It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity appears as a bluish dot near the lower right corner of this enhanced-color view from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The rover's tracks are visible extending from the landing site, "Bradbury Landing," in the left half of the scene. Two bright, relatively blue spots surrounded by darker patches are where the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft's landing jets cleared away reddish surface dust at the landing site. North is toward the top. For scale, the two parallel lines of the wheel tracks are about 10 feet (3 meters) apart. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
Originally posted by Nevertheless
Am I the only one who's nerdy enough that instead of thinking "cool!" I rather find the photo very cute?
Originally posted by qmantoo
I believe that the wheels are set approx 1-1.5 m wide apart and we can see each track individually. How wide are the tyres maybe 15 inches wide each perhaps.
Is it likely that we are going to be able to determine each tyre track? Well, I dont know, but the tyres are not that wide and what is the scale here?
If Curiosity is the size of a VW beetle thats approx 15 feet long by 6-8 feet wide, then that round white dot we see as Curiosity does not match up to the tyre size. It may be nice to think it does, but maybe it does not? comments?
Now... why can't we see Spirit like that in an image with as much detail as the individual tyre tracks.?
I will tell you my theory is that the Martians have dismantled Spirit and there is nothing left these days. Thats why. Now to prove the hypothesis...edit on 29 Jul 2013 by qmantoo because: sceptical
HiRISE was designed to be a High Resolution camera from the beginning. It consists of a large mirror, as well as a large CCD camera. Because of this, it achieves a resolution of 1 microradian, or 0.3 meter at a height of 300 km.
The rover is 2.9 m (9.5 ft) long by 2.7 m (8.9 ft) wide by 2.2 m (7.2 ft) in height.
2 inches = approx 5cms = 10 x 5 = 50cms = half a metre = 1.5-2 pixels wide
Curiosity's tires are 20 inches wide
(Wikipedia)
Opportunity (along with its twin, Spirit) is a six-wheeled, solar-powered robot standing 1.5 m (4.9 ft) high, 2.3 m (7.5 ft) wide and 1.6 m (5.2 ft) long and weighing 180 kg (400 lb). Six wheels on a rocker-bogie system enable mobility. Each wheel has its own motor, the vehicle is steered at front and rear and is designed to operate safely at tilts of up to 30 degrees. Maximum speed is 50 mm/s (2 in/s) although average speed is about a fifth of this (0.02 mph).