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| Press Release Images: Spirit |
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05-Dec-2005
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NASA's Mars Rovers Continue to Explore and Amaze
Full Press Release
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Summit Panorama with Rover Deck
The panoramic camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit took the hundreds of images combined into this 360-degree view, the "Husband Hill Summit" panorama. The images were acquired on Spirit's sols 583 to 586 (Aug. 24 to 27, 2005), shortly after the rover reached the crest of "Husband Hill" inside Mars' Gusev Crater. This is the largest panorama yet acquired from either Spirit or Opportunity. The panoramic camera shot 653 separate images in 6 different filters, encompassing the rover's deck and the full 360 degrees of surface rocks and soils visible to the camera from this position. This is the first time the camera has been used to image the entire rover deck and visible surface from the same position. Stitching together of all the images took significant effort because of the large changes in resolution and parallax across the scene.
The image is an approximately true-color rendering using the 750-nanometer, 530-nanometer and 480-nanometer filters for the surface, and the 600-nanometer and 480-nanometer filters for the rover deck. Image-to-image seams have been eliminated from the sky portion of the mosaic to better simulate the vista a person standing on Mars would see.
This panorama provided the team's first view of the "Inner Basin" region (center of the image), including the enigmatic "Home Plate" feature seen from orbital data. After investigating the summit area, Spirit drove downhill to get to the Inner Basin region. Spirit arrived at the summit from the west, along the direction of the rover tracks seen in the middle right of the panorama. The peaks of "McCool Hill" and "Ramon Hill" can be seen on the horizon near the center of the panorama. The summit region itself is a broad, windswept plateau. Spirit spent more than a month exploring the summit region, measuring the chemistry and mineralogy of soils and rocky outcrops at the peak of Husband Hill for comparison with similar measurements obtained during the ascent.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell
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'Algonquin' Outcrop on Spirit's Sol 680
This view combines four frames from Spirit's panoramic camera, looking in the drive direction on the rover's 680th Martian day, or sol (Dec. 1, 2005). The outcrop of apparently layered bedrock has the informal name "Algonquin."
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell
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Solar-Panel Dust Accumulation and Cleanings
Air-fall dust accumulates on the solar panels of NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the solar arrays. Pre-launch models predicted steady dust accumulation. However, the rovers have been blessed with occasional wind events that clear significant amounts of dust from the solar panels.
This graph shows the effects of those panel-cleaning events on the amount of electricity generated by Spirit's solar panels. The horizontal scale is the number of Martian days (sols) after Spirit's Jan. 4, 2005, (Universal Time) landing on Mars. The vertical scale indicates output from the rover's solar panels as a fraction of the amount produced when the clean panels first opened. Note that the gradual declines are interrupted by occasional sharp increases, such as a dust-cleaning event on sol 420.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Spirit Traverse Map, Sol 680 (Labeled)
This image shows the route that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has driven inside Gusev Crater from its first Martian day (sol 1) to its 680th sol (Dec. 1, 2005), more than a complete Martian year. The underlying image (previously released as PIA07849) is a mosaic of images from the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. The scale bar at lower left is 500 meters (0.31 mile). As of sol 680, Spirit had driven a total of 5,495 meters (3.41 miles).
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/USGS/NMMNHS
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Spirit Traverse Map, Sol 680 (Unlabeled)
This image shows the route that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has driven inside Gusev Crater from its first Martian day (sol 1) to its 680th sol (Dec. 1, 2005), more than a complete Martian year. The underlying image (previously released as PIA07849) is a mosaic of images from the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. The scale bar at lower left is 500 meters (0.31 mile). As of sol 680, Spirit had driven a total of 5,495 meters (3.41 miles).
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/USGS/NMMNHS
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Partial 'Seminole' Panorama
This view from Spirit's panoramic camera is assembled from frames acquired on Martian days, or sols, 672 and 673 (Nov. 23 and 24, 2005) from the rover's position near an outcrop called "Seminole." The view is a southward-looking portion of a larger panorama still being completed. This approximately true-color view is a composite of images shot through three different filters, admitting light of wavelengths 750 nanometers, 530 nanometers and 430 nanometers.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell
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Partial 'Seminole' Panorama (False Color)
This view from Spirit's panoramic camera is assembled from frames acquired on Martian days, or sols, 672 and 673 (Nov. 23 and 24, 2005) from the rover's position near an outcrop called "Seminole." The view is a southward-looking portion of a larger panorama still being completed. This is a false-color version to emphasize geological differences. It is a composite of images shot through three different filters, admitting light of wavelengths 750 nanometers, 530 nanometers and 430 nanometers.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell
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Meteor Search by Spirit, Sol 643 (Unlabeled)
The panoramic cameras on NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers are about as sensitive as the human eye at night. The cameras can see the same bright stars that we can see from Earth, and the same patterns of constellations dot the night sky. Scientists on the rover team have been taking images of some of these bright stars as part of several different projects. One project is designed to try to capture "shooting stars," or meteors, in the Martian night sky. "Meteoroids" are small pieces of comets and asteroids that travel through space and eventually run into a planet. On Earth, we can sometimes see meteoroids become brilliant, long "meteors" streaking across the night sky as they burn up from the friction in our atmosphere. Some of these meteors survive their fiery flight and land on the surface (or in the ocean) where, if found, they are called "meteorites." The same thing happens in the Martian atmosphere, and Spirit even accidentally discovered a meteor while attempting to obtain images of Earth in the pre-dawn sky back in March, 2004 (see http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040311a.html, and Selsis et al. (2005) Nature, vol 435, p. 581). On Earth, some meteors come in "storms" or "showers" at predictable times of the year, like the famous Perseid meteor shower in August or the Leonid meteor shower in November. These "storms" happen when Earth passes through the same parts of space where comets sometimes pass. The meteors we see at these times are from leftover debris that was shed off of these comets.
The same kind of thing is predicted for Mars, as well. Inspired by calculations about Martian meteor storms by meteor scientists from the University of Western Ontario in Canada and the Centre de Recherche en Astrophysique de Lyon in France, and also aided by other meteor research colleagues from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, scientists on the rover team planned some observations to try to detect predicted meteor storms in October and November, 2005. The views shown here are a composite of nine 60-second exposures taken with the panoramic camera on Spirit during night hours of sol 643 (Oct. 25, 2005), during a week when Mars was predicted to pass through a meteor stream associated with comet P/2001R1 LONEOS. Many stars can be seen in the images, appearing as curved "dash-dot" streaks. The star trails are curved because Mars is rotating while the camera takes the images. The dash-dot pattern is an artifact of taking an image for 60 seconds, then pausing about 10 seconds while the image is processed and stored by the rover's computer, then taking another image for 60 seconds, etc., for a total of about 10 minutes worth of "staring" at the night sky. Many stars from the southern constellations Octans and Pavonis can be seen in the images. The brightest ones in this view would be easily visible to the naked eye, but the faintest ones are slightly dimmer than the human eye can detect.
In addition to the star trails, there are several smaller linear streaks, dots and splotches that are the trails left by cosmic rays hitting the camera detectors. Cosmic rays are high-energy particles that are created in the Sun andsin other stars throughout our galaxy and travel through space in all directions. Some of them strike Earth or other planets, and ones that strike a digital camera detector can leave little tracks or splotches like those seen in these images. Because they come from all directions, some strike the detector face-on, and others strike at glancing angles. Some even skip across the detector like flat rocks skipped across a pond. These are very common phenomena to astronomers used to working with sensitive digital cameras like those in the Mars rovers, the Hubble Space Telescope, or other space probes, and while they can be a nuisance when taking pictures, they generally do not cause any lasting damage to the cameras. One streak in the image, crossing at an angle very different from the direction of the stars' "motion," might be a meteor trail or could be the mark of another cosmic ray.
While hunting for meteors on Mars is fun, ultimately the team wants to use the images and results for scientific purposes. These include helping to validate the models and predictions for interplanetary meteor storms, providing information on the rate of impacts of small meteoroids with Mars for comparison with rates for the Earth and Moon, assessing the rate and intensity of cosmic ray impact events in the Martian environment, and looking at whether some bright stars are being dimmed occasionally by water ice or dust clouds occurring at night during different Martian seasons.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Texas A&M/SSI
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Meteor Search by Spirit, Sol 643 (Labeled)
The panoramic cameras on NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers are about as sensitive as the human eye at night. The cameras can see the same bright stars that we can see from Earth, and the same patterns of constellations dot the night sky. Scientists on the rover team have been taking images of some of these bright stars as part of several different projects. One project is designed to try to capture "shooting stars," or meteors, in the Martian night sky. "Meteoroids" are small pieces of comets and asteroids that travel through space and eventually run into a planet. On Earth, we can sometimes see meteoroids become brilliant, long "meteors" streaking across the night sky as they burn up from the friction in our atmosphere. Some of these meteors survive their fiery flight and land on the surface (or in the ocean) where, if found, they are called "meteorites." The same thing happens in the Martian atmosphere, and Spirit even accidentally discovered a meteor while attempting to obtain images of Earth in the pre-dawn sky back in March, 2004 (see http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040311a.html, and Selsis et al. (2005) Nature, vol 435, p. 581). On Earth, some meteors come in "storms" or "showers" at predictable times of the year, like the famous Perseid meteor shower in August or the Leonid meteor shower in November. These "storms" happen when Earth passes through the same parts of space where comets sometimes pass. The meteors we see at these times are from leftover debris that was shed off of these comets.
The same kind of thing is predicted for Mars, as well. Inspired by calculations about Martian meteor storms by meteor scientists from the University of Western Ontario in Canada and the Centre de Recherche en Astrophysique de Lyon in France, and also aided by other meteor research colleagues from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, scientists on the rover team planned some observations to try to detect predicted meteor storms in October and November, 2005. The views shown here are a composite of nine 60-second exposures taken with the panoramic camera on Spirit during night hours of sol 643 (Oct. 25, 2005), during a week when Mars was predicted to pass through a meteor stream associated with comet P/2001R1 LONEOS. Many stars can be seen in the images, appearing as curved "dash-dot" streaks. The star trails are curved because Mars is rotating while the camera takes the images. The dash-dot pattern is an artifact of taking an image for 60 seconds, then pausing about 10 seconds while the image is processed and stored by the rover's computer, then taking another image for 60 seconds, etc., for a total of about 10 minutes worth of "staring" at the night sky. Many stars from the southern constellations Octans and Pavonis can be seen in the images. The brightest ones in this view would be easily visible to the naked eye, but the faintest ones are slightly dimmer than the human eye can detect.
In addition to the star trails, there are several smaller linear streaks, dots and splotches that are the trails left by cosmic rays hitting the camera detectors. Cosmic rays are high-energy particles that are created in the Sun andsin other stars throughout our galaxy and travel through space in all directions. Some of them strike Earth or other planets, and ones that strike a digital camera detector can leave little tracks or splotches like those seen in these images. Because they come from all directions, some strike the detector face-on, and others strike at glancing angles. Some even skip across the detector like flat rocks skipped across a pond. These are very common phenomena to astronomers used to working with sensitive digital cameras like those in the Mars rovers, the Hubble Space Telescope, or other space probes, and while they can be a nuisance when taking pictures, they generally do not cause any lasting damage to the cameras. One streak in the image, crossing at an angle very different from the direction of the stars' "motion," might be a meteor trail or could be the mark of another cosmic ray.
While hunting for meteors on Mars is fun, ultimately the team wants to use the images and results for scientific purposes. These include helping to validate the models and predictions for interplanetary meteor storms, providing information on the rate of impacts of small meteoroids with Mars for comparison with rates for the Earth and Moon, assessing the rate and intensity of cosmic ray impact events in the Martian environment, and looking at whether some bright stars are being dimmed occasionally by water ice or dust clouds occurring at night during different Martian seasons.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Texas A&M/SSI
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Meteor Search by Spirit, Sol 668 (Unlabeled)
The panoramic cameras on NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers are about as sensitive as the human eye at night. The cameras can see the same bright stars that we can see from Earth, and the same patterns of constellations dot the night sky. Scientists on the rover team have been taking images of some of these bright stars as part of several different projects. One project is designed to try to capture "shooting stars," or meteors, in the martian night sky. "Meteoroids" are small pieces of comets and asteroids that travel through space and eventually run into a planet. On Earth, we can sometimes see meteoroids become brilliant, long "meteors" streaking across the night sky as they burn up from the friction in our atmosphere. Some of these meteors survive their fiery flight and land on the surface (or in the ocean) where, if found, they are called "meteorites." The same thing happens in the martian atmosphere, and Spirit even accidentally discovered a meteor while attempting to obtain images of Earth in the pre-dawn sky back in March, 2004 (see http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040311a.html, and Selsis et al. (2005) Nature, vol 435, p. 581). On Earth, some meteors come in "storms" or "showers" at predictable times of the year, like the famous Perseid meteor shower in August or the Leonid meteor shower in November. These "storms" happen when Earth passes through the same parts of space where comets sometimes pass. The meteors we see at these times are from leftover debris that was shed off of these comets.
The same kind of thing is predicted for Mars, as well. Inspired by calculations about Martian meteor storms by meteor scientists from the University of Western Ontario in Canada and the Centre de Recherche en Astrophysique de Lyon in France, and also aided by other meteor research colleagues from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, scientists on the rover team planned some observations to try to detect predicted meteor storms in October and November, 2005. The views shown here are a composite of nine 60-second exposures taken with the panoramic camera on Spirit during night hours of sol 668 (Nov. 18, 2005), during a week when Mars was predicted to pass through a meteor stream associated with Halley's comet. The south celestial pole is at the center of the frame. Many stars can be seen in the images, appearing as short, curved streaks forming arcs around the center point. The star trails are curved because Mars is rotating while the camera takes the images. The brightest stars in this view would be easily visible to the naked eye, but the faintest ones are slightly dimmer than the human eye can detect.
In addition to the star trails, there are several smaller linear streaks, dots and splotches that are the trails left by cosmic rays hitting the camera detectors. Cosmic rays are high-energy particles that are created in the Sun and in other stars throughout our galaxy and travel through space in all directions. Some of them strike Earth or other planets, and ones that strike a digital camera detector can leave little tracks or splotches like those seen in these images. Because they come from all directions, some strike the detector face-on, and others strike at glancing angles. Some even skip across the detector like flat rocks skipped across a pond. These are very common phenomena to astronomers used to working with sensitive digital cameras like those in the Mars rovers, the Hubble Space Telescope, or other space probes, and while they can be a nuisance when taking pictures, they generally do not cause any lasting damage to the cameras. Three of the streaks in the image, including one spanning most of the distance from the left edge of the frame to the center, might be meteor trails or could be the marks of other cosmic rays.
While hunting for meteors on Mars is fun, ultimately the team wants to use the images and results for scientific purposes. These include helping to validate the models and predictions for interplanetary meteor storms, providing information on the rate of impacts of small meteoroids with Mars for comparison with rates for the Earth and Moon, assessing the rate and intensity of cosmic ray impact events in the Martian environment, and looking at whether some bright stars are being dimmed occasionally by water ice or dust clouds occurring at night during different Martian seasons.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Texas A&M/SSI
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Meteor Search by Spirit, Sol 668 (Labeled)
The panoramic cameras on NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers are about as sensitive as the human eye at night. The cameras can see the same bright stars that we can see from Earth, and the same patterns of constellations dot the night sky. Scientists on the rover team have been taking images of some of these bright stars as part of several different projects. One project is designed to try to capture "shooting stars," or meteors, in the martian night sky. "Meteoroids" are small pieces of comets and asteroids that travel through space and eventually run into a planet. On Earth, we can sometimes see meteoroids become brilliant, long "meteors" streaking across the night sky as they burn up from the friction in our atmosphere. Some of these meteors survive their fiery flight and land on the surface (or in the ocean) where, if found, they are called "meteorites." The same thing happens in the martian atmosphere, and Spirit even accidentally discovered a meteor while attempting to obtain images of Earth in the pre-dawn sky back in March, 2004 (see http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spirit/20040311a.html, and Selsis et al. (2005) Nature, vol 435, p. 581). On Earth, some meteors come in "storms" or "showers" at predictable times of the year, like the famous Perseid meteor shower in August or the Leonid meteor shower in November. These "storms" happen when Earth passes through the same parts of space where comets sometimes pass. The meteors we see at these times are from leftover debris that was shed off of these comets.
The same kind of thing is predicted for Mars, as well. Inspired by calculations about Martian meteor storms by meteor scientists from the University of Western Ontario in Canada and the Centre de Recherche en Astrophysique de Lyon in France, and also aided by other meteor research colleagues from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, scientists on the rover team planned some observations to try to detect predicted meteor storms in October and November, 2005. The views shown here are a composite of nine 60-second exposures taken with the panoramic camera on Spirit during night hours of sol 668 (Nov. 18, 2005), during a week when Mars was predicted to pass through a meteor stream associated with Halley's comet. The south celestial pole is at the center of the frame. Many stars can be seen in the images, appearing as short, curved streaks forming arcs around the center point. The star trails are curved because Mars is rotating while the camera takes the images. The brightest stars in this view would be easily visible to the naked eye, but the faintest ones are slightly dimmer than the human eye can detect.
In addition to the star trails, there are several smaller linear streaks, dots and splotches that are the trails left by cosmic rays hitting the camera detectors. Cosmic rays are high-energy particles that are created in the Sun and in other stars throughout our galaxy and travel through space in all directions. Some of them strike Earth or other planets, and ones that strike a digital camera detector can leave little tracks or splotches like those seen in these images. Because they come from all directions, some strike the detector face-on, and others strike at glancing angles. Some even skip across the detector like flat rocks skipped across a pond. These are very common phenomena to astronomers used to working with sensitive digital cameras like those in the Mars rovers, the Hubble Space Telescope, or other space probes, and while they can be a nuisance when taking pictures, they generally do not cause any lasting damage to the cameras. Three of the streaks in the image, including one spanning most of the distance from the left edge of the frame to the center, might be meteor trails or could be the marks of other cosmic rays.
While hunting for meteors on Mars is fun, ultimately the team wants to use the images and results for scientific purposes. These include helping to validate the models and predictions for interplanetary meteor storms, providing information on the rate of impacts of small meteoroids with Mars for comparison with rates for the Earth and Moon, assessing the rate and intensity of cosmic ray impact events in the Martian environment, and looking at whether some bright stars are being dimmed occasionally by water ice or dust clouds occurring at night during different Martian seasons.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Texas A&M/SSI
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Spirit Movie of Phobos Eclipse, Sol 675
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit observed the Martian moon Phobos entering the shadow of Mars during the night of the rover's 675th sol (Nov. 27, 2005). The panoramic camera captured 16 images, spaced 10 seconds apart, covering the period from when Phobos was in full sunlight to when it was entirely in shadow. As with our own Moon during lunar eclipses on Earth, even when in the planet's shadow, Phobos was not entirely dark. The small amount of light still visible from Phobos is a kind of "Mars-shine" -- sunlight reflected through Mars' atmosphere and into the shadowed region.
This clip is a sequence of the 16 images showing the eclipse at about 10 times normal speed. It shows the movement of Phobos from left to right as the moon enters the shadow. Scientists are using information about the precise timing of Martian moon eclipses gained from observations such as these to refine calculations about the orbital path of Phobos. The precise position of Phobos will be important to any future spacecraft taking detailed pictures of the moon or landing on its surface.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Texas A&M/SSI
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Spirit View of Phobos Eclipse, Sol 675
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit observed the Martian moon Phobos entering the shadow of Mars during the night of the rover's 675th sol (Nov. 27, 2005). The panoramic camera captured 16 images, spaced 10 seconds apart, covering the period from when Phobos was in full sunlight to when it was entirely in shadow. As with our own Moon during lunar eclipses on Earth, even when in the planet's shadow, Phobos was not entirely dark. The small amount of light still visible from Phobos is a kind of "Mars-shine" -- sunlight reflected through Mars' atmosphere and into the shadowed region.
This view is a time-lapse composite of images taken 20 seconds apart, showing the movement of Phobos from left to right. (At 10 seconds apart, the images of the moon overlap each other.) Scientists are using information about the precise timing of Martian moon eclipses gained from observations such as these to refine calculations about the orbital path of Phobos. The precise position of Phobos will be important to any future spacecraft taking detailed pictures of the moon or landing on its surface.
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Solar Power on Mars
This chart illustrates the variation in available solar power for each of NASA's twin Mars Exploration Rovers over the course of approximately two Mars years. Two factors affect the amount of available power: the tilt of Mars' axis and the eccentricity of the Mars' orbit about the sun.
The horizontal scale is the number of Martian days (sols) after the Jan. 4, 2004, (Universal Time) landing of Spirit at Mars' Gusev Crater. The vertical scale on the right indicates the amount of available solar power as a ratio of the amount available at the equator when Mars is closest to the sun (perihelion). The red line indicates power availablity at Spirit's landing site (Gusev). The blue line indicates power availability at Opportunity's landing site (Meridiani).
The vertical scale on the right applies to the dotted line, indicating the latitude north or south of Mars' equator where the noon sun is overhead at different times of the Martian year.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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