Starship Asterisk*

All,
The history of criticism and cynicism about shadows in space exploration pics is shameful - eg Apollo - and I enjoy this simulated pic of a Mars Rover on its ground, but ......

The shadow of the Rover is shown as diffuse. Shadows in real pics are sharp. Is this supposed to be during a dust storm?

I know, picky-picky, it's only a simulated pic etc.

What do you think?

John

well, for the purposes of showing the rover to scale with the landscape, yes that is a little picky :p

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/mer/2005 ... 23-540.gif

I see what you mean though.
I expect the main reason is that diffuse shadows are easier to draw onto the existing image.

Hmmm.. difficult to say - Mars has quite a dusty atmosphere, and looking at the 'photo' it looks as though it's being simulated late evening/early morning - more dust to go through - less sharper shadow (the pictures in the link above look like the sun's almost directly overhead...).

Anyway, still 8)

Midday on Mars is about as bright as approaching twilight on Earth.

I was looking more at the angle of the shadow - but that's something I forgot of course....

The angle of the shadows indicate a low Sun angle and there is not enough atmosphere under the electric panels to diffuse the light. I wish I had the ability to draw that good............