First images from opportunity !!

The first images from Opportunity have arrived !!

And are posted on the mission website...

CLICK HERE for the Mission Website






[Edited on 25-1-2004 by smirkley]

Wow, and everyone thought the first lander was color blind!

Wonder if we have to wait for it to come out in color on dvd?

Advisor...you are right...

Now NASA is filtering out ALL color !!

Originally posted by ADVISOR
Wow, and everyone thought the first lander was color blind!

Wonder if we have to wait for it to come out in color on dvd?

Nope, they just forgot to stop off at Radio Shack for film and batteries. Too bad, so sad. I'll be waiting for the video.

Just wondering how long it takes these images to arrive, and at what rate? Are we talking Kbs, Gbs or faster?

How Fast and How Much Data the Rovers Can Send Back

The data rate direct-to-Earth varies from about 12,000 bits per second to 3,500 bits per second (roughly a third as fast as a standard home modem). The data rate to the orbiters is a constant 128,000 bits per second (4 times faster than a home modem). An orbiter passes over the rover and is in the vicinity of the sky to communicate with the rovers for about eight minutes at a time, per sol. In that time, about 60 megabits of data (about 1/100 of a CD) can be transmitted to an orbiter. That same 60 megabits would take between 1.5 and 5 hours to transmit direct to Earth. The rovers can only transmit direct-to-Earth for at most three hours a day due to power and thermal limitations, even though Earth may be in view much longer.

Mars is rotating on its own axis so Mars often "turns its back" to Earth, taking the rover with it. The rover is turned out of the field of view of Earth and goes "dark", just like nighttime on Earth, when the sun goes out of the field of view of Earth at a certain location when the Earth turns its "back" to the sun. The orbiters can see Earth for about 2/3 of each orbit, or about 16 hours a day. They can send much more data direct-to-Earth than the rovers, not only because they can see Earth longer, but because they can operate their radio for much longer since their solar panels get light most of the time, and they have bigger antennas than the rovers.

do those stones in back of the pictures look Squareish like a road or left over building rubble just under Mars surface?????????/

they sure look interesting.

Hey, look! There's crop circles on Mars! LOL

marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

Might be old news, but there are some "intersting" images over at Enterprise Mission from Richard C. Hogeland about unique characteristics of rocks, or shall I say objects on the Mars surface.

Originally posted by Valhall
Hey, look! There's crop circles on Mars! LOL

marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov...

No, I think they may be crap circles, only the crap has been eaten by the fly-cow. The fly-cow is infact self provided with food, since it is a genetic hybrid between a fly, which lives from crap, and a cow, which takes an enormously amounts of dumps in a day that it is almost unbelievable, so you don't see them flying around much. They normally just stand there eating it's own crap, and this is enough since it is a fly-cow hybrid. Originally the fly-cow was an attempt to meet the world's rising need for more food. But the whole thing got a little out of hand, since the cows wer also extremely intelligent, so they moved to Mars pretty quickly from where they are now infact controlling the world.

Blessings,
Mikromarius

[Edited on 25-1-2004 by mikromarius]