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Panoramic Shot of Martian Landscape by Opportunity before 6 Month Hibernation for Martian Winter [x-post, /r/spaceporn] (i.imgur.com)

submitted ago by Bernie_Roscoe

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[–]gatfish 33 points34 points ago

Larger size: http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/665600main_pia15689-full2_full.jpg

[–]AstheniaRocks 11 points12 points ago

It's so beautiful.

[–]DrDiv 5 points6 points ago

For some reason the fact that you can see the tracks is so incredible to me.

[–]uncleawesome 5 points6 points ago

It is incredible. Humans sent a little car to another planet millions of miles away and it is driving around on the surface making tracks where the only other things to leave marks were rocks crashing into the surface and liquids flowing over the land. It's as if we've invaded a world with our alien technology.

[–]NobleKale 4 points5 points ago

It's as if we've invaded a world with our alien technology.

That's exactly what it is.

[–]waldron76 6 points7 points ago

I fear I'm probably being ignorant, but there's a lot of man-made-looking stuff in that picture - what is it?

[–]Pitcard 6 points7 points ago

I'm pretty sure that the stuff you're looking at is the rover itself, with all the solar panels and whatnot.

[–]waldron76 2 points3 points ago

Ah, I see now. Thanks!

[–]gatfish 4 points5 points ago

All parts of the Opportunity rover, it's just spread out because its a panorama.

[–]waldron76 0 points1 point ago

Oh, I see it now. Thanks!

[–]Cynovae 3 points4 points ago

Wow. That's beautiful, so eerie and desolate. I think I'm gonna go play red faction guerrilla again.

[–]OddDude55 1 point2 points ago

I want to go to there.

[–]AstheniaRocks 20 points21 points ago

I made a "polar panoramic" out of the image. Didn't come out as cool as I wanted, but still awesome: http://i.imgur.com/1JEp5.jpg

[–]iamcase 5 points6 points ago

That looks really nice. I like how you can see the rover Altogether.

[–]AstheniaRocks 9 points10 points ago

Check this out in full screen, using the huge Nasa image. Pretty cool.

http://www.dermandar.com/p/caBogb/mars-pano-hires

[–]gatfish 1 point2 points ago

Sick! Really makes the blue noticeable. Far more blue than red. I wonder why.

[–]uncleawesome 0 points1 point ago

It's false color to show the difference in materials.

[–]uncleawesome 0 points1 point ago

You think the missing panel on the solar array was hit by something? Looks broken and not like it fell off. In the direction of the doughnut the rover did.

[–]Fennder 6 points7 points ago

What happens during a Martian winter (sounds like a christmas cracker joke)? Does the temperature just plummet, snow, ice storms?

Sorry for the noob question but its something that never hit me before (other planets having seasons)

[–]ThinkBEFOREUPost 8 points9 points ago

Snow and ice are typically forms of H2O, there is very little atmosphere on Mars to "contain" vapor in this manner. Most indications are that the water on Mars is dispersed within the soil (ie. not like groundwater on earth but rather thinly spread out ice) a few feet down and mostly at the poles.

Think about seasons in the sense of what is going on with the planet and the Sun, not in terms of what terrestrial weather does (ie. longer days, shorter nights, etc).

[–]Bernie_Roscoe[S] 5 points6 points ago

Most indications are that the water on Mars is dispersed within the soil (ie. not like groundwater on earth but rather thinly spread out ice)

Not like that either. The water is bound to certain compounds in the ground. You could hold it in your hand and you wouldn't even know it contained water.

[–]ThinkBEFOREUPost 1 point2 points ago

Thank you for the correction, so we aren't even talking moisture?

[–]DeedTheInky 3 points4 points ago

Common consensus says no, although Phoenix did take a picture of it's own leg with what look like moisture droplets on it.

That was a couple of years ago, and I don't recall them ever being explained as anything else. Although some enterprising redditor probably knows if they have, in which case I apologize.

[–]macneo 4 points5 points ago

The only thing stopping Oppy from running during winter is power. She gets less solar power since the days are shorter, and whatever little she has must be used to keep her above a certain temperature in order to remain operative. That's also the reason why she's on a little hill too: they always try to find a spot with a nice slope so her solar arrays are directed to the sun to get as much light as possible. Spirit died only because she got stuck at an angle looking away from the sun: it was still enough to keep her running during summer/autumn (when they tried to free her spinning the wheels back and forth), but she didn't survive the winter.

[–]pben 2 points3 points ago

The Mars year is about twice as long as Earth so each season is about twice as long. Mars is tilted so there are similar seasons but you have to remember that a warm summer day on Mars is still cold. During the winter the carbon diooxide in the air can freeze out at the pole. So the winters are not good times for machines. That is why the rovers stop moving. Wikipedia on Mars climate

[–]rocketsocks 1 point2 points ago

The days are shorter, the angle of the sun in the sky is lower, and it's colder. The rover doesn't get enough extra power to do anything significant, so instead it finds a good angle to park at which maximizes solar power gathering and then it just continues to recharge its batteries and run its heaters to survive.

Also, we tend to take the rover's continued survival for granted but it is far from guaranteed, especially during the winter. The right combination of dust build up without a lucky wind gust to clean the solar panels could easily doom the rover, and probably will one day (but hopefully not soon).

[–]coredev 8 points9 points ago

Some NASA employee needs to be arrested for drunk driving judging by the tracks... ;-)

[–]scouser916 5 points6 points ago

Howard Wolowitz was trying to impress another girl

[–]DeedTheInky 2 points3 points ago

Hey, if you know there's no cops around, do donuts!

[–]uncleawesome 2 points3 points ago

Probably had the windows down and the radio up!

[–]Squidman-X 4 points5 points ago

Just out of curiosity, Has NASA said just how far out those mountain ranges in the distance is?

[–]DeedTheInky 2 points3 points ago

I couldn't find an exact distance, but this photo was apparently taken from a place called Greeley Haven, on the rim of the Endeavour crater. According to Wikipedia the crater is about 22 km (14 mi) across, so assuming that what we're looking at is the opposite rim of the crater, I'd hazard a guess that it's about 20 or so km away. :)

[–]Squidman-X 0 points1 point ago

Thanks for the info! It was hard to tell if those were mountains far away, or just sand dunes a couple dozen meters out. Of course, actually being there would make it a lot easier to tell. But that's not going to happen in our lifetimes. :(

[–]uncleawesome 0 points1 point ago

Dont count it out. Depending on how old you are, hopefully we will get some deep space missions going to Mars relatively soon.

[–]drewkungfu 4 points5 points ago

Obligatory Virtual Tour of Mars I made.

http://www.atxcloud.com/wp-content/uploads/Panos/2012/07/Mars/Mars.html

[–]uncleawesome 1 point2 points ago

Looks like someone was writing their name in the rock with the instrument. Maybe Ron.

[–]alecrazec 2 points3 points ago

I know we can't just "make more Spirits and Opportunities" but... can't we just make more of them and throw them at the planet?

[–]bpg131313 12 points13 points ago

We already have another one on the way that is bigger than Spirit and Opportunity. This one is named Curiosity. You can learn more about it here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

[–]Elanoir 5 points6 points ago

It's going to land soon.

[–]theCroc 10 points11 points ago

And the landing will go down in history as one of the most badass yet!

[–]uncleawesome 0 points1 point ago

Fingers crossed. I hope it works, I hope it works.

[–]ImperialSpaceturtle 0 points1 point ago

As an aside, the Mars rovers have the most awesome names. I hope when we have settlements on Mars, that the people look to those rovers as inspiration and they become a part of Martian culture and history.

[–]bpg131313 0 points1 point ago

Now if only we could restart the Martian magnetosphere.

[–]ScottyChrist 5 points6 points ago

wait what? we have a space base on Mars?

[–]nobammer420 6 points7 points ago

I believe we currently have two rovers on mars.

[–]wingnut32 3 points4 points ago

There is one now, Spirit gave up the ghost last year i think, thereel will of course be two again when msl lands.

[–]nobammer420 0 points1 point ago

Oh, thank you for clearing that up. :D

[–]kountrklchr 14 points15 points ago

Obligatory xkcd

[–]Culero 7 points8 points ago

Holy shitballs panel 4. ;_;

[–]kountrklchr 1 point2 points ago

I know, me too... I felt like I should have warned people, but that it might diminish the experience.

[–]pluffmudpie 4 points5 points ago

Yeah I'm going to go sit in a dark corner and cry now, thanks a lot. :(

[–]DJsmallvictories 2 points3 points ago

Fuck ruining the experience - Warning: this will make you shed a tear.

[–]uncleawesome 1 point2 points ago

Its a robot with no feelings. No tears here.

[–]Damn_guy 1 point2 points ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UICs8bBEasE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[–]Awesomemark 14 points15 points ago

Yes, we do. -sent via droid on Mars

[–]fluffy_cat 5 points6 points ago

I think you are getting confused by the solar arrays. Because the image is panoramic, those arrays appear along the bottom of the whole picture, as they surround the rover.

[–]Ringo45 1 point2 points ago

This image is beautiful and it's so impressive that we can capture such images.

However, why are spaces panoramas so roughly stitched together? With current software, including Photoshop, it's very easy for programs to create seamless panoramas with sequential frames. I've always wondered this.

[–]NobleKale 1 point2 points ago

Well, either you roughly stitch it together (100% accurate images, no fucking with them to look good), or you smooth the edges, blend them nicely.... and have people scream 'SHOPPED, they're hiding the martian base here'.

I'd rather have as much raw data carefully positioned as possible than a nice, blurred little image all shopped up.

[–]mojavestorm 4 points5 points ago

This is so incredibly fucking cool.

[–]DeedTheInky 7 points8 points ago

Bonus thing that is fucking cool: Pathfinder landed on Mars on July 4th, 1997. All subsequent Mars missions have overlapped, so this 4th of July marked 15 uninterrupted years of NASA having robots on Mars!

And there's another one due to land next month. :)

[–]uncleawesome 1 point2 points ago

15 years. That's amazing. I remember when these were launched and landed and the first pictures. Wow. NASA Is badass.

[–]poland626 0 points1 point ago

Just curious, what would happen if they had a pouch of seeds, or even just one seed, then planted it and stored the rover with enough water (if that's possible, we should make it so), to drop enough to let it grow....i'm too optimistic hahaha

[–]uncleawesome 1 point2 points ago

It very cold on Mars. The year is about two Earth years. Wouldn't look too good for the seed.

[–]thelesliespits 0 points1 point ago

Well kids, one day this'll all be yours!

[–]jabb0 0 points1 point ago

Looks like Opportunity was doing doughnuts out there.

[–]SaganAgain 0 points1 point ago

Can someone convert this to a gif I could use for my desktop?

http://nasatech.net/GreeleyPan/

[–]neurot 2 points3 points ago

i hear they photoshop all pics of mars landscape to appear more red than it actually is.

[–]uncleawesome 0 points1 point ago

Most of them they do.

[–]neurot -1 points0 points ago

u know this too?~ fucked up conspiracy eh...

[–]uncleawesome 0 points1 point ago

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/videos/index.cfm?v=29&a=2

[–]neurot 0 points1 point ago

I dont buy it. lol

[–]bamboofries 0 points1 point ago

I hope to do geological work with Mars someday. What a marvelous landscape!

[–]uncleawesome 1 point2 points ago

I hope you do too.

[–]Willyq25 -5 points-4 points ago

Winter is coming

[–]NobleKale 0 points1 point ago

No.

Take this Game of Thrones shit to another subreddit.

[–]5user5 -4 points-3 points ago

Looks like Arrizona.

[–]uncleawesome 1 point2 points ago

Except for the Mars part.

[–]5user5 2 points3 points ago

I hope my comment didn't come across as me thinking this isn't an amazing photo and achievement.

[–]mrhelton 1 point2 points ago

Why is this being downvoted? I've always thought the same thing when I see picture of Mars. It's not saying it's a conspiracy, or that it's fake, I have no doubts that this is real, I just think that the environments are similar in appearance.

edit: maybe not Arizona, but definitely a large desert on earth.

[–]Squidman-X 3 points4 points ago

...And here comes the Moon & Mars landing "truthers".

[–]Dvwtf -3 points-2 points ago

Arrre there pirates there?

[–]5user5 0 points1 point ago

Yes

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