
Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2 - Plnt
http://www.360cities.net/image/curiosity-rover-martian-solar-day-2
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nkoren
Note that this is actually missing a very major feature of the landscape:
Aeolis Mons, or mount Sharp. The NASA panorama that this was adapted from
failed to image the upper 2/5ths of the environment (roughly), and therefore
did not capture the 15,000-foot mountain that is looming above the rover.

The maker of this panorama cleverly edited the image to show a false horizon
where the mountain would actually be. It looks good, but gives the misleading
impression that the rover is surrounded by a band of low hills, when the truth
is rather different.

Here's a picture of mount Sharp, taken from a different camera than did the
panorama:

<http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4271>

If you look at the foreground terrain, you'll see that it matches the WSW
terrain of the OP. There should be a gobsmackingly big mountain there!

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360pano
nkoren: you are very careful ;)

Thanks for the comment, but I really did not have source materials to recreate
this mountain

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nkoren
Yeah, I know the material is missing. Sorry if that came off critical of you
-- your panorama is really truly gorgeous! I'm honestly feeling a bit petulant
towards NASA for failing to include the mountain in their initial panoramas[1]
-- they've missed 80% of the drama in that landscape! When they finally get
around to imaging the mountain properly, I hope you patch that back into your
panorama, because that'll be _stunning_.

[1] And yes, I'm well aware that in the litany of First World Problems,
"Whaaaa, NASA landed a giant rover on Mars but didn't take _exactly_ the photo
I wanted" has got to be pretty high on the list...

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CamperBob2
_I'm honestly feeling a bit petulant towards NASA for failing to include the
mountain in their initial panoramas[1] -- they've missed 80% of the drama in
that landscape!_

It's very frustrating. It's as if NASA/JPL either don't know or don't care
where their funding comes from, or how to get the stereotypical "man on the
street" interested in what they're doing.

Hey, dumbasses: just before you launch something like this, put the best $1000
digital camera currently being manufactured on it. If the camera doesn't
survive because it's not rated for use on Mars or whatever, _fine_. If it
does, then that $1000 is going to pay for itself a million times over in
firing up the public's imagination and garnering subsequent political support.

You know what? I'll bet James Cameron would help you out for free.

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jonursenbach
Problem is all the testing that is necessary to do to ensure that that $1000
camera works _at all_ isn't possible to do before they launch.

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CamperBob2
Sorry, not buying it. That might be a good reason to fly a camera that's one
year behind the commercial state of the art, but not 10 years as seems to be
the usual practice.

This stuff matters, whether NASA likes it or not.

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biesnecker
A high-res panorama of Mars, taken by a semi-autonomous robot that was landed
via rocket sky crane, transmitted 14 light minutes across space, then
transmitted on demand through a global information network to my computer.

And people say the future isn't what it was made out to be.

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pyre
No one said that the future isn't amazing (or maybe they did), but the
"future" imagined in the 1960s is mostly still science fiction.

Where is my flying car? Where is my robot personal assistant? Where is my food
replicator? Where is my day trip to the moon? Where is my space colony on
Mars?

Just sayin'. :P

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biesnecker
It's a good point. I've thought about this before. I think the 1960s imagined
future was predicated on basically infinite energy availability. That clearly
hasn't happened, but what did happen most people in the 1960s didn't predict.

Makes you wonder what 50 years hence things will be like, given that the
microtrends to which we pay so much attention will likely not continue.

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mmcnickle
I love seeing these pictures showing all the dust and dirt sitting on top of
the rover, knowing the years that it sat spotless in a cleanroom[1]. It's like
unpacking a toy and actually getting to play with it.

[1][http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Mars_%27C...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Mars_%27Curiosity%27_Rover%2C_Spacecraft_Assembly_Facility%2C_Pasadena%2C_California_%282011%29.jpg)

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noonespecial
True that. It's so visceral and so real that for a moment I worried about what
would happen to all of those connectors and wires when it rained. Then, "oh.
Mars. Right."

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barefoot
Works exceptionally well on an iPhone (appears to use
accelerometer/gyroscope).

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juriga
On GNex/Chrome the page just shows a flat low-res panorama and a "flash not
supported" message.

Apparently 360Cities uses[1] krpano[2], a HTML5 panorama viewer on iOS
devices. I tried a gyroscope example from the krpano page[3] on my GNex but it
was rather buggy (jumpy and unreliable panning, only parts of the panorama
visible at a time).

It seems that the fragmentation of Android devices/browsers has proven
problematic for the 360cities developers. Since the krpano viewer might only
work on a fraction of Android devices I can understand dropping the support
for interactive viewing completely.

[1]
[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/360cities/188tbS9Pwj4/U8gF7O...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/360cities/188tbS9Pwj4/U8gF7O9Z5w0J)

[2] <http://krpano.com/>

[3] [http://krpano.com/examples/10815/examples/plugin-
examples/gy...](http://krpano.com/examples/10815/examples/plugin-
examples/gyro/gyro.html)

EDIT: formatting

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checker
This image reminds me of starting in the morning: sun's up, there's plenty to
do, let's get started.

On another note, I would love to hear the sound of whatever Martian breeze is
blowing while Curiosity's wheels crunch over the gravel.

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ricardobeat
There is hardly anything to hear since the atmosphere is so thin.

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checker
Looks like JPL was planning on making recordings with the Mars Polar Lander
but we know how that turned out:

[http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/lidar/microphone/mic_found.ht...](http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/lidar/microphone/mic_found.html)

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biot
I assume the author did a very thorough job removing the pole on which this
should be mounted? When you look straight down, there's no sign of anything...
almost as if this is a levitating camera detached from anything.

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Gravityloss
What's with the recent surge of upvotes and naïve comments about ad plastered
pages that just take content from NASA?

Here the picture is really small and the ads block a large percentage of it.

 _edit: That said, NASA doesn't do a very good job with photos itself
either:[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/gallery-
ind...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/gallery-
indexEvents.html)

_edit2: Ah, nevermind, it was a flash problem! The content is certainly
valuable!

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ricardobeat
These panoramas are "hand-made" from NASA's images, not just reposted content.

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Gravityloss
Yep, sorry, I see that now, had a browser problem originally...

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ipt
Lovely nod to the conspiracy nuts by specifying this pic as being taken in New
Mexico!

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mdrejhon
Isn't Mount Sharp ALREADY in the 360 panorama? I SEE IT. It just only looks
"small". The mountain in the same direction in the shadow?

The mountain looks small mainly due to camera distortion (but it could also be
incorrectly stretched image). But it's not a small mountain -- that's a big
one. It is an optical effect caused by the panorama stretching. Zoom in the
mountain, and it's exactly identical to the photograph by NASA.

<http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4271> ... Look at the
details; they match exactly the mountain that's already in the panorama. (the
little-looking 'hill' in the direction rover of the shadow, and slightly to
the right, is actually Mt Sharp)

Mount sharp just looks small in the panorama, due to optical effect. But zoom
in using the mousewheel, and you'll see the surface features match Mount
Sharp, even though it's a little smeared (low-resolution). Let's wait for
higher-def transmissions, it's still a slow dial-up-style link over 500
million miles...

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humanfromearth
Why is there a black patch on the back of the rover?

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freehunter
It does almost look like something was edited out. Not sure though.

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jan_g
Absolutely great stuff. I wonder if images were processed in any way (besides
stitching) or is Martian landscape/atmosphere really so bright-yellowish.

I found it much easier to use navigation keys instead of click+drag (which web
page suggests).

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mojuba
If you point at the NASA logo on the rover you will see how big the color
shift is. It's supposed to be blue but it's yellow and red. Whether it's the
lighting on Mars, or the camera, or post-processing to blame for this - I have
no idea, but the picture doesn't look like it reflects the reality from the
human eye's perspective.

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whileonebegin
Here is the original panorama image <http://goo.gl/8a41M> I think this is
original color.

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sray
The OP's interactive panorama is extremely cool, but I prefer the original you
linked here. With the color shift and distortion, the interactive one feels
dreamy and imaginary. The original is just so raw, real, and powerful. It
makes me think "holy shit, this thing is on _another planet_ , and it looks a
lot like our own!" I can almost imagine standing next to the rover, surveying
the desolate, alien landscape.

What an amazing time we live in!

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ragmondo
What does N,S,E and W mean ?

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biesnecker
North, South, East, and West?

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ragmondo
and what's your definition of those on another planet that doesn't have a
magnetic pole ? Is the "North" the "top" of the rotation - which way is the
top ?? (here's a link that shows what a compass would do on the surface of
Mars : [http://mgs-
mager.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications/grl_28_connerney...](http://mgs-
mager.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications/grl_28_connerney/grl_28_connerney_fig1.html)
)

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sp332
You know Earth's magnetic poles don't match up with its rotational poles
right? They're kinda close, but the magnetic poles wander. Even though Mars
(oddly) doesn't have strong _magnetic_ poles, that doesn't mean it doesn't
have poles. As for which one is north, we just pick a direction of the solar
system to be "north".
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles_of_astronomical_bodies>

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rubidium
I would guess that we now name the "north pole" on any planet that which your
thumb points when doing the right hand rule with the rotation of the planet...
but I'm not sure.

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sp332
That's used for moons and dwarf planets etc. But in this solar system, we
actually have a designated hemisphere that is "north" for planets. It's
explained in that link I posted.

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bicknergseng
I find it incredibly ironic that an ad for Mitt Romney's campaign is splashed
across the bottom with the words "Support a smaller government." I know it's
just Google's ad service, but really now....

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waterlesscloud
Sadly, it's looking like NASA in general and planetary science in particular
will face cuts under either candidate.

Not the kind of budget cut that means "you get less of an increase than you'd
planned", but "You get less money next year than you got this year" kind of
cuts.

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tsahyt
Well, since Flash seems to crash on me here (and on numerous other occassions)
it's time to say that:

Can we _please_ , pretty please with sugar on top, finally let Flash die? I've
seen panoramic image viewers that didn't rely on Flash, they were brilliant.
HTML5 video works a whole lot better than Flash, etc. In 2012, there's no need
for the bug-ridden mess we call Flash anymore.

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b_k
Details: Panoramic photo stitched together by Andrew Bodrov from images
provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech.

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magrimes
Maybe I'm just dull, but how is it possible to see the entire robot? Where is
the camera mounted?

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sjm
You can see where the camera is mounted by looking directly down — you can
also see in the rover's shadow where the camera you're looking through is.

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jjaques
Any body see the little arcade-style joystick towards the back left of the
rover?

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duskwuff
That's actually the rover's color calibration target, not a joystick.

[http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft_instru_calibr.h...](http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft_instru_calibr.html)

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jjaques
Thank you for pointing that out. That's actually more interesting than a
seemingly useless joystick. :)

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OhArgh
There is something hidden by a black square at the far end of the vehicle.

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Synthetase
That's definitely the MMRTG or its nuclear battery. My guess would be the
Department of Energy doesn't want too much about it floating around.

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nikic
What are the reasons for hiding it?

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OhArgh
It's odd. I just looked at it again and now the square is gone. Maybe as
suggested it was a rendering issue and it was just a coincidence that its was
over the battery.

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sukuriant
Only one complaint: looking around from within Firefox, my entire URI history
is now full of 360cities.net pages with slightly different x, y, z values.

Other than that, not bad :D

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m_for_monkey
Try right click, Little Planet View!

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rjv
I wouldn't have expected the sun to look so big on Mars.

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joshlegs
Coming soon from Google, Mars Maps!

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moe
Impressive.

