4-Billion-Pixel Panorama From Curiosity Rover Brings Mars to Your Computer Screen

[al mcguire]

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/03/4-billion-pixel-mars-panorama/

[Soundwil]

Fantastic, thanks for sharing.

[VASI]

99% from humanity try to find something on the rocks. Including me. Hahahaha

No one look the Curiosity.

 

Is this not fantastic to have this quality picture from other planet? Is it..

Thank you Al! Fantastic!

 

[pindrop]

http://curiositywatch.com/sounds-from-mars-why-curiosity-has-no-microphone/

There have been at least two attempts to capture Mars sounds, but unfortunately both failed. NASA’s Mars Polar Lander carried a microphone but lost contact to Earth during it’s descent to Mars in 1999.[ref]More on Mars Polar Lander communication loss: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Polar_Lander#Communications_loss[/ref]

Phoenix, another NASA spacecraft, landed successfully in 2008 but the instrument carrying the microphone was not activated due to a computer card failure.[ref]Here’s a detailed explanation why Phoenix MARDI was not used http://www.msss.com/msl/mardi/news/12Nov07/index.html[/ref]

So what about Curiosity? Unfortunately, there’s no microphone on board this trip. Yes, that’s true: NASA planned a rover mission that costs US$ 2.5 billion and did not include a simple mic.

Scientific objectives and payload constraints

So why’s there no mic on board? That’s mainly because MSL is a scientific mission and has a clearly defined objective:

The overall scientific goal of the mission is to explore and quantitatively assess a local region on Mars’ surface as a potential habitat for life, past or present.[ref]MSL science goals:

http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov/ScienceGoals/

[/ref]

Hence, every instrument has to work toward the overall scientific goal. Maybe there have been discussions about including a microphone in the early planning stages but the team decided that a mic would not reveal new facts about Mars’s habitability.

Also, spaceflight is extremely expensive and every extra gram costs money, so you only bring the things you really need.