Perseverance To Set Down On Mars This Week

[YellowSubmarine]

It's certainly incredible. One of a kind.

We have several pictures of human-made objects on other planets (that is, Mars) – some of the Sojourner rover (nice to have a photographed now-landmark named after Sojourner Truth on Mars), the landers of previous rovers including the Challenger Memorial Station, and a selfie that should probably count, but that's the first and only one showing an actual landing on another planet, the only photograph of an airborne man-made object on Mars (hope we get photos of the helicopter), and the first external photograph of a large-scale rover (hope the helicopter gets us proper photos from a proper angle of the rover too).

It's probably the most unusual thing in a photo after the Titan surface photo, and the most inspirational after the early photographs of the outer solar system, including Neptune and Triton.

Hope Elon Musk changes that with his Mars/BFR effort, before he powers up the death ray and kills us all that is. The robots may beat him to it, though.

 

[XCV330]

https://www.facebook.com/StarTrekRocksMyWorld/photos/a.300921226745209/1576740212496631/

 

[Non Sync]

NASA has released video of the landing showing parachute deployment, heat shield separation, sky-crane lowering Perseverance, and touchdown.

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[Dukhat]

NASA has released video of the landing showing parachute deployment, heat shield separation, sky-crane lowering Perseverance, and touchdown.

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Simply fantastic.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

And first video ever from anywhere outside of the Moon's orbit?

Not technically the first, because even the photo montage from the landing on 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko does qualify as a video (for the same reasons this was the first video in human history ever recorded, by a person who wasn't aware they were recording a video), but you know what I mean.

Mars just became alive for a moment.

 

[XCV330]

And first video ever from anywhere outside of the Moon's orbit?

Not technically the first, because even the photo montage from the landing on 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko does qualify as a video (for the same reasons this was the first video in human history ever recorded, by a person who wasn't aware they were recording a video), but you know what I mean.

Mars just became alive for a moment.

Deep Space 2/Mars polar lander was supposed to have a microphone but the landing failed and data never came back so this is the first sounds from Mars I think although there are sounds from Titan from the Huygens probe

 

[Non Sync]

Here's a NASA link to a couple of sound clips from Mars.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

How many frames per second are required to distinguish between a series of still images and a video?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

And a helicopter ....

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How cool is this when this baby takes off?

 

[YellowSubmarine]

How many frames per second are required to distinguish between a series of still images and a video?

I'd say the factor for me is the ability to see objects (and man-made in this case) moving on another planet, smoothly and in real time. The frames per second would be immaterial if you were simply recording yourself approaching (as with the comet photographs), as you could simply say it is a time warped video.

Nevertheless, we've already seen dust devils moving, and even the montage of a half a dozen of photographs taken at intervals that would never qualify as video, it still gives you enough of a sense that you can see the dust devil in action. Now we simply exceeded that in a significant way.

I don't know how many videos can and will Perserverance return (I suspect a lot of that bandwidth is reserved for scientific data, not indulgence of the general public), but I'm stoked. If there's this one, there would be more to come.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Photos taken by the Rangers sent to impact the Moon in 1964-65 were rendered as movies perhaps they were the first.
Ranger Spacecraft Impact on Moon - YouTube
Ranger 7 'Meets' the Moon - YouTube

Outside the Moon's orbit, possibly the Voyager 1 and 2 approaches to Jupiter in 1979. Nothing in delayed real-time of course due to bandwidth limitations. Only now are we getting close to having streamable video from the distance of Mars.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Setting image turret to stun and link turrent to kill.

So, since I have problems with orientation and recognizing things (apparently), I mapped some objects on the Perseverance video, panorama, LRO photos and maps, and I added a legend to them.

0. Perseverance
1. Jezero Crater rim
2. Jezero Crater rim (other side of riverbed)
3. Delta's edge / hills
4. (Parachute)
5. (Descent stage)
6. (Heat shield)

7. Small feature / crater that rover was seeming to be headed into on the live video, but didn't
8. Same thing on the opposite (East) side of the etched airfall
9. Protrusion on the lower etched airfall

10. Riverbed?

(Features outside the image have angle brackets; I sometimes marked the feature with a dot and wrote the number next to it, or used an arrow; features on the panorama are guessed, wrong and only meaningful horizontally)

I. LRO photograph from orbit of the landing site post-landing (large resolution here, original)

II. Map of the geological features around the landing site (large resolution, original). Here, the numbers 7 and 8 are above the feature, so it is visible.

III. Relief map with the landing target circle and landing spot. (large resolution, original) Here, the numbers 7 and 8 are above the feature, so it is visible.

IV. Shots from the landing video (probably not in order)

V. The high-def panorama (medium res with the legend, interactive panorama, interactive high res image on NASA, crop of the crater edge and raw image that crashes your computer)

VI. Also one random one, because I'm one link short of a free sub:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:605555-PIA15097-JezeroCrater-Delta.jpg


I think none of the parachute, descent stage or heat shield are visible in the panorama. If they are, they aren't in the spots where I indicated. There's a shiny object in the approximate vicinity of the parachute (4), but it is way way far south, so I believe it is just rocks. The shiny object (on the interactive panorama) is to the left of the hill between (1) and (10), and right atop of the terrain.

The hill in question is the lone blue blob of the neretva lacustrine deltaic fan deposit that's near the lower etched airfall on the geological map, there's something “shiny” just south of it on the geological map too. (Obviously, the shininess is unrelated, but could be the same object)

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

When do they launch the helicopter / drone?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

When do they launch the helicopter / drone?

I suggest bookmarking this page:
Mars Helicopter - NASA Mars

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Just popping here to say that a video of a tiny helicopter crash on Mars would be a spectacular achievement.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I suggest bookmarking this page:
Mars Helicopter - NASA Mars

Done. This is going to be very cool.

Just popping here to say that a video of a tiny helicopter crash on Mars would be a spectacular achievement.

I hope not.

 

[publiusr]

That will be nice—and the rock hounds will have their rover...but the skycrane is what I fell in love with.

Now, they kept Curiousity away from it’s skycrane debris, but Percy needs to go have a look and see if any rocks may have split open and rolled away.

Mars news
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-scientists-seismic-martian-core.html
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-tianwen-zhurong-rover-evidence-latitudes.html
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-gene-edited-rice-survive-martian-soil.html
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-pave-mission-mars.html
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-uae-spacecraft-close-up-photos-mars.html

 

[Non Sync]

Just popping here to say that a video of a tiny helicopter crash on Mars would be a spectacular achievement.

Some Martian will probably file a complaint with NASA about their drone spying on them while sunbathing.

 

[Unicron]

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

90 seconds isn't a lot of flight time though is it?

I mean you can pop up look around and maybe scout a path further on but then you have to land again to recharge.