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Presence Examples Two stories on photos from the
Mars Rover;
for more Mars photos, see http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/
From The Oakland (CA) Tribune Wednesday, January 07, 2004 Rover's first colored
photograph from Mars is 'spectacular' By Thomas H. Maugh II
and Charles Piller, Los Angeles Times NASA's Spirit rover has
sent back the clearest, sharpest picture ever taken on the surface of
another planet, a "spectacular" postcard from Mars that is two to three
times as sharp as similar photographs from the earlier Viking and
Pathfinder missions. The photo shows only
about one-eighth of the Gusev Crater region around the lander, but it is
already providing researchers with a great deal more information than
the black- and-white images returned a day earlier. The image "is
spectacular, but this is not the best this camera can do," said James
Bell of Cornell University, who was in charge of the camera's
development. The panoramic camera
will provide high-definition pictures equivalent to those seen now on
high-priced television sets and will provide 3-D images. "If you were a human
with 20/20 vision standing on Mars, this is what you would see," he
said.
From CTV News NASA shows off full
colour image from Mars CTV.ca News Staff The NASA Mars team is
proudly showing off the first full colour image sent home by its busy
little Spirit rover. The picture is the highest-resolution photo ever
taken on the planet's surface. The image of the
planet's barren, rock-strewn landscape is a mosaic of 12 separate
pictures shot by Spirit's panoramic camera, or Pancam. It covers a
45-degree field of view of the terrain where Spirit made its flawless
landing late Saturday. The image presented
Tuesday makes up just one-eighth of a sweeping full panorama that Spirit
continues to shoot. The full shot should be transmitted to Earth over
the next week. Jim Bell, the NASA team
member they call "the guy with the cool camera," narrated the postcard
slide show for reporters Tuesday. Pointing out the features of the
terrain around the rover, Bell says the pictures are already raising new
questions for scientists, such as why they're not seeing as many giant
boulders as they have in previous missions. The spectacular images
are being made possible in part by Canadian technology. Imaging sensors
in Spirit's nine cameras are made by DALSA Corporation, headquartered in
Waterloo, Ontario. Workers in DALSA's
Bromont, Que., plant manufactured the sensors, called charge-coupled
devices, for NASA in 2000. The image sensors are
high-end versions of the same chip used in consumer digital cameras. The
plant sent NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory 624 CCDs, and the space
agency carried out extensive tests to choose the final 18 CCD arrays -
one each for the cameras on each rover. Now the images Spirit is
sending will is allow scientists to map out where the rover will go
next. "It was very, very cool
to see those images. Everybody should be proud here," DALSA's Raymond
Frost told CTV News. On Monday, NASA unveiled
a three-dimensional panoramic view of Mars created by patching together
black-and-white images the rover has been transmitting since it landed. The image, seen to full
effect through red and green "3-D glasses," reveal a flat surface
peppered with small and medium-sized rocks surrounding Spirit. Spirit began sending
home snapshots of its rocky environs just hours after landing over the
weekend. Those first images included the airbags, a sun dial on the
rover as well as portions of the craft. Over the next 10 days,
the rover will prepare to begin moving around the Red Planet as it
transforms from photographer to robotic geologist, testing the
composition of Mars. The rovers will then spend 90 days analyzing
Martian rocks and soil for clues that could reveal whether the planet
was ever capable of sustaining life. NASA built the rovers in
the $820-million project to prospect for evidence that liquid water -- a
necessary ingredient for life -- once persisted on the surface of the
planet. A second rover,
Opportunity, launched in July, is expected to land on the other side of
the Red Planet on Jan. 24. Spirit is the fourth
spacecraft to arrive successfully on Mars. Twenty other spacecraft from
various nations have failed. The European Space Agency is still searching for their Beagle Two probe that was supposed to parachute onto Mars on Christmas Day. It never sent a signal to confirm a safe landing.
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