Curiosity has landed and is alive!

On 8/6/12 12:34 AM, Sam Wormley wrote:
Curiosity has landed and is alive!

Details of the landing

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...aug_parachute/

August 6, 2012: An image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance orbiter captured the Curiosity rover still connected to its 51-foot-wide (almost 16 meter) parachute as it descended towards its landing site at Gale Crater.


--
-Sam Wormley

On 8/6/12 12:34 AM, Sam Wormley wrote:
Curiosity has landed and is alive!

Mars Rover Already Doing Science

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceno...g-science.html


Curiosity says good morning from Mars (and has busy days ahead)

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/...sy-days-ahead/

Curiosity's primary mission is to determine whether Mars has, or has ever had, an environment capable of supporting life. NASA's search for life on the other planets of the solar system has largely shifted from looking for direct evidence to looking for habitability first—is the environment conducive to life and are any of the raw materials present? By studying the rocks and soil of the area around the landing site, the spacecraft can provide some answers to those questions.

Curiosity has a lot of cameras—17 to be exact:

• Four pairs are redundant front and rear "hazcams" to help deal with
navigational hazards as they arise. The first two images sent back were
hazcam pictures taken before the dust covers were removed.

• Two pairs are left and right redundant Navcams, black and white
cameras set up to give stereo imaging with a 45-degree field of view.

• The left and right MastCams can take true color 1600x1200 images, or
720p video at 10 frames per second. The left camera has a 34mm focal
length, which gives a 15-degree field of view. The right camera has a
100mm focal length, which yields a 5.1-degree field of view. Neither
camera has a zoom lens, but both have autofocus.

• The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) is mounted on a robotic arm and is
so named because it's mounted on a boom and can be used like a
geologist's hand lens to look closely at samples. The MAHLI camera can
resolve objects down to 14.5µm per pixel. It does have zoom, and its
focal length can vary from 18.3 to 21.3 mm, with a 33.8- to 38.5-degree
field of view. MAHLI is also equipped with its own LED illumination,
including ultraviolet LEDs to check for fluorescence.

• The Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) took 1600x1200 color images at about 5
frames/second. It started at about 3.7km altitude and continued all the
way down to just before the skycrane began lowering the rover. It has a
70° by 55° field of view, which gave it about a 1.5m/pixel resolution
when the descent stage got down to 2km. On the ground, its resolution is
about 1.5mm/pixel, with about a 100x75cm field of view, but it will
point straight down from about 70cm above the ground.

MARDI recorded video of Curiosity's descent to Mars, which will allow
mission planners to find out exactly where Curiosity landed. That video
may prove crucial to future mission planning, and it should also be
pretty dramatic.

The Chemistry and Camera complex (ChemCam) is really an entire suite of
instruments. It includes a 1067nm infrared laser to use for
laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, targeting, and vaporizing rocks.
It can then use a small micro-imager camera along with detectors to look
simultaneously at the plasma in near-IR, visible, and UV ranges. ChemCam
can resolve images down to 1mm at a 10m distance. In addition to the
seventeen cameras, Curiosity has several other instruments:

• The Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) monitors humidity,
pressure, temperatures, wind speeds, and ultraviolet radiation.

• The Alpha-particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) bombards samples with
alpha particles and looks at the spectrum of X-rays emitted, yielding
the elemental composition of the sample.

• The Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) X-Ray diffraction and X-ray
fluorescence instrument, another spectrometer, is aimed toward
identification of minerals by mapping their crystalline structure. It
bombards samples with X-rays and looks at the reflected patterns.

• The Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) was turned on before Curiosity
reached Mars and will continue to measure radiation on the surface. The
RAD is specifically aimed at aiding planning for a future human mission.

• The Dynamic Albedo of Neutron (DAN) instrument was included to measure
hydrogen on the Martian surface, which will yield a better measure of
how much water and ice is present near Curiosity's landing site.

The "skycrane" technique turned out to be very successful. Just over a third of the total fuel remained in the descent stage as it sped away, giving rise to speculation that a future Mars mission could use a descent stage that acts as a science station after it drops its rover off, or one able to drop off multiple rovers. Curiosity has also demonstrated that a very large probe can be landed on the Martian surface, something that will be essential for any future mission to bring a sample back to Earth.

Beyond the skycrane, some of the reasons for the mission's smooth start date back to the design and construction. Many of the parts for modern space probes are now "catalog parts." The US aerospace industry has matured to the point where some parts are used on many spacecraft, and they can be found and ordered by weeding through catalogs. The pieces are very consistent performance-wise and they have been thoroughly tested. That means nobody is off inventing something new in a machine shop.


--
-Sam Wormley

On Aug 7, 9:46*pm, Sam Wormley wrote:
On 8/6/12 12:34 AM, Sam Wormley wrote:

Curiosity has landed and is alive!



It's a machine for goodness sake !.

No point in studying the climate of Mars without first knowing what
astronomically determines planetary climate - the degree of
inclination of Mars being close to Earth gives it a largely equatorial
climate so that large latitudinal regions experience mild fluctuations
in daylight/darkness asymmetries and temperature while smaller
latitudinal regions experience large hemispherical fluctuations in
those two parameters.A polar climate such as Uranus has huge
latitudinal fluctuations over all of its surface.

No point in sending a 2.5 billion dollar machine to another planet if
you are still talking about 'tilt' causing the seasons and
unfortunately,beyond this amazing engineering feat,that is as far as
it goes.

On 8/6/12 12:34 AM, Sam Wormley wrote:
Curiosity has landed and is alive!

Ready to Rove: Curiosity Project Scientist Lays Out Mars Tour Plans
After engineers run a months-long setup of the Mars Science Laboratory,
now parked in a crater, scientists will take the rover on a nearly
two-year journey that includes a visit to a six-kilometer-high mountain.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ars-tour-plans

Now engineers are busy checking out the rover Curiosity's condition while the mission's science team takes a first look around the surface locale. In the months ahead (the prime mission is slated to last a few months shy of two years) scientists plan to drive Curiosity around its touchdown site in Gale Crater and then up the slope of Mount Sharp, which rises six kilometers from the basin floor. Along the way they will look for geologic evidence that water once flowed across the landscape as well as signs of ancient microbial life.


--
-Sam Wormley

On 07/08/2012 3:46 PM, Sam Wormley wrote:
• The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) is mounted on a robotic arm and is
so named because it's mounted on a boom and can be used like a
geologist's hand lens to look closely at samples. The MAHLI camera can
resolve objects down to 14.5µm per pixel. It does have zoom, and its
focal length can vary from 18.3 to 21.3 mm, with a 33.8- to 38.5-degree
field of view. MAHLI is also equipped with its own LED illumination,
including ultraviolet LEDs to check for fluorescence.

What happens if around the first corner it finds a sign saying "Please,
no flash photography"?

The Chemistry and Camera complex (ChemCam) is really an entire suite of
instruments. It includes a 1067nm infrared laser to use for
laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, targeting, and vaporizing rocks.

Ah, the old heating rocks when the planet's real cold and they can't
beam you up for a while maneuver.

--
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain
the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy." ~David Brooks

On 07/08/2012 4:08 PM, oriel36 wrote:
A polar climate such as Uranus has huge
latitudinal fluctuations over all of its surface.

What surface? Uranus is a gas giant.

--
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain
the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy." ~David Brooks

On Aug 7, 10:12*pm, Sam Wormley wrote:
On 8/6/12 12:34 AM, Sam Wormley wrote:

Curiosity has landed and is alive!

Ready to Rove: Curiosity Project Scientist Lays Out Mars Tour Plans
After engineers run a months-long setup of the Mars Science Laboratory,
now parked in a crater, scientists will take the rover on a nearly
two-year journey that includes a visit to a six-kilometer-high mountain.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ity-project-sc....
Now engineers are busy checking out the rover Curiosity's condition while the mission's science team takes a first look around the surface locale. In the months ahead (the prime mission is slated to last a few months shy of two years) scientists plan to drive Curiosity around its touchdown site in Gale Crater and then up the slope of Mount Sharp, which rises six kilometers from the basin floor. Along the way they will look for geologic evidence that water once flowed across the landscape as well as signs of ancient microbial life.

--
-Sam Wormley

When are any of you going to learn that people are genuinely
interested,even excited, when they can look and see things like
genuine human achievement,not only the tools such as this machine but
also the geology or Mars and what the celestial arena looks like from
its surface as daylight turning to darkness.

Your next post may be something silly like a 'supermassive black hole
eats a star' or some other novelistic junk that exists only in the
mind of theorists.

You all get to decide whether you want to be astronomers for a change
now that the engineering and software guys have done their jobs,more
than anyone else I have fought for the science of planetary
comparisons but in the basis of knowing what constitutes the Earth's
causes and effects first.For those who can,it is time to move to a
different level,drop the pretense and do something as rare as landing
on Mars - act appropriately now that large modifications have been
made and against which the images and data from Mars can e
referenced,not just climate but evolutionary geology in which
rotational dynamics play a large role.

On Aug 7, 10:35*pm, kensi wrote:
On 07/08/2012 4:08 PM, oriel36 wrote:

A polar climate such as Uranus has huge
latitudinal fluctuations over all of its surface.

What surface? Uranus is a gas giant.


Did you just say 'what' surface !!!!!!

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news.../ast29mar99_1/

An astronomer operates at levels way above what is considered as
planetary sciences presently,it means dropping the idea of the Earth
as a 'rocky 'planet as a fairly thin fractured crust covers a large
mass of a rotating low viscosity fluid that most seem intent in
ignoring because they are in love with a stationary Earth 'convection
cell' mechanism.When geologists are doing nothing I am ouncing
rotation off planetary traits such as why Venus has only volcanism,now
apreciable spherical deviation while the Earth has an active crust and
a 26 mile spherical deviation .That is just one of many things and it
would be nice to encounter an individual who can handle the
observation that planets are organized as liquid nearer the Sun and
gas at greater distances if you are so intent in imaging an
astronomical without a surface.


--
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain
the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy." ~David Brooks

On 07/08/2012 4:54 PM, oriel36 wrote:
That is just one of many things and it
would be nice to encounter an individual who can handle the
observation that planets are organized as liquid nearer the Sun and
gas at greater distances if you are so intent in imaging an
astronomical without a surface.

Mars appears to be a solid ball of rock. The lack of a global magnetic
field suggests it lacks a molten core.

--
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain
the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy." ~David Brooks

On 07/08/2012 4:54 PM, oriel36 wrote:
That is just one of many things and it
would be nice to encounter an individual who can handle the
observation that planets are organized as liquid nearer the Sun and
gas at greater distances if you are so intent in imaging an
astronomical without a surface.

Mars appears to be a solid ball of rock. The lack of a global magnetic
field suggests it lacks a molten core.

--
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain
the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy." ~David Brooks