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NASA / JPL-Caltech / Doug Ellison
This view of the Curiosity rover's surroundings on Mars was assembled from black-and-white photos sent back by the navigation camera on Sol 2 and Sol 12 of the mission. Doug Ellison of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory filled out the Martian sky artificially, using the lighting values from the pictures that were acquired.
NASA's Curiosity rover has sent back its sharpest image of the 3-mile-high (5-kilometer-high) mountain it will climb on Mars.
The mountain, known as Mount Sharp or Aeolis Mons, towers right in front of the rover in the middle of 96-mile-wide Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed two weeks ago. The shadow of the rover's mast is visible in the picture, which incorporates fresh imagery from the six-wheeled robot's navigation camera system. The high country of the crater's rim rises to the left and the right of the mountain.
Black-and-white frames showing Mount Sharp's summit in all its glory were received overnight. Doug Ellison, a visualization producer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, added the mountain vista to a 360-degree panorama of the rover's surroundings, and filled in the rest of the sky based on the lighting data he had at hand.
The earlier Navcam panorama showed the crater's towering rim, but did not take in the upper reaches of the mountainside. A separate color panorama, provided by the rover's Mastcam system, is being filled out but does not yet include pictures of Mount Sharp's peak.
The main objective of Curiosity's two-year, $2.5 billion primary mission is to make its way to Mount Sharp and document billions of years of the Red Planet's geological history by analyzing the different layers of rock along the mountainside. Studying the geology and chemistry of Mount Sharp's various strata could tell scientists how habitable the planet was in earlier epochs, and how Mars has changed since then.
Project scientist John Grotzinger said on Friday that Curiosity would study its relatively nearby surroundings during the first few months of the mission, then start out in earnest for Mount Sharp by the end of the calendar year. It may take one Earth year for Curiosity to get to the foot of the mountain, and the trek to the higher elevations may well require extending the mission beyond its primary phase.
Grotzinger and his colleagues are hoping that extension will happen: The primary missions for Curiosity's older, smaller siblings — NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers — were set to last 90 days, but both of those solar-powered rovers lasted years longer. Opportunity is still at work, more than eight and a half years after its landing on Mars. The 1-ton, car-sized Curiosity is a much more capable rover, and it has a nuclear power source that could continue to generate electricity for decades.
Mount Sharp is the name commonly used by the Curiosity team, to honor the late Caltech geologist Robert Sharp, but the mountain's formal name is Aeolis Mons, according to the International Astronomical Union. For extra perspective on the mountain, check out this 3-D view produced by Ellison, as well as a newly released picture of Mount Sharp's central mound, taken from above by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The viewing angle for the orbital image is 45 degrees from the side, as if it were being seen from an airplane window.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Doug Ellison
Doug Ellison of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory assembled this stereo view of the Curiosity rover's surroundings on Mars using imagery from two of the imagers that are part of the rover's navigation camera system. Red-blue glasses are required to get the stereo effect.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / Univ. of Ariz.
A long strip of imagery from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the central mound of Mount Sharp, as well as the sand dunes surrounding the mountain. The colors have been stretched to emphasize differences in surface composition. (That means the sand dunes are not really blue.) Although this image was acquired after the Curiosity's landing, the viewing angle is such that none of the spacecraft's hardware is visible in this image.
More about Mars:
- Laser-equipped rover gets ready to zap a rock
- Britney Spears to Mars rover: What's new?
- Rover reveals more of Martian peak
- Mars rover team faces the masses
- Mars fans make viral video
- Panoramas add spin to Mars
- Mars rover survives its 'brain transplant'
- Mars orbiter gets a long look at Curiosity rover
- Reprogrammed rover getting ready to roll
- Obama tells rover team: Watch out for Martians
- Search for life to shape future Mars missions
- Mars rover getting reprogrammed for science
- Why the rover has such a dinky camera and computer
- How to build your own Mars rover with Lego blocks
- The Puff on Mars: Photo mystery solved!
- Panorama reveals a colorful 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
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.
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It does not look like 5 km high... a 5 km high mountain on Earth looks higher. or perhaps the perspective is different on Mars.
Yes, the perspective is a little different ... and there's not as much of a sharp change in elevation as you see in the case of, say, the Alps or the North Cascades (which are in my neck of the woods).
I wonder how close they are to the Famous Face of Mars??? would like a look at that..
The perspective is due to this panorama being taken by the Navcam, which has wide angle lens. I think that is is equivalent to a 38mm lens on a 35-mm camera (remember the old days when we used to shoot slides?) or a full-frame digital sensor. The 34 mm Mastcam is equivalent to a 115mm lens and the 100mm has the same field of view as a 342mm.
It's also very tough to judge size without the things we normally use as reference points, like trees. I experienced the same thing in Iceland. We'd hike over a ridge, and look down into the valley in front of us. With no trees or shrubs, it was often impossible to tell whether the water flowing through the valley was a stream you could jump across, or a large river. Early visitors to the Grand Canyon had the same problem - without trees, the size of a rocky landscape is very hard to determine.
Now that's we've gotten a taste of what to expect from the planet, we should begin planning a mission to Mars which would involve a dozen or so remote control martian helicopters to fly into and take images from low altitudes inside, around and over those canyons and peaks. Can you imagine how awesome those pictures would look?
I'm giddy with excitement at the thought of Curiosity winding its way through the canyons and valleys like C3PO in the original Star Wars. I have no doubt the pictures and other data will be unbelievably rich and will spark new interest in science for American youth.
I don't think the Martian atmosphere is thick enough to support a helicopter's blades spinning through the air; unless the helicopter itself was very light, and the the blades very light and very long as well.
There actually was a plan to send a "remote controlled plane" to Mars. Since the atmosphere is so thin, there were many design changes, including the shape of the wing being many times thicker and more oval shaped than planes on Earth.
You mean, like a saucer? I knew it all along!
see a picture of olympus Mons on mars which is 14 miles high http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_Mons but you can see that the gradient is very low
Beautiful photos! Breathtaking!
I just sound silly saying this.. I can believe those are rocks and a surface of a another planet. Its so easy yet so hard to comprehend.
That image of Mount Sharp is amazing! Beautiful!
So... if and.or when the Curious rover starts to rove, those sand dunes and pits are gonna be quite an obstacle, no?
Yes, the team wants to have the rover avoid the sand dunes as much as possible. If you look at the map included with this item, you get the clear impression that Curiosity will do an end run around most of the dune field:
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/17/13338840-mars-rover-gets-set-for-laser-blasts
Breathtaking... Thanks Alan, for keeping us all up to date on this amazing mission.
wow, need to look at it again. Too much to take in all at once. Very interesting
I love NASA I actually would not mind paying more in taxes to fund them!
As a source of national pride for our country nothing beats NASA. It's contributions to humanity's science establishes a kind of prestige for our country that no amount of Military hardware or locally constructed monument to ourselves could achieve.
I'm absolutely with you Old School Republican, I wouldn't mind paying more taxes if I could be assured if my taxes were going to NASA, and I wouldn't mind a "recutting" of the federal budget to give NASA a larger slice. NASA makes me proud to be an American, and earns a lot of respect for our nation from the rest of the world. The kind of respect that doesn't come from fear.
It's a good thing.
It's sad knowing that the people who just flung an SUV to Mars and stuck the landing had their budget cut by 30%. But, it's there and already amazing and we get at least 2 more years of amazement. I was proud just sitting there watching it land, I can't imagine what it must have been like for the people who put in the work. NASA is worth more than .46% of the budget in any economy.
That's kind of sad that we can't donate directly to them. Because if given the option, I'd give up a significant portion of my tax refund to NASA.
That is actually an interesting question. Why cant US citizens make tax deductible donations to agencies that are not law-enforcement? We don't want big business paying off the EPA to avoid compliance checks on their giant smokestacks or Colombian cartels paying off the FBI, but what about NASA, NOAA, NIST, the CDC, NSF, the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, etc.?
what is sad is the entire nasa budget is less than the iraq and afghanistan expenses for air conditioning
Yes - theoretically, we wouldn't need any new taxes whatsoever. We could have had 1200 of these projects, but instead decided to line the Middle East deserts with lead ($3 Trillion) - and we're STILL over there !!
There are increasing opportunities to privately contribute to private and academic exploration efforts; some aligned with NASA efforts, but I have not yet seen an effective mechanism to directly contribute small amounts to specific NASA programs. I wish there was a way to change that.
I would be ok with taking a small portion of the defense budget and transferring it to NASA. That might be possible politically as many defense businesses are also "old space" contractors, but it would have to managed carefully over a long period to get real benefit to NASA (and the DOD) as well as not introduce bad, expensive programs. A major benefit is it could further stimulate the development of engineering and science expertise, thus addressing a strategic problem for the US.
"I love NASA I actually would not mind paying more in taxes to fund them!"
It would depend on exactly how it was to be spent. Not even NASA deserves a blank check. IMHO, some NASA projects seriously deserve greater support, some are doing just fine as it is, and insisting they spend more would only be a waste, some are bad ideas to begin with, more money won't magically make them good ideas, and don't deserve a dime, no matter how deep the Agency's pockets were.
That's why I don't support Dr. Tyson's 'one-penny,' double NASA's budget notion. Even if it happened, it would not and should not be a simple matter of throwing twice as much money at every project and division in the Agency. You have to think it through. The devil is very much in the details....
And not all opinions will match mine, as to what's deserving and what's not.
Anyone know where I can find the glasses? Love the photos!! :)
I had a pair that my boyfriend left in my glove compartment after we watched Green Lantern in 3D. I told him to throw them out, but he refused because we might need them one day. I hate when he's right.
During my childhood it was only a dream seeing pictures of a far away planet. I am amazed at the clarity of the photos. Its almost like looking at the Rocky Mountains from an airplane. Great job NASA. Yes we should stop finding trouble to get into and use the money for Space Exploration. It would be money well spent.
Why is the rover climbing a mountain? I thought the whole point of landing in the valley was to go deeper, analyze sediments, and follow the water (if any).
In case, you are actually asking...
The crater is a very old feature, and if the evidence of ancient water on mars holds up, there will be some sedimentary rock on the "mountain" in the middle. Further, erosion should have exposed the layers of sedimentation, allowing the rover to look at the history of water on mars since the formation of the crater.
marsmaps.google.com? Can't wait for more "street view" pics.
The adventures of Curiosity tempt me to change my screen name to Glad Person:).
Cool. Just cool.
Say, when are we going to get Google Mars with street views?
Those pictures are amazing. It looks almost like a typical desert on earth. But the fact is this is an area that could not be more alien to earth. There is no feature on earth that is so prominent and obviously a huge impact crater.
Mount Sharp, is actually the center peak that is typical of huge craters on the moon and other space bodies.
There is no known geological feature like that on earth, though no doubt they have existed in the early days of the formation of earth, but have been hidden by erosion, tectonics and other things that are typical of earth but not so typical on Mars.
I would expect Mount Sharp to be composed of layers of Mars crust that were thrust up from the meteor impact and not so much due to natural tectonics or that it this may have been the bottom of a sea at one time.
If life ever formed on this site, it would have been either before or long after the impact that created the crater.
These guys are doing a great job so far but I hope they don't get in a hurry and break that rover. :)
Here is a high resolution of the crater from directly above. I would be more interested in the features around 'Mount Sharp" since these evolved after the impact. But you can see from the roundness of the crater that the area has experienced almost no erosion or tectonic activity to hide the crater as they are hidden on earth.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/timeline/prelaunch/landingsiteselection/galecrater2/
A more interesting target, rather than Mount Sharp, are these areas that look like they are features cut out by water. If they are going to find signs of life, it will be where the water is, or was.
SSE of where the Rover is right now looks like it could be a Mars version of the Grand Canyon.
I meant SSW in that photograph if you assume the top is north.
Here is the direct link to the high res version of Gale Crater. When you zoom out it looks like any other moon crater. This is still completely alien to the known Earth so far. There are no existing geological features like this anywhere on earth as they are in this over head photo of Gale Crater on Mars.
But of course most people knew that anyway, right?
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/PIA14290_GaleCrater_ellipse1-full.jpg
IF it ever crests that summit, that will be the ultimate panaramic view.
My Theory concerning Mars is that all the planets were created at the same time and Mars is a late comer. It's possible that Mars will become a inhabited planet some day sooner rather than later.
But I doubt if Mars is ancient planet that actually sustained anything on the level of humans. Maybe bacteria and simple life. But it's doubtful there was anything like humans or even birds.
It's also possible that Mars could evolve into a habital planet as the sun grows or the orbits shrink. Maybe it's the fry for the next habitable planet in this solar system. But so far it's not.
It is highly doubtful Mars could ever be made habitable. Modern science has found that two important features of Earth that allow it to sustain life is its magnetic field and the moon. Mars' two small moons are insignificant to Mars. Our moon, however, tugs at our oceans and tectonic plates. Our magnetic field keeps dangerous radiation from space from reaching the surface. Add a thick atmosphere and abundant water, and Earth is perfect for us. Mars atmosphere is too thin and really couldn't be made thick enough to sustain life. The same goes for water. While there is frozen water in the rocks of Mars and in the polar caps, it's doubtful there's enough to sustain life.
As far as Mars being a late comer, I don't know how you could possible come to that conclusion. All of the planets started evolving at the same time. Some migrated in, some migrated out. Early on, there are theorized to have been hundreds of small planets. Most of them colided to form the major planets we see today. At any rate, they all formed at the same time. Mars is just as old as Earth.
Landing this nuclear powered machine on Mars is an engineering and technological triumph. The photos of the terrain thus far are just a hint of the amazing things that we will be seeing as the mission gets under way. If we ever do discover evidence of some type of past microbial life on Mars it will be a game changer in the way that we think about ourselves and life in the cosmos. Congrats to NASA, JPL, Cal-Tech and everyone involved ... it's just amazing.
Peace to all
I completely agree. Nuclear power does have it's applications and this is the best one , so far :)
I just hope they have evaluated the long term consequences. IE these sources can totally destroy their containers in time. I hope these radioactive sources dont destroy the rover.
BTW, dont worry about "shrinking orbits" According to the current experts everything is flying apart with nothing to stop it :)
But we are talking billions of years so don't panic! :)
Maybe the rover is heading for a Beer Summit with Obama.
If he's up there, hopefully he brought some 'Biere de Mars' (Beer of Mars) from New Belgium Brewing...
Not to get political, but we did land on Mars under Obama's watch and he did order the taking out of Bin Laden, himself.
I don't care who you are, but Obama's accomplishments are hard to beat so far.
The economy is messed up by all the unscruplous bankers who took advantage of real estate. It has nothing to do with the President of the USA. If you want the President to take over the Economy, you might as well move to a communist country.
He also shut down the shuttle program and now we're hitching a ride with the russians. Talk about outsourcing.
calmconservative, Actually it was Bush that shut down the shuttle program as a response to the Columbia disaster. Obama mearly signed off on it as wisdom.
The shuttle was never a really great design and a very risky vehicle. It looked cool, but not really practical. Its amazing it lasted as long as it did.
Not to discount the great things the Space Shuttle program has done. Without it there would be no ISS.
But it was out dated and extremely dangerous and expensive. After all this was 1980's tech.
The shuttle had to be grounded before another crew was killed.
The only alternative would be to build a new space shuttle with a new launch system. It never happened.
Im not really sure where to respond since you posted the same thing 4 times so I figured I would just put here. Yes, the shuttle retirement was initiated by Bush, and yes, it was high time for a new program with newer technology, and he laid out his plans for that. Work was begun researching and designing a replacement before the shuttle was scheduled to be retired, so the two would overlap. Everyone knows its not a good idea to quit your job before you have another one.
However, Obama is the one that came along and decided to cancel the replacement program, which you conveniently left out every time you posted and tried to make him look like a saint just doing the bidding of the evil GWB. Over the objections of numerous current and former astronauts as well as NASA personnel and several members of Congress, he decided to scrap everything and start over. Apparently in his mind, that was better than just finishing the research that had been done over the past several years. He wanted to go with his plan, which was start everything over (so his name will be attached to it), guarantee everything previously spent goes from over budget to just plain wasted, and in the meantime, every time we need to send somebody up, give the Russians a blank check, even though their vehicles are far less reliable than the shuttle ever was.
If you researched anything at all about Constellation, the new vehicle program, you'd know that it was experiencing extreme cost overruns and problems long before Obama came around. Why should we continue to pour billions into a program that's not showing results? Especially when the US private sector is poised to take over LEO operations more efficiently and cheaper than even the Russians?
It was a wise decision to scuttle Constellation and take rides with the Russians until companies SpaceX could take over. They're doing it cheaper than the government and with modern, safe technology.
I know all this flies in the face of you desperately trying to blame everything negative on Obama, but grow up already.
You all are blindly assuming that there is some good purpose for sending US astronauts to the ISS. Unfortunately the ISS is a classic example of a vehicle in search of a mission. The ugly truth is that it doesn't do much. We're putting men in space for the purpose of.... putting men in space.
Does anyone know the unemployment rate on Mars? I know what it is on the planet Earth, in the Country of the United States!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wait, you claim Obama should get credit for Curiosity and Bin Laden because it happened on his watch yet say he shouldn't take credit for the shuttle retiring that happen on his watch because Bush gave the order to retire?
That's just stupid.
Curiosity was given the go ahead in 2004, that's Bush. The true hunt for Bin Laden started with Bush including getting the critical intel needed to find him, Obama simply gave the final order on the raid.
Damn, this is political trolling at it's best.
Mitchell
But my point is, the shutting down of the Shuttle program was initiated by George Bush, Not Obama. Look it up :)
Obama's role in the shutting down of Nasa is simply to pasively sign off on the plan by George Bush.
It's one of the few good things that GWB did.
And no one's shutting down NASA. They just landed a huge rover on Mars..... In fact, isn't that the point of this article?
But I do agree that the shuttles needed to be shut down eventually, Extremelly dangerous and expensive vehicles.
But it was the younger Bush President who ended the Shuttle program after the Columbia disaster.
Obama simply followed through with that mandate. It does make sense too economically.
I would be curious to know if this Curiosity has audio capturing abilities? It would be cool to hear a sand storm or maybe even an alien that walks up and starts talking to it. I am sure these Engineers thought of that, but I don't see any recorded data stating so. Alan, would you know sir?
It doesn't.
I have to wonder how much sound would be carried by an atmosphere that thin. I'm guessing Mars is a very quiet place.
I think that's a great question and it surprises me that they would not have any kind of microphones on the rover. It's such an inexpensive sensor compared to a camera. And I would expect to hear sound on Mars, although obviously it would be weaker in a Mars atmosphere, but sound should exist on Mars. Including the sound of the rover itself.
Yes, but other than occasional wind noise, the rover's mechanical parts and the sound of interaction of wheels with the surface (and none of it very strong in the thin air, though some rover sounds will conduct directly through its structure), what is there to hear...?
Now, if we ever get anything under the ice of Europa into the vast liquid ocean we think exists there, sound sensing could be very useful. Indeed, any macroscopic life there would be even more dependent on sound than marine life here, and might be the fastest way of determining if anything lives there.