Of course the day after I’m all “hurr hurr no panoramas from Curiosity anytime soon!” the JPL releases a friggin’ colour panorama stitched together from the mast shots from Curiosity. Still lovely, even if it makes me look ignorant.
At most, there are three people that actually see the posts on my tumblr regularly. I post this for your edification.
This gorgeous panorama of Mars, which you may have already seen, is not from friggin’ Curiosity. It’s from Opportunity. Opportunity landed on Mars January 25, 2004, and was to complete its mission in 90 earth days (Sols). It’s still trucking along 3,118 days later. While Curiosity is a very important and super badass little piece of science, it has only sent back a few pictures so far as it continues along its process of starting up its mission. The Opportunity panorama is made up of 817 false-coloured images that it took over the course of five months while it chilled out on the rim of Endeavour Crater. Curiosity won’t be taking any panoramas for a little while yet.
In case you’d like to see the pictures Curiosity has actually sent back so far, this is where you’ll find the archive.
Another rover on Mars, nbd.
The Canadian Space Agency once again has cool shit in far away places. This time it’s the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) on board Curiosity, which will be used to determine the chemical composition of rocks and soil on Mars.
This will be me in T-20 Days
I so look forward to travelling with you and your giant, tampon-filled suitcases.
(Source: jennnamarbles)
