See Mars Like Never Before! NASA's Perseverance Rover Sends New Video and Images of the Red Planet

Perseverance landed on the 18th of February after months of travel and another "7 Minutes Of Terror".

Join the experts this afternoon for what will be exciting updates on the status of its science packages. Not to mention what I'm expecting to be some high-res photography of the Red Planet as well as Video, if the title and description in the link is any indication.

Today at 2Pm EST. Don't be late!

10 years newer than Curiosity, but so far the haz cam images look the same, minus the dust from aging on Curiosity.

Kinda sad.

Is it really that hard to radiation proof some newer optical tech?

a reply to: Archivalist

The explanation that they touched on the day it landed is throughput. Apparently, they need the Mars recon sat to get any decent data rates to get anything close to high res images. You've to to remember that a 1 gig video would take a loooooong time to buffer and send.

a reply to: Archivalist

I checked out the specs of the rover and some is impressive, others are underwhelming. While it does have a 20MP camera on it, its limited to a couple GB of storage and its main radio system is limited to about 5Mbps
uplink to the MRO. That orbital platform relays the telemetry/data to and from Earth to the Rovers.

To add to its limitations it only has a 200Mhz processor. The whole system i don't believe is capable of any multi tasking. They must issue a command, wait for it to travel to the Rover. Then it must carry out the command and return data to earth. Because of the round trip latencies of this method there is some serious limitations to what can be achieved in a time period.

We really need a pre-programmed autonomous rover that can be sent there. Then it can carry out its programming faster and send back data on a semi continuous basis.

a reply to: shaneslaughta

It should be noted that the processor doesn't have all the bloated software of a standard computer.
The code it runs is specifically designed for the rover and doesn't need to process any extra data like a picture for a monitor.

The lunar landers from the Apollo era only had the processing power of a pocket calculator.

a reply to: Archivalist

10 years newer than Curiosity, but so far the haz cam images look the same, minus the dust from aging on Curiosity.
Kinda sad.

Why would the haz cam need to be higher resolution than it is it's there to serve a purpose not take holiday snaps.

Is it really that hard to radiation proof some newer optical tech?

Have you seen Curiosity's pictures ?

I haven’t spent much time on the new pictures. How much do they look like Greenland? I am really curious if it is even there.

a reply to: shaneslaughta

Ugh. Why can't they take the damn masks off. They sound muffled and obviously have a hard time inhaling.

Are there any pictures we can scroll through independently?

Nasa

Here are the images uploaded so far. I hear more are incoming.

I heard that the super cam will be started up soon. I cant wait.

Perseverance Rover’s Descent and Touchdown.

Pretty cool.

We had high-res photos of the outer planets years ago. They were intentionally degraded to hide the fact that our satellites have even better eyes.

I'm amazed people don't already know this. It's been discussed repeatedly.

Seriously?
That was an hour of blabbing and a few shots that looked like a potato cam shot of Utah.

originally posted by: Archivalist
10 years newer than Curiosity, but so far the haz cam images look the same, minus the dust from aging on Curiosity.

I suppose you don't remember the first photos Curiosity sent, when compared to the photos it took after the final calibration?

Also, as pointed by gortex, the hazcam has a purpose, and that's not to show high resolution images.

Is it really that hard to radiation proof some newer optical tech?

The problem is not the "optical tech", it's the electronics in general.

Modern electronics, with their low power consumption and small size are much more sensitive to radiation than the older electronics, for which a charged particle travelling through them would have been too small and with a charge to low to affect them. Today, a charged particle may be big enough to created a short-circuit between two pieces of a transistor and the energy it carries be strong enough to create a malfunction on the affected component or even "fry" it.

originally posted by: shaneslaughta
While it does have a 20MP camera on it, its limited to a couple GB of storage and its main radio system is limited to about 5Mbps uplink to the MRO. That orbital platform relays the telemetry/data to and from Earth to the Rovers.

Communication happens at the slower speed available, so if you have a relay that works only at 4 or 5 Mbps there's no reason to have an uplink that works at 10 Mbps.

To add to its limitations it only has a 200Mhz processor. The whole system i don't believe is capable of any multi tasking. They must issue a command, wait for it to travel to the Rover. Then it must carry out the command and return data to earth. Because of the round trip latencies of this method there is some serious limitations to what can be achieved in a time period.

We really need a pre-programmed autonomous rover that can be sent there. Then it can carry out its programming faster and send back data on a semi continuous basis.

Curiosity used autonomous navigation back in 2013. Perseverance also has that capability.

a reply to: Creep Thumper

The Apollo program used repurposed spy satellite cameras in its orbital imaging (specifically the panoramic cameras of Apollo 15-17) and they weren't keen for the Soviets to know just how good their results were. That didn't stop them publishing photos of their mission hardware from orbit though.

Missions to other planets, however, take years to plan, and any cameras tend to be the best available at inception, not launch. Hiding how good a camera was 10 years ago would be a little pointless.

It's a shame many people's reaction to the incredible feat of landing on another planet, taking photos and using something already in orbit to relay those photos isn't "wow that's amazing, well done us" but "why hasn't it made me toast?".

So at this point, a few Mastcam-Z images have come through, and they don't look very promising to me.

Fortunately, it looks like the Mastcam can take variable resolution photos, so perhaps the highest resolution images are still to come.

Holding out hope for Perseverance.

Fun fact, Opportunity had a faster top speed than Perseverance.

Also, those asking if I've seen Curiosity's images, I have viewed well over 200,000 Curiosity images.

a reply to: OneBigMonkeyToo

How many landers have we sent there? A lot.

And the results are always the same. Mars is a cold, dead rock. It will never be anything more than a cold, dead rock.

What a waste of money.

a reply to: Creep Thumper

Man, NASA is going to be so disappointed you don't like it...

What Mars is is a scientific resource. It may be cold and dead now, but it may have been different. The story of how it went from different to dead is way more valuable than money.

a reply to: Creep Thumper

Fact is we don't know for sure and we're curious to find out exactly how Mars became what it is today.

And let's not forget: Mars will be a living planet again at some point, when the first humans will be going there. Most of them will be staying on Mars for good. One day, our red neighbor may even become a life insurance for mankind.

That's a pretty good investment, if you ask me!

a reply to: Creep Thumper

And the results are always the same. Mars is a cold, dead rock.

Mars may be cold and baron at its surface but that doesn't mean it's dead , the rovers and orbiters tell a different story which is where their value lies.

If microscopic Martian life is producing the methane, it likely resides far below the surface, where it's still warm enough for liquid water to exist. Liquid water, as well as energy sources and a supply of carbon, are necessary for all known forms of life.

"On Earth, microorganisms thrive 2 to 3 kilometers (about 1.2 to 1.9 miles) beneath the Witwatersrand basin of South Africa, where natural radioactivity splits water molecules into molecular hydrogen (H2) and oxygen. The organisms use the hydrogen for energy. It might be possible for similar organisms to survive for billions of years below the permafrost layer on Mars, where water is liquid, radiation supplies energy, and carbon dioxide provides carbon," said Mumma.

"Gases, like methane, accumulated in such underground zones might be released into the atmosphere if pores or fissures open during the warm seasons, connecting the deep zones to the atmosphere at crater walls or canyons," said Mumma.

"Microbes that produced methane from hydrogen and carbon dioxide were one of the earliest forms of life on Earth," noted Dr. Carl Pilcher, Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute which partially supported the research. "If life ever existed on Mars, it's reasonable to think that its metabolism might have involved making methane from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide."
www.nasa.gov...