APOD: Little Planet Curiosity (2015 Aug 22)

[APOD Robot]

Little Planet Curiosity

Explanation: A curious robot almost completely straddles this rocky little planet. Of course, the planet is really Mars and the robot is the car-sized Curiosity Rover, posing over its recent drilling target in the Marias Pass area of lower Mount Sharp. The 92 images used to assemble the little planet projection, a digitally warped and stitched mosaic covering 360x180 degrees, were taken by the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the Curiosity mission sol (martian day) 1065. That corresponds to 2015 August 5, three Earth years since Curiosity landed on the surface of the Red Planet. The composite selfie excludes images that show the rover's robotic arm and mount of the MAHLI camera itself, but their shadow is visible beneath. Check out this spectacular interactive version of Curiosity's sol 1065 panorama.

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[bystander]

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?p=247173#p247173

[RedFishBlueFish]

Thanks to Saint-Exupéry for the whimsy, to Ptolemy^(*) for the projection and to Bodrov for this wonderfully expressive image.

_{---------------------}
^{*) Sic. Yes, scio. Please protervos non ostendant. Life is too short, just go with it}

[RedFishBlueFish]

Same silly stupid crap as always. What is it with you people and you fascination with photos that are useless?
With all the new and wonderful photos taken recently, you put up junk like this.

The usual APOD I share with fewer than half-a-dozen people, this one I shared with several dozen.

I shared it with so many, because it speaks to the wonder and *curiosity* of science. Many people have the unflattering view that science is a grim and soulless enterprise. Images such as this can help in dispelling that negative view.

One might speculate that SameAsAlways would have found both the "Blue Marble" and "Pale Blue Dot" images just the "same silly crap as always" and been dismissive of them as well.

In the end, science is a cooperative enterprise which is supported by society at large - a society which is increasingly less engaged with, and less willing to spend money and resources to support science.

This is a wonderful image, one which speaks to many people.


I am sorry if it does not speak to you.

[hoohaw]

IF I recall correctly, Mars is in fact really quite a small planet: its entire surface area is (pretty closely) equal to the total LAND area of our planet Earth (i.e. oceans excluded — and oceans make up most of planet Earth's area). And our own Moon has a total area pretty closely equal to that of Africa.

[BobStein-VisiBone]

So just tallying up here, the benefits to society of the lunar missions were Teflon, CAT scans, ICs, LEDs, and solar energy.

And the Mars missions have given us the selfie stick.

[neufer]

So just tallying up here, the benefits to society of the lunar missions were Teflon, CAT scans, ICs, LEDs, and solar energy.

And the Mars missions have given us the selfie stick.

<<Tang is a fruit-flavored drink. Originally formulated by General Foods Corporation food scientist William A. Mitchell in 1957, it was first marketed in powdered form in 1959. Sales of Tang were poor until NASA used it on John Glenn's Mercury flight, and subsequent Gemini missions. Since then, it was closely associated with the U.S. manned spaceflight program, leading to the misconception that Tang was invented for the space program. In 2013, Buzz Aldrin stated that "Tang sucks".>>

[neufer]

• Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé.
  • ("You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.")

---

<<After that, the little prince climbed a high mountain. "From a mountain as high as this one," he said to himself, "I shall be able to see the whole planet at one glance, and all the people..."

But he saw nothing, save peaks of rock that were sharpened like needles.

"Good morning," he said courteously.

"Good morning--Good morning--Good morning," answered the echo.

"Who are you?" said the little prince.

"Who are you--Who are you--Who are you?" answered the echo.

"Be my friends. I am all alone," he said.

"I am all alone--all alone--all alone," answered the echo.

"What a queer planet!" he thought. "It is altogether dry, and altogether pointed, and altogether harsh and forbidding. And the people have no imagination. They repeat whatever one says to them... On my planet I had a flower; she always was the first to speak...">>

[Beyond]

So just tallying up here, the benefits to society of the lunar missions were Teflon, CAT scans, ICs, LEDs, and solar energy.

And the Mars missions have given us the selfie stick.

<<Tang is a fruit-flavored drink. Originally formulated by General Foods Corporation food scientist William A. Mitchell in 1957, it was first marketed in powdered form in 1959. Sales of Tang were poor until NASA used it on John Glenn's Mercury flight, and subsequent Gemini missions. Since then, it was closely associated with the U.S. manned spaceflight program, leading to the misconception that Tang was invented for the space program. In 2013, Buzz Aldrin stated that "Tang sucks".>>

I agreed with Buzz, about 50 years earlier.

[BobStein-VisiBone]

...the benefits to society of the lunar missions...

<<Tang ... was ... used ... on John Glenn's Mercury flight ... Buzz Aldrin stated that "Tang sucks".

I agreed with Buzz...

Zactly what I'm talking about. What beverage did the rovers give us that nobody likes? We need to fund a manned mission to Mars today that will popularize some drink that's new and weird.

[BMAONE23]

Same silly stupid crap as always. What is it with you people and you fascination with photos that are useless?
With all the new and wonderful photos taken recently, you put up junk like this.

If this is truly the way you find MOST APOD's to be, why waste your time here???, you can always visit other websites instead, the WEB goes everywhere but North Korea

What a truly wonderful image of this Curious little rover.

Red Rover, Red Rover, It's MARS you Lord Over


There once was a little rover
that chose not to run over clover
So it went off to Mars
where there were no other cars
and it had the whole planet to lord over

[Boomer12k]

The little rover that could....and has....

:---[===] *

[paragkulkarni]

panorama just superb.
wow that milky way and its expanse !

[pp18342]

The shadow looks like the Russian Hammer ans Sickle......Helloooow

[DavidLeodis]

In the information brought up through the "posing over its recent drilling target" it states "Two patches of pale, powdered rock material pulled from inside Buckskin are visible in this scene, in front of the rover", which answered one query I had about the image. My other query is that I suspect that the bright object to the right is the Sun, but I wonder if I am correct?

Edit added some time after posting. I've just noticed that on the image it gives the date "Sol 1065 (August 4 2015)" but the explanation states Sol 1065 "corresponds to 2015 August 5" so I'm now confused!

[BMAONE23]

The length of the day on Mars is 24h-40m and is referred to as a Sol. Any given Mars Sol will always occur across 2 Earth days. Either date could be correct so granted the image could only have been taken on a single Mars day, SOL 1065 does correspond to Aug 4-5 2015. So, unless the series of images used to create the mosaic were taken across midnight Earth time only one date should apply

[Yup]

So just tallying up here, the benefits to society of the lunar missions were Teflon, CAT scans, ICs, LEDs, and solar energy.

And the Mars missions have given us the selfie stick.

<<Tang is a fruit-flavored drink. Originally formulated by General Foods Corporation food scientist William A. Mitchell in 1957, it was first marketed in powdered form in 1959. Sales of Tang were poor until NASA used it on John Glenn's Mercury flight, and subsequent Gemini missions. Since then, it was closely associated with the U.S. manned spaceflight program, leading to the misconception that Tang was invented for the space program. In 2013, Buzz Aldrin stated that "Tang sucks".>>

Hey! Don't forget about "Space Food Sticks" http://www.spacefoodsticks.com/history.html