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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.
Leave a Comment:
There is only about 5 or 6 people alive today who can still talk about navigating a Saturn V rocket! :) And all the ones I knew at the time were more popular than the Beatles :)
After it gets covered in Martian dust, it will be a Red Rover. hehe
Next time they should name it Fido, or spot. Just dont name it Mark or Art.
I cant wait until they start exploring. Very cool. I have a desktop backgound folder just waiting for additions.
If the meteors that we find here on earth and we claim are from mars are made of materials we don't have on earth what are we going to be looking for that we already know and if we find things we don't know how will we know what they are?
Nasa has paid for its being over and over in tech advances. Cuts in our space program will cost in the long and short run. We have the brains and ability to overcome the tech problems involved in local space exploration. Manned flight to any place but the moon seems impractical. We will not only appear third tier but will take our place as a has been when China passes us.
Okay, The US government couldn't detect a Russian nuclear submarine lurking about the waters of the Gulf Coast, and they couldn't get water to Hurricane Katrina victims... Does anyone out there REALLY believe we landed anything on Mars? Or that we REALLY landed anything on the moon? It all looks like the deserts of the South Western region of the US to me... (Can you say C.G.I.?) When a non-government agency or agencies can provided proof of any of the above, I'll be more than happy to start believing EVERYTHING the federal government tells me...
So you believe that somehow everything they've accomplished has been a hoax, yet EVERYONE involved over the last 50 years hasn't leaked anything to the contrary? Your level of paranoia is astounding. Let me guess, you also believe 9/11 was a fake too, even though the world watched it on TV.
And LOL at how you make it seem like detecting something that was designed NOT to be detected (the sub) as easy as looking out the window. It's underwater and makes no noise, and I don't believe we make a habit of scouring the Gulf to find enemy submarines. If we did, clowns like you would complain about how unnecessary it was and how that money could have been better spent on some other welfare entitlement program.
Plus, do you realize how long this has been going on? Years and years. To respond to your terrible comparison...if we had years to get water to New Orleans, it would have been done. So yes, people believe NASA, because they have no reason not to. Also, they aren't paranoid shut-ins living in Mom's basement.
I think it fair to say that just about everyone does believe we landed there
Hurrcane Katrina was a hoax. I still can't believe people fell for that...
hey stop smoking that @!$%# bud! It's making you sound..well..stupid!
I believe we landed rovers on Mars. As far as the moon goes, scientists still use the technology the astronauts set up there.
As for the Russians, they test Obama's resolve and backbone. The same as the Chinese did a couple of years ago off the west coast. And we did get water to Hurricane Katrina victims.
"Okay, The US government couldn't detect a Russian nuclear submarine lurking about the waters of the Gulf Coast..."
The Russians are actively trying to hide (as do our subs). The Moon, Mars and the rest of the Universe isn't trying to hide. Apples, oranges...
"It all looks like the deserts of the South Western region of the US to me..."
So I guess you're not a geologist. What did you want it to look like?
"When a non-government agency or agencies can provided proof of any of the above, I'll be more than happy to start believing EVERYTHING the federal government tells me..."
Clearly, for you, there is no adequate proof.
But the US isn't the only nation doing this kind of stuff. Are all of them lying to you? And at the height of the Cold War, would the former-Soviets have let the greatest propaganda coup of all time slip away, if they thought we were faking going to the Moon? Am I to believe you have more resources than the KGB?
Go away...
I'm really excited about the whole mission and I am already seeing more than just a little spark of interst from school children about it. It's a good thing....LOL
Guys, mankind is never going to give up exploration. The only problem is that going forward it will be China, Russia and India doing all the work.
I seriously doubt that. The Chinese vehicle won't last long enough, they won't be able to decide who controls it in Russia and when there is a problem with the one from India...well...have you ever talked to their tech support people?
Everyone is welcome.
They'd all like to. But China isn't the 'Superman' many think it to be, Russia is almost as cash-strapped as we are, and India, lately, has had a hard time with launcher reliability.
Very exciting. Love the photos. I wish I had a pair of 3-D glasses!! Anyone know where to buy them?
Do like the kids and swipe them from the theater
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Own-3D-Glasses
there are plenty of more methods...just the first one that goog popped up.....
"Do like the kids and swipe them from the theater"
Those don't work like the red-blue filter glasses do, They'd work only on passive (NOT active, which is most of them) 3-D TV.
But you obviously have a computer. Just Google: 3-D red blue glasses ...and see what you get.
it's very cool, everything about this mission is so amazing! Truly I tip my hat & raise my beer to the people of NASA for this!
Can we please just view the images just as they are? Just as if we were looking at them ourselves?? Also some video please? Preferably some LIVE video?
How high up the mountain will the rover attempt to go? Or is that in the plans?
I get dibs on the first little green man they find! Always wanted one of those.
Is Howard Wolowitz still working for JPL?
We can only hope not. ;)
Mankind should stick to the deep ocean research instead of wasting time on a dead planet like Mars which cannot harbor an atmosphere lacking a dynamo beneath the surface (magnetic field lacking). Quit wasting our time on minor exploration and stick to things that benefits mankind here on Earth.
Not dead planet...red planet.
You write as if habitability is all that's important or interesting about Mars (which has an atmosphere...just not as much as we might like. Re-visit the '7 Minutes of Terror' video. For landing on Mars, it's mostly about the atmosphere.).
Humans can't operate without great difficulty in all but the shallowest ocean depths either, but that's not what we do oceanography for..
that will be some panarama from the top...
my comment on mars laser article was supposed to be all in caps, I went to comment that the newsvine page flagged a box telling me no yelling (the comment, in the bugs bunny cartoons was all caps...idiots) and that it uncased them for me...no big deal but when i typed this in the other article it oddly enough did not let me post it, of course I also mentioned that their text box is a keylogger, either way, bad newsvine, bad...your lucky that laser droid is on mars right now....
Next time don't post in all caps and you won't get flagged. That's common courtesy in almost all threads.
I'm glad they got the laser working but they need to do a little more than this tiny little spot on this tiny little pebble before it's going to impress me much. Haha. I could not tell what they were pointing at in the photo. The little white spot or the micro crater next to it? Interesting thing about this rock and the terrain in general is that it shows a lot of what looks like meteor craters which means there has not been any source of major erosion for 100's of million if not billions of years.
This is not an area that has seen a lot of water, in my opinion. There may be small areas inside Gale crater that had water flowing, but no huge oceans or seas.
I have a question. Why are the pictures in black and white and not color? I'm sure there's a logical reason for this.
Some of the cameras are black and white, it depends on what they are being used for. For instance, the cameras used for navigation only need to see obstacles around the rover which doesn't require color.
Other times you simply do not need to waste the bandwidth required for color, some of the first pictures were taken to simply get a bearing on where exactly the rover was located, no need to waste bandwidth and time to transmit color for that.
There are also times where you want a high contrast in the picture, b/w provides the best format for those.
There may be other reasons, but those are 3 for sure.
Hope it helps,
Mitchell
Right on, Mitchell
I hope Rover doesn't get stuck on the sand dunes.
What a great place to ship the bad guys and all the arms in this world. So the innocent people can live in peace on our earth. I see a future for Mars, hopefully soon. Before us humans blow up this gift we have on having this soil with the enviroment of being able to breath and live a long life.