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Mars Pictures Beamed Back To Earth
Ananova ^ | 12-3-2003

Posted on 12/03/2003 3:21:28 PM PST by blam

Mars pictures beamed back to Earth

Pictures of Mars have been received from the craft carrying Beagle 2 - the British probe due to land on the Red Planet on Christmas Day and search for life.

The images from the European Space Agency's Mars Express, captured from a distance of 3.36 million miles, were taken to test its high resolution camera.

Mars Express will use the camera to take close-up pictures of the Martian surface once it begins orbiting the planet. The test is one of a series of checks and rehearsals before the start of a critical series of manoeuvres on December 19.

Beagle 2 will then be "spun out" from the craft and start heading independently towards the planet. Gaele Winters, director of technical operations at ESA's control centre in Germany, said: "We will have to carry out some very precise navigational operations. There is a certain level of tension in the centre."

Both spacecraft are due to arrive at their destination on Christmas Day. While Mars Express fires its main engine to go into Martian orbit, Beagle 2 will head for a landing site within a large impact basin near the planet's equator.

Scientists believe that long ago the Isidis Planitia region may have been covered with water. It is therefore a good place to look for evidence that life once existed on Mars, or might even still survive there. Beagle 2 will collect rock, soil and air samples and analyse them in an on-board laboratory for chemical signs of life.

Meanwhile Mars Express will carry out a detailed survey of the planet from the sky, using powerful radar to search for any water trapped underground. Last month Mars Express, launched into space by a Russian rocket on June 2, weathered a solar storm caused by high energy particles from eruptions on the Sun.

The spacecraft's computers were temporarily disrupted but returned to normal once the storm had passed. Flight officials said Mars Express had also suffered a drop in electrical power to about 70% of what was expected, but did not think this would derail the mission.

Story filed: 16:05 Wednesday 3rd December 2003


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: beamed; earth; mars; pictures
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1 posted on 12/03/2003 3:21:28 PM PST by blam
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To: blam
Kind of a crappy picture. Looks like a smudge.
2 posted on 12/03/2003 3:23:00 PM PST by dead (I used to believe in a lot of things. All of it! Now I believe only in dynamite.)
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To: dead
"Kind of a crappy picture. Looks like a smudge."

I think the French are involved.

3 posted on 12/03/2003 3:27:21 PM PST by blam
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To: blam
If the French were involved it would be white, square, and waving
4 posted on 12/03/2003 3:28:36 PM PST by thoughtomator (The U.N. is a terrorist organization)
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To: blam

5 posted on 12/03/2003 3:29:00 PM PST by Kay Soze (Liberal Homosexuals kill more people than Global Warming, SUVs’, Firearms & Terrorism combined.)
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To: dead
I see George Bush's face in that dark smudge in the center. No, really!
6 posted on 12/03/2003 3:29:34 PM PST by RedBloodedAmerican
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To: blam

We will be waiting for you.

7 posted on 12/03/2003 3:29:44 PM PST by BulletBobCo
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To: Kay Soze
HAHA!!
8 posted on 12/03/2003 3:29:54 PM PST by RedBloodedAmerican
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To: dead
Kind of a crappy picture.

Looks like the quality of picture you'd get of Mars when taking the photo from the Earth. Either they have a really lousy camera on board that spacecraft, or someone's trying to pass off a terran-based photo as a space-based photo.

9 posted on 12/03/2003 3:31:14 PM PST by Prime Choice (Conservative: One who doesn't believe that turning the U.S. into a third-world nation is 'progress'.)
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To: blam
may have been covered with water. It is therefore a good place to look for evidence that life once existed on Mars,

Myth Number 1: Where there's water, there's life.

10 posted on 12/03/2003 3:31:20 PM PST by firebrand
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To: blam
With all of the robotic space probes about the arrive at their destinations, the next few months will be exciting.

We will see more real science exploration in the next two months, from these low cost robotic probes, than 10 years worth of manned missions with the Shuttle.

Robots first, man second!

11 posted on 12/03/2003 3:33:19 PM PST by Hunble
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To: Prime Choice
Looks like the quality of picture you'd get of Mars when taking the photo from the Earth. Either they have a really lousy camera on board that spacecraft, or someone's trying to pass off a terran-based photo as a space-based photo.

My thoughts exactly. My company builds high resolution cameras for spacecraft. We'd lose all our contracts with crappy images like that.

Coupled with their admission that they are operating on 30% of their electrical power, perhaps the Euroweenies spacecraft will join the Japanese one that failed earlier this week.

12 posted on 12/03/2003 3:39:47 PM PST by GluteusMax
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To: firebrand
Why we never find life on Mars....


13 posted on 12/03/2003 3:45:09 PM PST by Hunble
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To: Kay Soze

14 posted on 12/03/2003 3:46:09 PM PST by South40 (My vote helped defeat cruz bustamante; did yours?)
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To: blam
One can only hope that the pics will be sharp enough to identify the squadrillions of taxpayer dollars strewn about the Martian landscape. So far, our investment has demonstrated that some of the rocks on Mars are brownish-red, whereas others are reddish-brown. They also differ from one another in size and shape.
15 posted on 12/03/2003 3:49:13 PM PST by southernnorthcarolina (All that, and a bag of chips.)
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To: Hunble
Mars Closest To Earth In Nearly 60,000 Years
16 posted on 12/03/2003 3:50:27 PM PST by blam
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To: firebrand
Myth Number 1: Where there's water, there's life.

Fact number 1: Where there's no water, there's no life.

So where do you look for life?

17 posted on 12/03/2003 3:56:40 PM PST by Salman (Mickey Akbar)
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To: All
More exciting will be the close-ups from Saturn due in next year July 1, 2004. At least I'm excited about it. We will finally get good closeups of the rings, and will be launching a miny probe to check out Titan. The Cassini spacecraft was launched on October 15, 1997. Mars is old news, this is something we haven't seen up close before.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/saturn_cassini.html

18 posted on 12/03/2003 4:19:46 PM PST by jempet
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To: Salman
Myth Number 1: Where there's water, there's life. Fact number 1: Where there's no water, there's no life.

If we follow the guidelines set out by environmentalists, you can have water and no life -- MTBE comes to mind.

19 posted on 12/03/2003 4:26:30 PM PST by Erik Latranyi
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To: firebrand
Where have you seen water that had no life within?
20 posted on 12/03/2003 4:52:42 PM PST by Gumption
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