
Photo shows Mars rover descent - zoowar
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19150849
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startupfounder
It looks like they had the coordinates of the decent path of Curiosity, knew
where to point the camera, took a large picture from the HiRISE camera on the
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) like they did with Phoenix [1] and then when
that picture hit human eyes NASA cropped it. That being said, if they have
multiple HiRISE images of the decent[2] I think that would make one amazing
film. Anyone know the FPS of HiRISE?
[1]<http://blogs.nature.com/news/files/2012/08/PhoenixHiRise.jpg>
[2][http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/62081000/jpg/_62081182...](http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/62081000/jpg/_62081182_62081181.jpg)

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trothamel
If I understand and remember it correctly, HiRISE doesn't have an FPS in the
traditional sense. It's best to think of the detector as a one-dimensional
array of pixels. The motion of the satellite in its orbit then sweeps this
array over the ground, allowing two-dimensional images to be made - one of the
dimensions is time, but when something is moving, time becomes a spatial
dimension.

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startupfounder
Interesting, its like "scanning" not a shutter "clicking". That being said it
was much more likely given the MRO's orbit that it would be able to scan Mars
and have Curiosity in that scan path. You can even correlate the angle of the
photo to the location of the MRO:
[http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/672880main_martin_mur-1-4...](http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/672880main_martin_mur-1-43_946-710.jpg)

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ricardobeat
To be fair, most modern (CMOS) digital cameras work like that too, it's called
a rolling shutter. The scanning speed is the cause of that wobbly effect you
see on videos made with mobile phones.

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startupfounder
True, but if you can do 1m fps on earth[1] and the MRO travels at a speed of
133,879.68 inches/second then you could take 7.4693934 pictures per inch even
if you had a rolling "scanning" shutter. I know that would be way to much data
for them to process, but for the 172 seconds from parachute deployment to
touchdown you could have one amazing high speed film.

I am sure NASA can fund a high speed camera for MRO... or do we need to
crowdfund that one as well... [1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfDoQwIAaXg>

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danielsju6
Larger photo from NASA here,
[http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/673727main_PIA15980-full_...](http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/673727main_PIA15980-full_full.jpg)

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sek
is there one without the white box?

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3JPLW
I've been looking for one as well. It appears as though they're still working
on releasing more of the images.

The HiRISE news release[1] now contains a (currently broken) link[2] to a
540MB non-map projected "descent long view." I imagine this is the complete
scan that HiRISE took of the image, and that there is distortion due to the
CCD layout in the satellite (hence non-map projected). But that's purely a
guess.

They say:

    
    
      Descent long view[2] (Note: this file is over 540MB. It is non-map projected
      but rotated so that north is approximately up. This file is not annotated, 
      but MSL is in the mid-to-lower right-hand side. The CCDs do not match well at 
      their edges due to the unique image geometry; geometrically-corrected images 
      would be available in a few days.)
    

1: <http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/releases/msl-descent.php>

2:
[http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/images/2012/details/cut/ESP_02...](http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/images/2012/details/cut/ESP_028256_9022_RED.NOMAP-
long.tif) (WARNING: 540MB TIFF, but link is broken at time of posting)

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epoxyhockey
Your 2nd link works now and the image is without the white box! Here is a
1600x1200 version: <http://i.imgur.com/708I5.jpg>

There is a seam just to the left of the package, which is why NASA presented
the image with the object off-center, and why I cropped it that way as well.

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benwerd
NASA is a wonder of our modern age. If we're going to have a planned economy
(and we are), let's do it through science, technology and knowledge rather
than military power.

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joering2
700B for DOD, versus 8B NASA. 87x difference. If NASA would have 87x more
money, by now we would have a Martian base and most likely missions where
civilians could buy a ticket and fly there for a honeymoon.

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cowkingdeluxe
But at the same time the USA spends more money on space programs than all
other countries combined.

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huhtenberg
It could simply mean that running space programs in the USA is far more costly
than in other countries. Someone did say that NASA of the recent age is less
about research and more about massive employment.

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FrojoS
I would say, the price difference adjusted budget of NASA is also much bigger
than that of any other nation. Do you see the Russians walking on the moon or
driving nuclear cars on Mars?

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matt2000
This to me feels really sci-fi since "we sent a rover to mars and another
thing we already had hanging around took a picture of it." That feels pretty
neat.

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outworlder
Anyone has any background info on that picture? How did the MRO lock on the
descending rover?

Did NASA feed it the correct coordinates beforehand, or it had to somehow
autonomously acquire the rover? I suspect the later is possible, as there
might be radio contact available in that stage of the reentry, but I really
have no idea on how it was actually accomplished.

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markbnine
Here is a link to a Nature blog with some info from Alfred McEwen, the PI on
HiRISE:

[http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/08/mars-orbiter-plans-
for-...](http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/08/mars-orbiter-plans-for-a-
curiosity-close-up.html)

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jessriedel
My impression is that they only got the opportunity for one shot with the
HiRISE camera, but that they were going for a view of the sky-crane in action.
Did that turn out not to be possible? Do they have a picture of the sky-crane
from one of the lower-resolution cameras in orbit?

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missing_cipher
The coordination of all this just blows my mind.

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joering2
it says: "nuclear battery". it looks small. can someone point me to some more
details? Obviously if they decided its fine to shoot this thing into the space
(go through Earth atmosphere) - it should mean that there was no environmental
danger for this thing to go bad?

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InclinedPlane
It's an RTG, it uses the heat created by decay of radioactive isotopes to
drive a thermocouple. These things have been designed to be incredibly safe,
capable of surviving an explosion of their launch vehicle and remaining
intact, for example. But even should their protective capsule be breached the
radioactive material is in a ceramic (oxidized) form in spheres. If you
cracked open an RTG and threw the insides into a very hot fire nothing would
happen, you could just come by and collect the intact ceramic spheres after
they'd cooled.

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tocomment
So ignoring the safety issues, would there be enough radioactive isotopes on
Earth for every house to have it's own RTG? Imagine unlimited energy, and heat
your home with the waste heat?

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rmc
You're also ignoring the political/emotive aspect.

People don't like things called 'nuclear'.

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jlgreco
There are certainly some places that would probably be more accepting of it
than average. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Soviet_RTG.jpg> ;)

Those are 10 watt Sr90 RTGs, sitting around. The used to use them for
lighthouses.

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timkeller
NASA is just rocking this mission. Very impressed.

