J. P. Major's Open Salon Blog

An MSL Panorama from Gale Crater

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:08:02 -0400

Panorama of 5 images from Curiosity’s left Mastcam (NASA/JPL-Caltech/J. Major)

Here’s a panoramic view of the mountainous rim of Gale Crater, as seen by Curiosity’s left Mastcam on 8/9/2012. The image is assembled from 5 raw subsampled images.

Gale Crater is about 96 miles (154 km) wide and estimated to be around 3.8 billion years old.

Want to see more of this view? Click here, and see the latest images from the MSL mission here.

Tagged: Curiosity, Gale Crater, Mars, MSL, NASA, panorama, rover

Flying Saucers Over Mars!

Thu, 9 Aug 2012 00:08:40 -0400

Curiosity’s heat shield falls away to the Martian surface

It might not be a UFO per se but it’s definitely a flying disk from another planet — except in this case the other planet is Earth! This image, a high-resolution version of one sent back by Curiosity’s Mars Descent Imager on the morning of August 6, shows MSL’s heat shield falling away, allowing the radar to get a lock on the descent stage’s position and altitude. Hey, it IS a saucer and it WAS flying… at least for a little while, anyway!

Check out a video of the event:

MSL’s 4.5-meter-wide heat shield is the largest ever built for a planetary mission. What we’re seeing here is the insulated inner-facing portion of it, shining in the sunlight high over the surface above Gale crater.

A few seconds after the above image was taken, the shield can be seen much farther away:

And here’s a video of the event, compiled with low-resolution thumbnail images:

As the days go on Curiosity is sending back more high-res images… keep up with the latest downloads on the MSL site here.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Adjusted to enhance detail and contrast.

Tagged: Curiosity, flying saucer, heat shield, Mars, MSL, NASA, UFO

Heads Up, Curiosity!

Wed, 8 Aug 2012 10:08:30 -0400

Latest full-size image from Curiosity’s left navcam

This just in: the latest full-size image from Curiosity shows the rover’s shadow with its “head” extended…. hello, Curiosity!

The image above was taken with the rover’s left navcam, and also shows its branded plate and cool little Atari-esque “logo”. Awesome! You can see more raw images from Curiosity on the JPL site here.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech. (Adjusted to enhance contrast and sharpness.)

Tagged: Curiosity, JPL, Mars, MSL, NASA, photography, rover

Dione in Color

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 19:07:56 -0400

Although made mostly of ice and rock, Saturn’s moon Dione (pronounced DEE-oh-nee) does have some color to it — although mostly chilly hues of steel blue, as seen in this color-composite made from raw images acquired by Cassini on July 23.

700 miles (1120 km) wide, Dione is covered pole-to-pole in craters and crisscrossed by long, bright regions of “wispy line” terrain — the reflective faces of sheer cliffs and scarps that are too steep for darker material (from Saturn’s E ring) to rest upon.

Dione’s heavily cratered areas are most common on the trailing hemisphere. Logically, a moon’s leading hemisphere should be the more heavily cratered, so it has been theorized that a more recent impact spun Dione around.

See more images of Dione’s surface here, taken during a very close pass on Sept. 4, 2010.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. Composite by Jason Major.

Tagged: astronomy, Cassini, Dione, ice, moon, science, solar system

Titan's High-Level Haze

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 19:07:26 -0400

Lights In The Dark posted a photo:

Cassini's view through the upper-level haze of Titan, composited from images acquired in green, blue and ultraviolet and then readjusted to approximate the "true" blue coloration of the clouds. (NASA/JPL/SSI. Composite by Jason Major.)