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NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
A low-resolution mosaic of images from NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars shows part of a 360-degree panorama in Gale Crater. The shadow of the rover's camera mast can be seen in the lower left corner, and a rover wheel is visible in the lower right corner. The foothills of 3-mile-high Aeolis Mons, also known as Mount Sharp, stretch out in the background. Click on the image for the full-resolution, 360-degree view from NASA.
Scientists say the first 360-degree color panorama photo sent from Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover reveals an unusual amount of variation, including dark dunes, red soil and tan rocks. And they can hardly wait to sample the material behind all those colors.
The picture unveiled today at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., isn't the best imagery that the rover's Mastcam is capable of. It was put together from 130 images, each measuring a mere 144 by 144 pixels. The high-resolution version goes eight times wider, but that also means it's a much bigger load of data. Curiosity just hasn't had the bandwidth to send it yet.
Much better panoramas will be coming from Curiosity's stomping grounds in Gale Crater over the next couple of years, said Michael Malin of San Diego-based Malin Space Science Systems, the principal investigator for the two-camera Mastcam system. But for a low-resolution "random shot," the picture released today isn't so bad.
"This was pretty enough and interesting enough that we thought it was worth sharing with you guys," Malin told reporters.
The Mastcam panorama, along with a higher-resolution panorama taken in black and white by the rover's navigation cameras, show the intriguing blast marks left behind by the rover's sky-crane descent stage, just yards away from the landing site. They also show the foothills of a 3-mile-high (5-kilometer-high) mountain, more than 4 miles (6 kilometers away).
"These beautiful knolls of layered rocks, and those layers, are what's recording history at Gale Crater," said Dawn Sumner, a member of the Curiosity science team from the University of California at Davis.
The prime objective of the $2.5 billion Curiosity mission is to document billions of years of geological change on Mars by analyzing the layers of rock at that mountain, known as Aeolis Mons or Mount Sharp. It could take more than a year for Curiosity to get to the mountainside, because researchers intend to take their time analyzing the rocks along the way. Curiosity's primary mission is scheduled to last a complete Martian year, or two Earth years, but scientists hope the nuclear-powered rover will last much longer than that.
Eventually, Curiosity's chemical analysis could tell scientists whether Mars was potentially habitable in ancient times, when there was enough water to deposit sediment inside the 96-mile-wide (154-mile-wide) crater.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
The shadow of NASA's Curiosity rover shows up prominently in the middle of a black-and-white Navcam panorama. Click to download larger versions.
Curiosity team member Dawn Sumner, a geologist at the University of California at Davis, guides you through a black-and-white panorama of Mars.
Eager to use the laser
Curiosity is equipped with 10 scientific instruments to tackle the challenge, including an onboard chemistry lab and a device known as ChemCam, which can shoot a laser at rocks and read the chemical signature that's encoded in the light that's given off. One of the first targets may well be the blast marks created during Sunday's landing. After Curiosity touched down, its rocket-powered sky crane blasted itself back into the air and crash-landed more than half a mile away. The exhaust from the sky crane's thrusters scoured away gravelly soil on the surface and exposed the bedrock underneath.
"There's an awful lot of eagerness to know what the composition of those rocks are," Sumner said, "and to use our laser."
Malin said the color panorama seemed to be, well, more colorful than the typical imagery from previous rovers, including the Opportunity rover, which is still at work on the other side of the Red Planet. "Some of the coloration we're seeing here really has to do with the sand dunes," he said. "There's dark sand, there's the red dust, and then there's the substrate rock, which is tan. ... The way dust and sand are trapped by a surface will also change their color. So I can't say it's a more colorful or diverse site just based on the photometry or the colorimetry, but obviously, geomorphically it's a very diverse place."
Mike Malin, the scientist in charge of the Curiosity rover's Mastcam imaging system, explains how the mission's first color 360-degree panorama was made.
Flawless rover, flawless team
Mission manager Mike Watkins said the Curiosity team is continuing to check out the six-wheeled rover's scientific instruments, in preparation for its first drive sometime in the next few weeks. "Curiosity continues to behave flawlessly. ... The team operating Curiosity also is performing basically flawlessly," he said.
One surprise turned up in the latest batch of high-resolution images taken by the navigation cameras: The deck of the rover was littered with dark pebbles that were apparently thrown up during Sunday's landing. "They pose no problems for operations ... but it's a little unexpected that it is there," Watkins said.
The team that managed Curiosity's flawless entry, descent and landing is taking a closer look at the pebble issue. "They need a problem to go start working on, right? So this is something for them to do," Watkins joked.
Over the next couple of days, the team will be "standing down from science" while Curiosity's electronic brain is reprogrammed with software that's more tailored for surface operations, Watkins said. "Sometimes you're stuck in this mode where you have the old software on part of your computer, and the new software on part, and we didn't want to start trying to execute other complex activities in the middle of that," he explained.
That prompted a joke from Malin about his own computer acumen: "I sure hope he does better than what I've done on my machines."
Other angles from Mars:
- Watkins said the team has been gradually raising the data transmission rate from Mars, starting with 8 kilobits per second to the current rate of a few hundred kilobits per second. In about a week, the transmission rate could reach 2 megabits per second, he said.
- Sumner said that Curiosity's surroundings have been mapped onto a navigation grid that is divided into "quads," with each quad measuring about 0.9 mile (1.5 kilometers) square. The rover happened to land in Quad 51, which led to a string of conspiracy-theory jokes. Even the official Twitter account for @MarsCuriosity got in on the fun: "Area 51? No, Quad 51 is where I landed on Mars. ... (PS - I come in peace)." Quad 51 is also known by the nickname Yellowknife, which refers to the frontier town in Canada's Northwest Territories. Sumner said the "beautiful knolls" that are visible in the panoramas released today lie in Quads 120, 121, 134 and 135.
- Pictures of the Curiosity's wheels brought another in-joke to light: The treads are molded with a pattern of dots and dashes that spell out the initials of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory ("JPL") in Morse code (dot-dash-dash-dash, dot-dash-dash-dot, dot-dash-dot-dot). The arrangement is more than a joke: As the rover travels, its cameras can read the asymmetrical pattern left behind in the Martian soil to determine exactly how far it's traveled, and whether there's been any slippage along the way. The Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla spelled out the significance in a blog posting last year. To which I can only say: ·—— ——— ·——
Still more from Mars:
- NBC video: Panorama featured on 'Nightly News'
- Curiosity reveals a Martian Mojave
- Tour the Martian Mojave in 3-D
- Flying saucer spotted over Mars
- First 3-D pictures sent by Curiosity
- Orbital photo spots rover and its trash
- Curiosity sends color snapshot from Mars
- Rover video looks down on Mars during landing
- Mars orbiter spots rover in midair
- NASA's Mohawk Guy marvels at his fame
- Curiosity rover scores touchdown on Mars
- Mars probe provides radiation revelations
- Video: Highlights from rover's first two days on Mars
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
It will find rocks and red sand fer shure dude. I think a night sky is too much too ask for.
Since it is NOT solar powered, I think night experiments are on the horizon.
Unless I'm mistaken .-- --- .-- is not Morse code. The --- is O, but the others do not seem to be.
I believe JPL is using the International Morse code; Alan Boyle used American Morse code. I won't spoil it for others, but a quick internet search brought up the Morse code alphabet and Alan's code was easy to crack.
Here's a hint: expression of amazement!
@ Alan
I was just patiently waiting to see if someone had passed their Morse code test, but apparently not.
Wow!
Way to go, KristenT!! Good job!!!
Its mind blowing to me how normal Mars looks. I feel like I should be able to just walk around and check it out. I know in my head that the pressure, cold and radiation would kill me fast if even if I had some O2 to keep me standing. But it feels like its just down the road instead of another planet.
We're Building a Set of Stairs! Can't Wait to See from the TOP! GO NASA!
Curiosity is going to provide an amazing amount of data to help us understand Mars and the nature and history of the universe better. Nice work.
Now lets colonize the moon. Chop chop.
"The Moon's a Harsh Mistress"
"See her as she flies
Golden sails across the sky
Close enough to touch
But careful if you try
Though she looks as warm as gold
The moon's a harsh mistress
The moon can be so cold."
The hauntingly beautiful song written by Jimmy Webb, 1974
The HISTORY of WHY he wrote that song is most interesting.
"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"
"is one of Heinleins (Robert A Heinlein, who is famous for the quote: "Is man one of gods blunders or is God one of mans blunders.....) attmepts at reactionary politics, almost tinged with a little communism. It's all about workers' rights. Do the workers on the moon have the right to create their own independent state? In some sense; it's kind of a pageant of the American Revolution, but it's set in the future, and the moon has become the American colony, and the Earth is now the fat cat, English barons and earls and kings who are holding them under their thum , under his corporate banner. He didn't care muc for corporations, Heinlin. But it was just more the title. It was this beautiful thing that wafted through my head and I thought, "One of these days, I'm going to end up writing that. I wonder what I should do."
I actually contacted his estate (Heinlein) while he was still alive and I said.........
He said..."Do whatever the F%$# you want."
So, I just went ahead and wrote it."
Jimmy Webb interview, 2010
For those so inclined to really want to learn and know history, the above can easily be confirmed simply by googling:
"Is songwriter Jimmy Webb still alive?"
Up pops his latest interviews, with the above right there.
when do we start digging ? that looks like a good spot.
Okay ..I'm like a little kid here looking at these pics expecting to see some kind of life form pop up and wave in the background...so neat to get a chance to see this kind of stuff ...amazing
After seeing these pictures of the landscape, we ALL need to get a petition going as soon as someone will kindly tell us which entity to forward it/them to, ie.
We KNOW "The Donald" Trump is looking at these and has his lawyers on it now:
"I am going to build the TRUMP UNIVERSAL GOLF CLUB up there so get MY HIGHEST BID IN FIRST TO BUY IT -NOW!!"
"The once in a lifetime UNIVERSAL golfing experience and MY NAME WILL BE ON IT!"
(Forget it Donald; we need to submit petitions NOW; "NO Donald, NO PESTICIDES on MARS and you CAN"T BUY IT! ")
I can't wait until the rover makes it to those stratified rocks. Stratified = sedimentary = windblown or water deposited! Be ineresting to see their composition.
so how long before the nasa realty signs get planted?,10 acre parcels???.
Than a thousand years, the Arab poet said (Hamdani), if i died thirst the rain was not came down
but Today, we say to NASA not as the Arab poet said (Hamdani), if i died thirst my money was lost and the rain did not come down on Mars
Than a thousand years, said the Arab poet (Hamdani), if I died of thirst was not the rain came down
But today, we say to NASA,If i died of thirst , I lost my money, and on Mars the rain did not come down
Earth Is The True Planet Of War, Not Mars (Curiosity Rover)
Stop showing us all the dirt and pan the cameras up into the sky.....oh wait. you don't want to do that, cause then you will get the clouds that hover above.... Ah crap. this is photos of our desert areas on earth. case closed.
Why is it we supposedly landed on the moon with the electronics no bigger then a calculator chip, and now we haven't gone back to the moon but have been in space many many times?
Too much can be done with cameras and video editing for anyone to fully believe they are doing what they say they are doing. You do understand they are run by the Government which hides everything from the public.
my 2 cents worth once again.
I just want live video of a 360 degree view and lets see the sky fully for once.
I can't believe Anyone would fall for this crap. They are no more on Mars than they ever were on the Moon. Had they actually Landed on the Moon they would have Never left it alone. By this time they would have built a space station on it instead of a floating one so they could do something More than float around.
When it got through Mars atmosphere the heat shield came off and it started snapping photo's. WHY didn't we get those pics? It would have shown a large aerial view of the sky, ground and background BEFORE it went in the crater. Instead we get a 5 second picture video (half of that is on repeat) of a dusty landing.
The crater is no less than 2 miles deep, the mountain they showed in the first pics is taller than the Grand Canyon is deep. They used the camera so they could see their surrounds while they were in the sky to make sure of their location. That happened BEFORE they entered the crater and we have NO pics of any of that, all we got was dust.
Than they showed us a pic of Curiosity's shadow and the mountain in the back ground. There is no way that little camera mounted low in the rover could have got it ground in front of it in focus, the base of the mountain, Than the top of a 4 mile high mountain ALL IN ONE PIC!
This is bogus B.S.
C'mon people, all the hype about this and we get pictures that are pitiful. 2.5 billion for this project and they couldn't put a decent damn camera on it. Again looking for water and looking for microbes, ok and most impressive the landing, ok but lame pictures. Why isnt a decent camera part of the process, the pictures we seen just plain suck. I've also wouldve like to see live streaming but i guess that would be asking for too much as well as that would require a decent video camera as well. Yyyeeesshh, guess that isnt part of the process.
Streaming would also require more bandwidth, and a more developed infrastructure to handle the data without a slew of errors due to the distance the RF is traveling. So in short, it's not that simple.
#42.1
Well said, on another thread we are talking about the RTG vs PV panels and that indeed the constraint is " power " Curiosity can not parform all the task so many have imagined or wished for, because of the huge restrain of the stated, but as we said earlier with INSITU manufacturing of some items that in future will have to be mitigated!
All true. People do not understand limited resources.