Astronomy Picture of the Day 01-26-04

NASA ^ | 01-26-04 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2004 January 26

A Landing at Meridiani Planum Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, JPL, NASA Explanation: After an interplanetary journey of nearly 300 million miles, Opportunity bounced down on the martian surface at about 9:05 pm PST Saturday, its final plunge cushioned by airbags. Now the second NASA rover on Mars, Opportunity's landing site at Meridiani Planum is on the opposite side of the red planet from its twin rover Spirit. Described as unlike any ever seen on Mars, the dark, undulating terrain at Meridiani Planum (aka Terra Meridiani) is pictured above in the first stunning color view from Opportunity. This area is thought to be rich in gray hematite, an iron-bearing mineral which can form in watery environments. Part of the rover's deck is in the foreground while circular impressions and drag marks made by the airbags are visible just beyond it.

[petuniasevan]

Opportunity achieves 'interplanetary hole in one'
BY SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: January 25, 2004

After a seven-month voyage spanning 300 million miles from Earth to Mars, the Opportunity rover ended up inside a tiny crater to the utter delight of mission scientists.

Imagery from Opportunity is combined to generate this "overhead" view of the rover sitting on its lander at Meridiani Planum. Credit: NASA/JPL
Download a larger version of this image here.
 

The second of NASA's two Mars Exploration Rover safely arrived in an area known as Meridiani Planum at 12:05 a.m. EST (0505 GMT) Sunday. Opportunity was sent there to study a mineral, called gray hematite, which usually forms in the presence of water.

"We knew going in that there are two fundamental geological units here," Steve Squyres, the Mars rover principal investigator, said of the flat plains of Meridiani. "One of them is a thick sequence of layered rocks, fairly light in tone. We do not know what they are. And then draped on top of that is a thin coating of what appears to be some kind of fine-grain material, and that's the stuff we think contains the hematite.

"My fondest hope after looking at pictures from orbit before we landed was that we would land some place that we would be close enough to a crater that we would have a chance of traversing to it and actually getting to the layered material.

"Instead, what has happened is we have scored a 300-million mile interplanetary hole in one and we are actually inside a small impact crater!"

Images taken by Opportunity soon after touchdown revealed the $400 million craft was sitting in a shallow crater about 65 feet in diameter.

"I don't know what the odds would be for us hitting a crater like this, but this is just sensational," said Squyres.

A side wall of the crater is covered with a light-colored layer of fractured rock. This tantalizing rock outcrop along with the surface-covering material means Opportunity has its scientific objectives dead ahead.

"If it got any better, I couldn't stand it," said Dr. Doug Ming, rover science team member.

This "postcard" from Opportunity's panoramic camera shows the strange martian landscape southwest of the rover. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell
Download a larger version of this image here.
 

NASA's orbiting Mars Global Surveyor discovered a couple of years ago that Meridiani Planum featured gray hematite, prompting researchers to send a rover to the locale. Opportunity carries a set of sophisticated science tools -- spectrometers, multiple cameras and a rock-grinding device -- to unveil the composition of soil and rock samples.

The rover will probe the hematite to determine if the material is from sediments of an ancient ocean, from volcanic deposits altered by hot water, or from other environmental conditions in the planet's distant past.

"Hematite forms in a number of different ways on Earth but most of them involve the action of liquid water," Squyres said.

The battle cry of NASA's Mars exploration program is "follow the water." Proving that Mars once had liquid water would help to determine if the planet could have supported life long ago.

"Knowing just how the hematite on Mars was formed will help us characterize the past environment and determine whether that environment was favorable for life. One big question, of course, is whether life ever started on Mars. This mission probably won't tell us that, but it may well lead to future mission that can answer that question," said Joy Crisp, rover project scientist.

As Opportunity was descending to the surface, a camera package on the lander snapped three photographs. The imagery shows a much larger crater -- about 500 feet across -- within a half-mile of the landing site.

"It is surely, I think, within our reach," said Squyres.

"The way I envision this mission going: we drive off the lander, we look at the soil, we investigate this hematite mystery, we go to the outcrop, we explore it in some detail because it is right there in front of us, ripe for the pickin', we look at that carefully, we understand that geologic unit, then we climb out of the crater, look around and then head for the big one. And it is going to be a wonderful adventure."

But before Opportunity can depart its lander base, it must first stand up, deploy its wheels and cut a series of umbilicals. Engineers believe it will be the end of next week before the craft rolls onto the surface.

This first image from the lander's descent camera was taken at an altitude of 1,986 meters (6,516 feet). The image spans approximately 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) across the surface of Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL
Download a larger version of this image here.
 

This second image from the lander's descent camera was taken at an altitude of 1,690 meters (5,545 feet). The image spans approximately 1.4 kilometers (7/8 of a mile) across the surface of Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL
Download a larger version of this image here.
 

This second image from the lander's descent camera was taken at an altitude of 1,404 meters (4,606 feet). The image spans approximately 1.2 kilometers (3/4 of a mile) across the surface of Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL
Download a larger version of this image here.

---

Bogged down software could explain Spirit's ailment
BY SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: January 25, 2004

The group working to unravel the glitch with Spirit and return the rover to action has narrowed the possible cause of its trouble to three potentials, officials said Sunday afternoon.

"Spirit is still serious but we are moving toward guarded condition now," rover project manager Pete Theisinger said. "I think we got a patient well on the way to recovery."

The rover experienced a problem last Wednesday, disrupting communications with Earth and halting all science activities. The breakdown happened while Spirit was performing a calibration of motors on the Mini-TES instrument.

"The leading theory is that the file management software module in the software has gone to some condition that it could not cope with -- that it was not robust enough for the operations we were engaged in when we had the flaw on Wednesday," Theisinger said.

On Saturday, engineers began focusing on the rover's flash memory and the way the software communicates with the computer memory. To get the rover operating, it was told to avoid using the flash memory for now.

On Sunday, the team was able to reset Spirit's computer to the non-flash utilization mode, Theisinger said. Also Sunday, the ongoing diagnostics determined the flash memory hardware aboard the rover to be healthy.

"There are two other theories that are not as well in competition but cannot be discounted, and they are being worked by anomaly subteams," Theisinger added.

"One is there was some kind of error or hardware issue on the motor control board. That's the circuit board with the electronics that control the motors. That's being examined.

"Also...there was a solar event Wednesday and the timing of that is being looked at with respect to correlation to the onset of our problems. The flash memories are sensitive to high-energy ions and neutrons when they are being read from and written to, and we were certainly engaged in a lot of that activity that day."

Theisinger remains hopeful that Spirit will resume its exploration adventure of Gusev Crater by mid-February.

"I think we've got a patient well on the way to recovery, and I think we have a very good chance now we will have a very good rover when we are done getting this thing back up. Although, once again, it will take some time to make sure that we have completely characterized the problem and that we are able to check out all of the functionality on the vehicle.

"You can't take anything for granted here. So I don't expect to be driving for a couple of weeks, maybe three."

[jigsaw]

A Landing at Meridiani Planum

Dang, those Martian fellas are majorly behind the times if they're still printing their maps in Latin! The Roman Empire is soooooooo yesterday.   ;-)

(Thanks for the neat pics.)

[Soaring Feather]

Thank You for this thread.

[sistergoldenhair]

Lots of good info.
Thanks for the ping.

[Freedom2specul8]

MODERATORS

Please check the source code of this thread...

Pay particular attention to the hidden comments etc to post #2. What a bunch of horsesh*t.

Posted by petuniasevan On General Interest (Chat) 01/26/2004 6:31:58 AM CST #2 of 5

"...michael miserable failure moore hillary evil bitch clinton al sore loser gore bill lying rapist clinton..." http://images5.fotki.com/v52/photos/6/66924/656150/APOD-vi.gif http://www.al-gore-2004.org/ http://www.clintonpresidentialcenter.com

petuniasevan, please take me off your ping list because this garbage appears to be on more than one of your posts. Thanks a lot. Since all the letters where WHITE, I was inadvertantly sent to the creeps library website and I resent it.

[Freedom2specul8]

See my previous #6 post and then judge for yourself..

[Freedom2specul8]

Check my #6 post

[Freedom2specul8]

Where=were

[Freedom2specul8]

Be sure to spot check ALL of her threads. You'll find more.

[petuniasevan]

That was called "Google bombing" and was there simply to change the Google rankings on some really irritating idiots' anti-Bush websites. It was NOT designed to throw you into a tizzy and cause you to run to the mods.

Not once has a mod or Jim warned me or anyone else I know against doing this.

You could have asked me what it was and I would have told you.

And yes you're off the list, oh sensitive one.

[Freedom2specul8]

There is a difference between being sensitive and being forced to go to a website I would never visit. I would NEVER even think of putting any kind of hidden link to any of the gore/clinton websites, especially here. Just the thought of forcing someone to go to the traitors websites makes me literally nauseous.

It's akin to those idiotic pop-up ads. Had the links not been there..just the words alone..I might have asked you about it or just ignored it.

As far as making this a personal attack, or a personal vendetta, that is not my intention. It just put up my antennas and I was like...whoa....what the H*ll is happening to my computer and why am I at this site.

As far as the google bombing, while a creative counter to what was done to President Bush... I don't know how long you've been doing it, but it hasn't worked yet(using the keywords you're using). It might be easier to put the links on your homepage, with other creative labels, or even make a geocities page with lots of metatags.

Regardless, I wasn't sure what your motivation was..and since I was sent to a place that makes my skin crawl, it seemed to me that it was a gross thing to do..and normally, when gross things are done, I don't ask the person "why" they do gross things. If it invades my space, I take the only action I know.

Maybe a better way would be to make the links, but disable them so they won't send people to the site, like this.

<!--a href=http://www.fillintheblank.com-->CLICK</a>

I wish you well,and thank you for removing me from your list.

[GummyIII]

Well, I didn't get to see it, but I agree with Kim. It's a dirty trick.

[Freedom2specul8]

Petunia's upset with me because of the way I handled it..but dang, it was evil took over my computer. I don't like pop-windows or auto linking to websitse I didn't ask for. Webpages from other sites, (like on www.bored.com) hidden within frames are a pet peeve too. My daughter had no idea she was visiting dozens of sites..some of them attempted to download the gator software numerous times. My spybot search and destroy program finds it all of the time. GRRRR But other times, guess who has to manually fix the computer. ME.

[GummyIII]

Kim, most folks are ignorant of the spyware and other invasive software involved in these sites. And I'm with you....I keep spybot and spyblaster, zone alarm, and norton updated and running constantly. And I see what is trying to invade and track me. If folks don't have these programs, I sure do recommend they get them.

[Freedom2specul8]

I agree..They rally are very important to have..

I just couldn't figure out how I was sent to his website. As I told you via freepmail, when we click highlight all with opera, the white words etc., do not show up. They do on netscape and IE..but I rarely use them.

I did this morning though..after reading JoJo's post on the new thread..and saw all of the hidden words.

We live and learn every day..thankfully.

[Freedom2specul8]

lol rally=really