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Archive for panoramic image

NASA presents an astonishing billion-pixel tour of Mars

By alkaon on June 19, 2013 No Comments

It’s a guided tour — from about 150 million miles away.

A stunning panoramic image from the Curiosity rover offers an incredibly detailed look at the dusty, lonely landscape of the red planet. And thanks to NASA’s computer science geniuses, you can take a guided tour of the rocky landscape from your couch. 

Here’s how to get the most of it. 

First click in the Photosynth player and drag the image left or right for a 360-degree look at your desolate surroundings (remember to keep your eyes open for the Martian rat). Then click the double rectangle in the bottom center of the image to take the panoramic image full-screen for the full mind-blowing experience.

Now click the links at the right side of the screen for some highlights of the spots Curiosity has already investigated, as well as the sites yet to be visited.

Start your trip at Mount Sharp, a 3-mile high rocky peak that the rover will eventually trek its way to. Zoom in on the L-shaped series of laser blasts that the rover zapped into the landscape, or the tracks left by the rover itself on its lonely tour.

Check out Yellowknife Bay, the area Curiosity first drilled into, or Rocknest, where the rover took its first scoops of Martian soil. 

The image, the first NASA-produced shot to cross the one-billion pixel mark, combines nearly 900 exposures taken of the windblown patch of dirt called Rocknest by cameras onboard Curiosity and shows details of the landscape along the rover’s route to Mount Sharp on the horizon.

“It gives a sense of place and really shows off the cameras’ capabilities,” said Bob Deen of the Multi-Mission Image Processing Laboratory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. “You can see the context and also zoom in to see very fine details.”

The images were taken on several different Mars days between Oct. 5 and Nov. 16, 2012. Raw single-frame images received from Curiosity are promptly posted on a public website: mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/

Article source: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/06/19/curiosity-takes-astonishing-billion-pixel-image-mars/

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Categories : Mars News
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Mars as you’ve never seen it before: New panorama shows detailed view of the …

By alkaon on July 11, 2012 No Comments


A July 8 handout from NASA shows a panoramic image of Mars.
(AFP/Getty Imges)

NASA has released a panoramic view from the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. The panorama was created using 817 distinct images the rover took between Dec. 2011 and May. The photos were taken using the panoramic camera or Pancam.

In describing the image, NASA writes:

The panorama combines exposures taken through Pancam filters centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet). The view is presented in false color to make some differences between materials easier to see.

We recognize that the above image isn’t exactly the best for viewing detail. So we broke it up into more detailed parts for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.



(NASA)



(NASA)



(NASA)



(NASA)

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Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/mars-as-youve-never-seen-it-before-new-panorama-shows-detailed-view-of-the-red-planet/2012/07/09/gJQAAqSWYW_blog.html

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Categories : Mars News
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NASA unveils Mars panorama taken by rover Opportunity

By alkaon on July 9, 2012 No Comments

NASA has released a strikingly clear panoramic image of the surface of Mars taken by the agency’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity during its fifth winter on the planet. During the four winter months, the rover stayed stationary because the low levels of sunlight did not provide adequate power for the craft to explore the planetary surface.

The false-color image was produced by combining 817 images taken between Dec. 21, 2011, and May 8, 2012, by the craft’s panoramic camera, or Pancam. The solar panels at the left and right bottom of the image show an accumulation of dust since the craft landed on January 2004, which has further lowered the amount of energy produced by the panels.

Mars north is in the center of the image and the craft’s solar panels are angled in that direction to capture the maximum amount of sunlight. The rover’s tracks are clearly visible, including a turn in place. The tracks reveal darker soils underlying the thin, bright dust cover.

The rover is sitting on an outcrop called Greeley’s Haven, named after Ronald Greeley, an Arizona State University astronomer who was a member of the Mars team who died in 2011. At the far left on the horizon is Rich Morris Hill, named after John R. “Rich” Morris, a JPL aerospace engineer and rover team member who also died in 2011.

The rover is managed by Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

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Article source: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-mars-panorama-20120709,0,3291853.story?track=rss

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Nasa’s Mars Panorama Is ‘Like Being There’

By alkaon on July 9, 2012 No Comments

Nasa has released a panoramic image of Mars that it describes as “the next best thing” to being on the red planet.

The picture was pieced together with some 817 snaps taken over a four-month period by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.

The fused image shows new rover tracks and an old impact crater, and includes the rover’s solar arrays and deck in the foreground.

Scientist Jim Bell, of Arizona State University, said the images provide a “spectacularly detailed view”.

Opportunity completed its 3,000th Martian day on July 2, and the US space agency marked 15 years of robotic presence on the Red Planet.

Nasa’s Curiosity rover, formally known as the Mars Science Laboratory but nicknamed a “dream machine” by Nasa scientists, blasted off from Florida in November and is expected to land in early August.

The most advanced machine ever built to roam the surface of Mars cost hundreds of millions of pounds to construct and launch, and aims to hunt for signs that life once existed there.

Article source: http://news.sky.com/story/957730/nasas-mars-panorama-is-like-being-there

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NASA Image of the day

Rare Clear View of Alaska

 
On most days, relentless rivers of clouds wash over Alaska, obscuring most of the state's 6,640 miles (10,690 kilometers) of coastline and 586,000 square miles (1,518,000 square kilometers) of land. The south coast of Alaska even has the dubious distinction of being the cloudiest region of the United States, with some locations averaging more than 340 cloudy days per year. That was certainly not the case on June 17, 2013, the date that the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite acquired this rare, nearly cloud-free view of the state. The absence of clouds exposed a striking tapestry of water, ice, land, forests, and even wildfires. Snow-covered mountains such as the Alaska Range and Chugach Mountains were visible in southern Alaska, while the arc of mountains that make up the Brooks Range dominated the northern part of the state. The Yukon River -- the longest in Alaska and the third longest in the United States -- wound its way through the green boreal forests that inhabit the interior of the state. Plumes of sediment and glacial dust poured into the Gulf of Alaska from the Copper River. And Iliamna Lake, the largest in Alaska, was ice free. The same ridge of high pressure that cleared Alaska's skies also brought stifling temperatures to many areas accustomed to chilly June days. Talkeetna, a town about 100 miles north of Anchorage, saw temperatures reach 96°F (36°C) on June 17. Other towns in southern Alaska set all-time record highs, including Cordova, Valez, and Seward. The high temperatures also helped fuel wildfires and hastened the breakup of sea ice in the Chukchi Sea.Image Credit: NASA/Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFCCaption: Adam Voiland
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