Courtesy NASA.

These are the first two full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA’s Curiosity rover, which are located on the rover’s “head” or mast. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground.

The topography of the rim is very mountainous due to erosion. The ground seen in the middle shows low-relief scarps and plains. The foreground shows two distinct zones of excavation likely carved out by blasts from the rover’s descent stage thrusters.

It’s 2012, where’s the colour?

looks pretty bleak

Bubble Car said:

These are the first two full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA’s Curiosity rover, which are located on the rover’s “head” or mast. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground.

Looks suspiciously like Nevada.

wouldn’t want to be out in that without the thermals.

This is only two frames from what will be a 360 degree panorama, once they stitch it all together. Missing in this view is the central mountain.

I just nicked the pic for Bill’s thread at Other Forum. Car, you must have ESP!

knawesome

Skunkworks said:

Bubble Car said:

These are the first two full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA’s Curiosity rover, which are located on the rover’s “head” or mast. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground.

Looks suspiciously like Nevada.

…looks out back door…

Looks like New Mexico :/

kii said:

Skunkworks said:

Bubble Car said:

These are the first two full-resolution images of the Martian surface from the Navigation cameras on NASA’s Curiosity rover, which are located on the rover’s “head” or mast. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen in the distance beyond the pebbly ground.

Looks suspiciously like Nevada.

…looks out back door…

Looks like New Mexico :/

methinks you have been away from home too long..

If you hold down the left mouse button in the picture you can rotate it through 360, very cool.
I’m still gobsmacked that they got the thing there though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19296006

Peak Warming Man said:

If you hold down the left mouse button in the picture you can rotate it through 360, very cool.
I’m still gobsmacked that they got the thing there though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19296006

Ta Peak, that’s lubly. Very 3D.

PASADENA, Calif. – Today, NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity fired its laser for the first time on Mars, using the beam from a science instrument to interrogate a fist-size rock called “Coronation.”
The mission’s Chemistry and Camera instrument, or ChemCam, hit the fist-sized rock with 30 pulses of its laser during a 10-second period. Each pulse delivers more than a million watts of power for about five one-billionths of a second.

The energy from the laser excites atoms in the rock into an ionized, glowing plasma. ChemCam catches the light from that spark with a telescope and analyzes it with three spectrometers for information about what elements are in the target.

“We got a great spectrum of Coronation — lots of signal,” said ChemCam Principal Investigator Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M. “Our team is both thrilled and working hard, looking at the results. After eight years building the instrument, it’s payoff time!”
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Good to see a rover with some real grunt electricity not gay piss weak solar nanoelectricity, it’s got proper nuclear electricity righ on board that will last almost to infinity or 14 years which ever comes first,

You know, when you use words like “interrogate”, “excite” and “million watts of power”, it sounds much more interesting that “shoot a rock to find out stuff”.

>Each pulse delivers more than a million watts of power for about five one-billionths of a second.

Why is it so bloody hard to gives these figures as energy, say a nice SI unit like Joules.

OK, 5 millijoules doesn’t sound that impressive :)

There was an interesting twitter conversation between that rock and NASA ;)

Show more more Bear!

Gosh, they’ll let anyone have Twitter account these days.

Divine Angel said:

Gosh, they’ll let anyone have Twitter account these days.

That must make me unique.

Wonderful.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=150865751