Science
Related: About this forumMars Orbiter Spies Curiosity Rover at Work
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover can be seen at the "Pahrump Hills" area of Gale Crater in this view from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Pahrump Hills is an outcrop at the base of Mount Sharp. The region contains sedimentary rocks that scientists believe formed in the presence of water.
The location of the rover, with its shadow extending toward the upper right, is indicated with an inscribed rectangle. Figure A is an unannotated version of the image. North is toward the top. The view covers an area about 360 yards (330 meters) across.
HiRISE made the observation on Dec. 13, 2014. At that time, Curiosity was near a feature called "Whale Rock." A map showing the rover's path for the weeks leading up to that date is at http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=6884 . The inset map at http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=6913 labels the location of Whale Rock and other features in the Pahrump Hills area.
The bright features in the landscape are sedimentary rock and the dark areas are sand. The HiRISE team plans to periodically image Curiosity, as well as NASA's other active Mars rover, Opportunity, as the vehicles continue to explore Mars.
This image is an excerpt from HiRISE observation ESP_039280_1755. Other image products from this observation are available at http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_039280_1755 .
http://mars.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/?ImageID=6947
lastlib
(23,244 posts)This is so AMAZING that humankind can do this stuff!!
And it is so much better doing this than killing one another because the sky daddy the other one worships isn't ours.
tclambert
(11,087 posts)There's evidence of us, life on Earth, but the evidence is on Mars. So, maybe I need to change the punctuation: There's evidence of life, on Mars!
Moostache
(9,895 posts)That little rover represents simultaneously everything great and horrific about humanity in one package.
I love this quote from the movie adaptation of "Contact":
"You're capable of such beautiful dreams, and such terrible nightmares..."
I cried the day the shuttle program died. I cried because the potential of the human race is being retarded before our very eyes in the EXACT same way it was at the end of the Roman empire and just ahead of the first Dark Age. We're on a collective path to doing it all again...maybe this time instead of just disease wiping out a huge chunk of the population it will be disease and war and climate collapse...but make no mistake, its coming just as surely as the sun rising in the East again each morning.
It just doesn't have to be this way except for the greed and inhumanity of man for his fellow man.
bananas
(27,509 posts)Last edited Sun Feb 8, 2015, 02:50 PM - Edit history (1)
Life imitates Art!