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Probe's Powerful Camera Spots Vikings On Mars
New Scientist ^ | 12-5-2006 | David Chandler

Posted on 12/05/2006 10:18:35 AM PST by blam

Probe's powerful camera spots Vikings on Mars

12:29 05 December 2006
NewScientist.com news service
David Chandler

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spots Spirit's backshell and parachute (Image: NASA)

After three decades lost on the Red Planet, Viking 2's backshell is spotted from space (Image: NASA)

It is a feat millions of times more impressive than finding a needle in a haystack. The new Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted about a dozen spacecraft on the Martian surface and, incredibly, taken pictures of such sharpness that scientists have been able to identify individual rocks that were first photographed by the Viking landers in 1976.

The new series of pictures released late on Monday show both of the Viking landers, never spotted from orbit before, as well as their nearby heat shields and backshells. These are the top and bottom covers of the capsules in which the rovers decended through the Martian atmosphere to land.

The MRO has also found the Mars rover Spirit , the pyramid-shaped structure in which it landed, its backshell and parachute. The satellite probe had already found the rover Opportunity and its landing structure, sending back images within its first week of operations in October 2006.

Picturing the Viking landers from orbit is quite a coup for MRO. Tim Parker, a planetary geologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, told New Scientist that it was possible to clearly identify them by analysing the Martian landscape, even though the images show little detail.

Parker carefully matched rocks and other topographic features seen in the orbital views with those seen images the landers took on the ground. "I found a much better location match" than had been made from earlier orbital pictures, he says. It turns out Viking 1 is about 6 kilometres (3.8 miles) away..

(Excerpt) Read more at space.newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: camera; mars; mro; probe; viking
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To: b4its2late

that photo caught me way off guard! FUNNY!


41 posted on 12/05/2006 11:04:23 AM PST by Tactical
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To: pepsi_junkie

.....So our space program is reduced to planting human debris ........

Your misunderstanding is immense. The space vehicles can walk and chew gum at he same time the photos shown are a mere fraction of the total effort.


42 posted on 12/05/2006 11:04:29 AM PST by bert (K.E. N.P. Rozerem commercials give me nightmares)
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To: blam

That second picture isn't mars, it's a close-up of the commanders face on battlestar show.


43 posted on 12/05/2006 11:05:18 AM PST by CottShop
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To: Young Werther

Some camera imaged one of the landing sites. The resolution was about one pixel per Lunar Module base. Very tough to pick out anything.


44 posted on 12/05/2006 11:05:34 AM PST by RightWhale (RTRA DLQS GSCW)
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To: larryjohnson

Good job ol man!!


45 posted on 12/05/2006 11:06:14 AM PST by bert (K.E. N.P. Rozerem commercials give me nightmares)
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To: blam
The new series of pictures released late on Monday show both of the Viking landers, never spotted from orbit before, as well as their nearby heat shields and backshells. These are the top and bottom covers of the capsules in which the rovers decended through the Martian atmosphere to land.

I'm impressed that the Viking landers both managed to sprout tracks or wheels and become rovers.

46 posted on 12/05/2006 11:06:34 AM PST by SlowBoat407 (A living insult to islam since 1959)
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To: Liberty Valance
on the third rock from the Sun.

Mercury first rock, Venus second rock, Earth third rock, Mars is the fourth rock, not the third,

47 posted on 12/05/2006 11:11:50 AM PST by cpdiii (Oil Field Trash and proud of it, Geologist, Pilot, Pharmacist, Iconoclast)
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To: blam
It is a feat millions of times more impressive than finding a needle in a haystack

?

It's an awesome feat but it's not THAT amazing.  It's not like the folks at NASA didn't have a clue where, on Mars, this stuff came down.

48 posted on 12/05/2006 11:11:58 AM PST by Psycho_Bunny (`)
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To: blam

49 posted on 12/05/2006 11:13:31 AM PST by Tokra (I think I'll retire to Bedlam.)
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To: pepsi_junkie
"So our space program is reduced to planting human debris on other planets and then trying to find it from Earth."

Not meant to be funny but it sure was!

50 posted on 12/05/2006 11:14:25 AM PST by #1CTYankee (That's right, I have no proof. So what of it??)
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To: blam

Probe's Powerful Camera Spots Vikings On Mars

Wait'll his wife finds out!


51 posted on 12/05/2006 11:14:48 AM PST by COBOL2Java ("No stronger retrograde force exists in the world" - Winston Churchill on Islam)
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To: blam

bttt


52 posted on 12/05/2006 11:17:46 AM PST by amigatec (Carriers make wonderful diplomatic statements. Subs are for when diplomacy is over.)
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To: steveo

LOLOL!

Thanks - I needed that...


53 posted on 12/05/2006 11:19:36 AM PST by jonno (...it almost seems as if the Universe must in some sense have known that we were coming...)
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To: blam

And Brad Johnson threw three more interceptions to the Martians.


54 posted on 12/05/2006 11:20:16 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: N. Theknow

LOL!


55 posted on 12/05/2006 11:20:25 AM PST by taxesareforever (Never forget Matt Maupin)
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To: blam

The thin oxygen deficient martian air would explain their quarterback situation..


56 posted on 12/05/2006 11:21:19 AM PST by N3WBI3 ("Help me out here guys: What do you do with someone who wont put up or shut up?" - N3WBI3)
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To: longtermmemmory

What about the Hubble telescope?


57 posted on 12/05/2006 11:22:15 AM PST by taxesareforever (Never forget Matt Maupin)
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To: blam

drive their ships to new lands

bump


58 posted on 12/05/2006 11:23:21 AM PST by Tribune7
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To: Red Badger

hahahah...
well, I just think that the hi-res stuff is pretty kewl.


59 posted on 12/05/2006 11:38:55 AM PST by taxed2death (A few billion here, a few trillion there...we're all friends right?)
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To: All

60 posted on 12/05/2006 11:41:16 AM PST by BushMeister ("We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around." --Ronald Reagan)
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