasadena

[NormsRevenge]

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - The NASA rover Opportunity turned a camera skyward to photograph Mars' moon Deimos eclipsing the sun and also carried out the most complex movements yet of its robotic arm to record microscopic images of a rock, Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Thursday.

[NormsRevenge]

Not sure when we will see pics.

[Brett66]

Cool, though I guess it wouldn't look very big with a distance of 23,460 KM from Mars.

[NormsRevenge]

This shot of Deimos was taken by the Viking 2 Orbiter in 1997 from 1400 km. It's about 1/5 the size of Phobos.

Some good closeup shots HERE.

Probably won't see much when latest shots come out.. but who knows.

[commish]

Ew Norm! You posted from the SacraMENTAL Bee! I hope you bathed afterward. ;-)

Seriously, I can't wait to see theese pictures.

[NormsRevenge]

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/

The National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) is NASA's deep archive and general distribution center for lunar and planetary data and images. More information about planetary sciences at the NSSDC is available.

Lots of links to stuff...

[Johnny_Cipher]

JPL said engineers identified a software bug that stopped rover's rock abrasion tool - the so-called "rat" - from working earlier this week and will fix it with new software at the end of this month.

Shouldn't they step up the pace on the software reload just a bit? The rovers only have a 90-day service life as it is.

[Terpfen]

"Shouldn't they step up the pace on the software reload just a bit? The rovers only have a 90-day service life as it is."

This is an agency that takes pictures in black and white and then manually adds color over the course of six months. Logic is beyond them.

A thought; 200 separate motions for 128 pictures? Why the heck can't these people just buy a digicam off the shelf at a Best Buy somewhere, wire it to write to a hard drive instead of a memory card, set it so that it can take pictures with an electric command instead of having to hit the shutter, and then mail it to Mars? I don't get these people.

[NormsRevenge]

not sure if the rovers might outlive expectations,, I hope so,, maybe they are still working on the software fix, some of that stuff has to be pretty fun to debug.

they have cut back on some energy usage to compensate for a heater problem on one rover ,, I have not seen recent status on power available ,,

[Johnny_Cipher]

My comment was pretty much a "lady-in-the-limousine" type of thing. With all the marvels we've seen from these rovers already, JPL can play Demolition Derby with them if they want to, as far as I'm concerned. They've done their jobs; above and beyond in some cases.

[John H K]

The rovers only have a 90-day service life as it is

Err, well, the "planned mission" is 90 days.

Most NASA probes either fail miserably early or last well beyond their mission time...it's routine for various probes, etc. to have lasted years and years beyond their "planned mission."

[Boundless]

> rovers only have a 90-day service life as it is.

Which they are likely to exceed.

If they don't fail per original conservative estimates, an
interesting problem may arise - funding.

In addition to tying up other NASA assets, like the Deep
Space Network, the rovers cost a huge amount daily to
operate (just consider the salaries).

There's a significant chance that extended rover ops could
become an election issue, if the mission is to be terminated
due to funding, before the rovers are actually dead.

I already see Demwits blaming the Hubble abandonment on
Bush personally. You can be sure they'll start a Save the
Rovers movement if it appears that the $$ will run out
before the batteries do.

[Don Joe]

Controllers played the Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Bad Moon Rising" to kick off the rover's activities for a busy martian day

Groan...

This is getting so old.

The rover created three mosaics with its microscopic camera, recording 128 images with more than 200 arm movements.

Gee, they'd better tell Mr. Rover to calm down. At that rate he's gonna go blind. Maybe they can play some nice, soothing music, to get his mind off those pictures, and give his arm a rest.

[from occupied ga]

I don't get these people

What are the employment consequences to the engineers at NASA are if the rovers work well vs don't work at all. Thinking hard? Me too, and I have yet to come up with any. They are paid from your pocket regardless of whether or not they produce any results. Furthermore you don't get a say in whether or not you want to spend $820 million on pictures of rocks and dirt.

There are some who think this is great. They get to look at pictures of Martian rocks and dirt paid for by the rest of us. There are others (like me) who think it's a big waste of money and contrast privately funded research (Keck telescopes total $30million) with the Hubble ($1.8billion) and say the money would have been better spent in private ventures. Think what 10% of the Hubble budget could have accomplished if the people who directed the Keck had it.

[DefCon]

"...There are others (like me) who think it's a big waste of money..."
- - -
I'm in your camp.

[from occupied ga]

I'm in your camp.

I'm not against space exploration per se, I just think it should be privately funded rather than taxpayer funded. That way those who think it's great can support their belief by digging into their own pockets, and those of us who would rather see the money spent on their own priorities can do that too.

[ElkGroveDan]

While we're waiting for the picture of the Deimos eclipse, here's a stereo analglyph from Spirit and "Humphrey" that I made this morning. I also took out some, but not all of the fisheye lens curvature. I'm still working on a comfortable balance between distortion at the edges verses the center of the image.

[ElkGroveDan]

DEIMOS ECLIPS PICS ARE IN!!

That's all folks!

[Phil V.]

Looks as though you're having waaay too much fun with Photoshop ;)

Good work.

[bondserv]

I need to buy a "Spy Kids 3D" DVD so I can enjoy these.

[Phil V.]

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