Posted on 01/12/2007 3:33:00 PM PST by blam
Mars probe may have spotted lost rover
01:02 12 January 2007
NewScientist.com news service
Maggie McKee
Objects just 30 cm across can be seen in this MRO image of Pathfinder's landing site (Image: NASA/JPL/U Arizona)
The 63-centimetre-long Sojourner rover (which appears multiple times in this composite image by Pathfinder) was last seen at a distance of 13 metres from the lander. New orbital images suggest it later came within about 6m, after the lander's death (Image: NASA/JPL/U Arizona)
The most powerful camera ever sent into orbit around Mars has spotted yet another lander lying lifeless on its surface: Mars Pathfinder, which operated for three months in 1997. It may also have found the mission's tiny rover, Sojourner, which appears to have crawled towards Pathfinder after the lander had already died.
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which arrived at the planet in March 2006, has previously spotted four spacecraft on the planet's surface – the current rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, and the twin 30-year-old Viking landers.
Now, it has used its ultrapowerful camera, called HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), to identify the Pathfinder lander and scattered hardware from the mission, including the parachute and backshell it used during its descent a decade ago.
The lander and some of these components had been seen before from orbit by NASA's now-lost Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. But HiRISE can resolve details between two and five times as small, imaging objects just under 30 centimetres across.
"Before HiRISE came along, it was a lot like having a state road map to find a neighbourhood address," says geologist Tim Parker of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US. "Suddenly, it was like having a residential street map, or maybe even photos showing houses so you can recognise them."
Re-establish contact
Such images
(Excerpt) Read more at space.newscientist.com ...
Ping
I know its only a machine...it was trying to get back to the mothership.
Pic looks like a black and white close-up of Karl Mauldin's nose. Or Rosie O'Donnell's ass.
There will be more talk like this as robotics becomes more important in space exploration. Our little creations are already nearly autonomous but are reprogrammable, which right there is a superiority to biological units.
LOL! the article does imply human characteristics..
No. Gene therapy already shows that we can reprogram bio DNA code.
Does anyone havea microscope here?I looked at the photo,even after enlarging it and I can't see anything.Maybe I should have brought my seeing eye dog.
If I saw Rosie O'donuts ass, I sure wouldn't post the fact.
There's no sci-fi material in that that hasn't already been used and used up. But robotics is a new field that is hardly touched.
Perhaps it can also spot the European probe that presumably crashed (at one of the poles if I recall correctly) several years ago.
Ha ha ha, Sopater ... we're on to you and your futile attempt to trick us with that obvious photo-shop fake ... There's no water on Mars ... ha ha ha.
That's creepy.
Scan across the large image (see post # 2).
Several interesting bits (heat shields, parachutes, etc.) are labeled in huge yellow letters.
They don't go anywhere without being told to do so.
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