What's going on with Spirit Rover?

reply to post by aleon1018

At the beginning of their missions, with the batteries fully charged, the rovers could take photos during the night, so there are some photos of stars seen from Mars.

Edit: here you have two annotated photos of stars (and a possible meteor).





Found in this page.

[edit on 23/8/2009 by ArMaP]

Originally posted by ArMaP
reply to post by aleon1018

 

At the beginning of their missions, with the batteries fully charged, the rovers could take photos during the night, so there are some photos of stars seen from Mars.

Well, I sure hope that's part of their next missions than. According to the one site, the new rovers power system could last 14 years?

Originally posted by ArMaP some water vapour on the metal of the lander.

WATER VAPOR on MARS?

I seem to recall several 'skeptics' 'explaining' to me how that was impossible

reply to post by ArMaP


Thanks for finding that. I sure hope they can sometime in the near future have some videos and stills something like our telescopes, rather than something that looks like an old worn vinyl floor tile. Are we ever going to get color stills from Mars or am I delusional? (ok, besides that)

reply to post by zorgon

Really?

I thought that the only thing considered impossible on Mars, in regards to water, was liquid water, not water vapour.

ESA scientists even think that water vapour is part of the change in size of the polar ice caps, being the means of transportation of all that ice (as vapour) to the other pole.

Better explained here.

What may be impossible (and in that case my post is wrong in the explanation, I didn't look for the real explanation) is the condensation of the vapour on the metal, vapour is obviously possible, we have seen it several times, right?

reply to post by aleon1018

The problem with video is the amount of data needed, you can see for yourself the difference between the file size of a high definition photo and a video. But we have good satellite photos (with a definition of 0.25 metres per pixel) and the rovers and Phoenix have taken some good photos. They are all greyscale, but we can make colour photos when we have the right photos.

(click on any photo for full size version)

reply to post by ArMaP


So, none of these photos are true to life of that area? These are just assumptions based on tests of the soil etc.?

Why casn't they send these in grey scale first etc,...?

reply to post by aleon1018

These photos were made by using the greyscale photos taken by the rovers with the Red, Green and Blue filters, then they are combined to create a RGB colour image.

Digital cameras do the same, only in a different way.

The NASA photos (the ones that look reddish) show things how they supposedly are seen there, with the red hue being a result of the dust in the air, like what happens on Earth during a sand storm.

The images from my previous post do not take that into account, so they show more or less how things would look on a clear (without dust in the air) day or if we closed that area inside a house and used white light to illuminate the scene.

I hope my explanation is understandable.

reply to post by ArMaP


Not to worry. Just one more thing I'll have to discuss with my therapist mext time. Just imagine anyone more intelligent than us with the capability of sending false information back to earth, editing out the buidings etc.

I've seen enough Star Trek episodes to wonder about it anyway. Thanks.