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posted by
cmn32480
on Thursday August 20 2015, @04:48PM
from the 50%-beyond-designed-mission-spec-is-excellent dept.
from the 50%-beyond-designed-mission-spec-is-excellent dept.
It's been three years since NASA's Curiosity rover, carrying the Mars Science Laboratory, made its bold skycrane-assisted landing on the surface of Mars.
Since then the rover has progressed across a wealth of varied and fascinating terrain. The southward looking panorama here has been stitched together from images taken back in April 2015 with the rover cameras - on Martian days (or sols) 952 and 953 after landing (a solar day on Mars is 24 hours and 39 minutes).
A series of beautiful views for Mars fans. The original file can be found in this 70MB jpg. And the original Press Release from NASA is also available.
The land forms are reminiscent of the Painted Desert in shape, if not in coloring.
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Three Years into its Mission, Curiosity's Stunning Martian Panorama
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(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday August 20 2015, @05:37PM
There is no water on Mars though.
I'm not some fancy space geologist but when you prowled Wikipedia you should have kept going. There is water on Mars. There is water at the polar caps in the form of ice, also available subsurface elsewhere, and there is water in the form of vapor in the air. Judging from data there have been free flowing water, even large river systems, on Mars previously. Rocks and boulders don't just form over night. So even if the water was all gone now, which it isn't, the rocks would still remain. At least that is how I understand it but I guess I could be wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @07:30PM
So you think that they think the rocks formed the same way as on earth except billions of years ago? Also, I guess maybe those rocks are basalt rather than sedimentary, which is formed from lava (I know nothing of geology). I don't get how it would form those shapes. Id expect something flatter like: http://mentallandscape.com/C_Venera_Perspective.jpg [mentallandscape.com]