Rover Opportunity sends back panorama view of Mars; extends robotic arm

sfgate.com ^ | 2/2/04 | Andrew Bridges

[LibWhacker]

NASA's Opportunity rover sent back its first 360-degree color panoramic image of the surface of Mars on Monday, and extended a robotic arm that will touch the planet's surface.

The Mission team unveiled a photograph showing a wide expanse of red soil and the bumpy edge of a crater where the craft sits. "It provides us with a real sense of you are there," said Jeff Johnson, of the U.S. Geological Survey.

[LibWhacker]

[EternalVigilance]

Wow! The Martian surface may look strange and otherworldly, but that sunshine on the equipment is from the Sol we know and love...

[bolobaby]

Looks like they didn't mess with the colors quite so blatantly this time!

[Grut]

There's a useful increase in detail if you download the image and then 'equalize' it with Photoshop. You can see where the lander bounced into the crater and almost rolled out the other side.

[LibWhacker]

[LibWhacker]

. . . and almost rolled out . . .

Are those the tracks on the far right of the pic? Interesting . . . I saw an article a couple of days ago that said the lander did a figure eight when it rolled into the crater, rolling in on one side, then up the other side, and back down.

[Professional Engineer]

Cool pictures.

[LibWhacker]

Man, ouch . . . those images weren't so big when I first viewed them in my browser! I knew how big they were ito kilobytes, but didn't intend for people to have to do a lot of scrolling to read the graphs.

[texasflower]

Still, this seems unbelievable. Incredibly cool.

[Hank Rearden]

Broadband means never having to say you're sorry.

Cool pics.

[LibWhacker]

Hehe . . . When I was posting 'em I was thinking, "This should keep the Luddites outta my thread." :-)

[1rudeboy]

I cannot get the imagine of a Martian, sitting on his patio having a drink (presumably frozen), as a NASA beach-ball rolls by, deflates, and opens like a flower petal, out of my mind.

[LibWhacker]

I've thought of that, too . . . I think he'd be absolutely petrified, lol. It's just as alien a thing as he could imagine.

[1rudeboy]

Once more, with edit:

I cannot get the image of a Martian, sitting on his patio having a drink (presumably frozen), as a NASA beach-ball rolls by, deflates and opens like a flower petal, out of my mind.

[Phil V.]

If you'd like to be on or off this MARS ping list please FRail me

[blam]

Bravo!

[MHGinTN]

I swear those rock outcroppings look so much like ancient fallen-down rock walls!

[longtermmemmory]

wow what clarity.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Phil, you may have me on it. If not, please add me.

Thanks buddy.

[giotto]

That's what I thought, too. But then my son pointed out that the size of the outcropping is only about the same as the rover. So it would have to be the ruins of a really small house.