Comments on: Mars is sublime

By: annmarie

annmarie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:05:58 +0000

it looks like H1N1 girms and ugh its so ugly and discusting it looks like doodo ewwwwwww

By: Timothy Reed

Timothy Reed — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:35:07 +0000

@ Lucas: “The MRO is 250 km above the martian surface, yet it can take pictures with much better resolution than LRO, which is just 50 km above the lunar surface. Is there such a big difference in their cameras?”

In a word, yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MRO_HiRISE.jpg

http://www.msss.com/lro/lroc/illustrations/LROC_NA_WA_figure_i.jpg

But to reiterate, the goal is not to provide the best imagery possible, but imagery that satisfies the mission requirements. This answers Ray’s question–

“While I understand Phil’s comment about having 25cm imagery of Mars, I have to ask “What would we use it for?”
And are there really any features on Mars that we need to see at that level of resolution?

–in that the science objectives of HiRISE are to characterize the current climate and mechanisms of climate change, determine the nature of complex layered terrain, identify water-related landforms, search for sites showing evidence for aqueous and/or hydrothermal activity, an identify and characterize sites with the highest potential for landed science and sample return by future missions. Those high level science requirements drive the imagery resolution.

By: mike burkhart

mike burkhart — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:10:59 +0000

this is incredable yes mars is weird but so is venus and io and eurpoa and titan (Phill how about having a survey have people who visit the blog list the ten wierdst things in the universe ) we have seen stranger things on mars for example the canales that were thought to have been dug by martians untill space probes showed there were no canales and lets not forget cydona theres still people who think the hills and moutans there are martian city . buy the way I think there is to munch imangeing of the earth just go to google maps type in your adress and clik satalite view you will see a nice view of your house

By: Mare Magnum | El increible polo sur marciano

Mare Magnum | El increible polo sur marciano — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:27:43 +0000

[...] estoy de acuerdo con Phil Plait de Bad Astronomy: Marte es [...]

By: Jay Lake: [links] Link salad talks to the surgeon

Jay Lake: [links] Link salad talks to the surgeon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:32:23 +0000

[...] Mars is sublime — Some seriously cool imaging. [...]

By: alphamale11

alphamale11 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:35:09 +0000

consider the round items to be trees, flash frozen. The land between as meadows. Other as grass land surrounding buildings. You gotum better explanation?

By: Oroboros

Oroboros — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:47:45 +0000

1) The pedant in me had to run and look up the definition (if there was one) of embiggen. OK I obviously missed that episode. I like it. I learned another new word this week. imput. The payroll company upgraded from DOS to Windows and imputted my 50/50 split deposit as an absolute value instead of percentage. 2) The fractal self-similarity just screams out at you doesn't it? I posted a long rambling blog that was partially based around this quote from Thoreau:

When the frost comes out in the spring, and even in a thawing day in the winter, the sand begins to flow down the slopes like lava, sometimes bursting out through the snow and overflowing it where no sand was to be seen before. Innumerable little streams overlap and interlace one with another, exhibiting a sort of hybrid product, which obeys half way the law of currents, and half way that of vegetation. As it flows it takes the forms of sappy leaves or vines, making heaps of pulpy sprays a foot or more in depth, and resembling, as you look down on them, the laciniated, lobed, and imbricated thalluses of some lichens; or you are reminded of coral, of leopard's paws or birds' feet, of brains or lungs or bowels, and excrements of all kinds. It is a truly grotesque vegetation...You find thus in the very sands an anticipation of the vegetable leaf. No wonder that the earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with the idea inwardly. The atoms have already learned this law, and are pregnant by it