Come anticipate the Mars Science Lab - the new 2012 model Mars Rover

Whoever is now doing the mission animations for JPL seems to be taking cues from Pixar w.r.t. cinematically telling a story. I've just watched the following 11 minute video twice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4boyXQuUIw

Previous Mars rovers have always had a tentative look to them (implicit soundtrack: the Jawa theme from Star Wars), but this guy looks like it can handle things - especially when the laser shoots out of the helpful-looking "head."

Still can't get over on how ridiculous that landing procedure is.

Should have had a tiny "ping" sound when that scan was ready (and maybe a "spectroscopy result: rock") but yeah, I thought the new landing mantra was simple and cheap (put entire thing in bouncy balloon and deflate) instead of this.

Apparently the rover is just too big and heavy for the bouncy balloons to work. I got to see it at a JPL event last month and it is indeed big - about the size of a small car.

Oh, ok, no way to know how big it is without a frame of reference in that video, of course, but even so, that is indeed a vv complicated way of doing things, it seems. Not that I have any alternatives, just feels kinda far fetched somehow.

Here's a picture I took of it with some humans for scale.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2275/5806624214_f581be1970.jpg

When describing the landing events, one of the flight engineers prefaced it with "this might sound nuts, but it'll work." I kept thinking of Back To The Future and Doc Brown's scale model of how he planned to send Marty back.

Cool pic, thanks! That's totally not the go-cart sized thing I instinctively thought it was anymore indeed.

Great clip indeed, can't wait for this to launch.

The Atlantic previews the MSL mission

And a new JPL video on that landing procedure, dramatically titled "Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki_Af_o9Q9s

ahaha i just came to post that same article. i am perpetually behind everyone.

p juiced for the landing

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s236/mezxspectrum/5-1.gif

HiRISE is going to try to image MSL as it descends on parachute.

hiyo

mars, today:

http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/Italian%20Job%201969%20pic.jpg

Hanging off the edge of a cliff, with Michael Caine saying "Hang on, I've got an idea..."

As viewed from orbit

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2012/08/hirise_curiosity_parachute.jpg

http://curiositycam.tumblr.com/

can't wait for the high res camera gets up and running and for those to start trickling in.

sad we'll have to wait for future rovers to discover ancient martian viruses that turn us all inside out.

until the high res yadda yadda...

press conf starting now http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

this is rad

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/673883main_PIA15986-43_800-600.jpg

Scale is hard without context, but I think someone said the base of the mountain is about 28 miles away?

i heard them say the mountain is bigger than any mountain in the lower 48

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/675227main_pia16029-full_full.jpg

!

Colour pics of the surface of Mars always interest me, and not just because...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/16/Capricorn_one.jpg/220px-Capricorn_one.jpg
...but because a) it's another planet, but b) it seems so Earth-like, and c) sort of reminds me of the description of Magrathea and the contrasting reactions to it by Ford and Arthur.

fantastic

needs some plants imho

maybe a fern

This photo is making rounds on tumblr, but is this really Mars? I don't think Mars has enough atmosphere to form clouds, does it?

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5sqgajiPg1rsykj4o1_1280.png

not in summer at the equator, i think

if it's like "look, here is your home planet" then it's probably hippy bullshit

there are dust storms which looks like clouds from earth, but they wouldn't look like clouds from below

there are clouds on mars visible from the surface. they are formed from dry ice. this is old news.

http://www.space.com/603-mars-earth-clouds-type-rock.html

so glad everyone's catching up on the last decade's worth of space exploration science though

that being said Johnny Fever's photo doesn't look Martian to me

wow someone had some attitude in their cheerios this morning

I am all for people being excited about being on Mars! I am sort of annoyed that it took Twitter and Tumblr to make that happen.

Meanwhile this launches next year:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven/main/index.html

Yeah there are clouds. They even filmed some snow on mars one year, i remember.

Oh neat.

I'm obvs behind on my Martian knowledge.

Martian clouds from orbit:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/ops/sr39_32.jpg

From http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/science/clouds.html

Martian cyclone

http://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/04images/Mars4/Weather/Cyclone_Hubble_01.jpg

From http://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/02files/Mars_Blue_Bird_Weather.html

Martian cyclone as viewed by the Viking Orbiter in 1978

http://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/04images/Mars4/Weather/Cyclone_Viking_02.gif

Martian frost/snow as seen by the Viking 2 lander in the late 70s

http://astronomy.nmsu.edu/tharriso/ast110/marsfrost.gif

360 panorama shot by Spirit lander

http://panoramas.dk/mars/greeley-haven.html

New press conference going:

http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl

Also

http://io9.com/5933638/plate-tectonics-confirmed-on-mars

Seeing them talk about how we've gotten increasingly better at focusing where we can place our landers on Mars is really amazing. That's the kind of achievement you can grasp more fully now.

in the journal Lithosphere

It's not bad as journals go, but some people think it's a bit crusty.

The Google Mars flythrough of the landing = top notch.

idgi, if the Viking 2 photographed snow, what was the big deal with "water on mars" a few years back?

snow is frozen. water is a liquid.

earthican organisms need water to survive, not ice.

ooo

also obviously water interacts with geology differently than ice does - and its presence implies a number of things about Mars' planetary history, its weather patterns, etc (where/when/why is it warm enough on Mars for water to flow? is there water beneath the surface? are there organisms there? did Mars have lakes/rivers/oceans at some point?)

does the snow ever melt? or does it just, i dunno, evaporate?

more pictures pls

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_%28chemistry%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars

http://i45.tinypic.com/2di3xj5.jpg

every time I think if you, I feel a shot right through with a bolt of blue

Wow, had forgotten about Google Mars. Reminded me of a story (Bruce Sterling maybe?) of a guy who wins a "first civilian on Mars" competition, which turns out to mean he sits in a room at Google HQ for 16 hours a day, remote piloting a Google Street View camera car around the Martian surface.

Kicking down with the hi-res

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4421

A cold desert seems lke a miserable place to live. Still, would visit Mars.

I swear I've driven through that just outside of Death Valley

That 3 planets sunset pic JF posted isnt from mars, its apparently from a simulator software thing. I did wonder - the planets looked way too large and bright to me (do we ever see them so huge in OUR sky?). Annoying when this happens.

Now, as I said on FB the other day - no one go digging for Shadow ships ok? We're not ready. We havent even found the Minbari yet.

that 360 degree view is amazing

it is

http://www.360cities.net/image/curiosity-rover-martian-solar-day-2#36.53,-10.08,61.5

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/pia16068_Grotzinger-5promisedland-br2.jpg

What the descent telemetry sounded like: http://www.space.com/17110-screaming-down-to-mars-how-curiosity-s-descent-sounded-video.html

And here's the landing in HD...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZX5GRPnd4U

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/524803_328100863906562_960985850_n.jpg

spirit/opportunity, mars sojurner, and the MSL

it's big!

and it plays hot tracks by will.i.am

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/11/MSLportraitsmall.jpg

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/high-res-curiosity-portrait/

Two days ago, we showed one of the best rover selfies ever, which came from amateur astronomer Stuart Atkinson, who stitched together raw images beamed back from Curiosity. But the pictures used there were only thumbnail versions of the high-res pics. The above image represents the full-sized 5,400-pixel-wide version generated from the complete set of photographs. The detail is so stunning you can zoom in on Curiosity’s “eye” at the top and see a reflection of Mars and the rover’s arm.

The image was taken by Curiosity’s MAHLI hand-held camera, which sits on the end of the rover’s extendable arm. MAHLI snapped 55 pictures from different locations. The different positions overlapped just enough so that the arm couldn’t be seen in the final result.

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/11/MSLportraitsmall.jpg

Wow.

Press conference imminent about this rumored big finding...

Haven't they been furiously trying to downplay whatever it is?

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/00978/mcam/0978MR0043250040502821E01_DXXX-br2.jpg

http://wfsb.images.worldnow.com/images/8149117_G.jpg