 |
Mars Lander Spots Robby Driving In Distance
NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander sent back some great pictures of what NASA is describing as "dust devils,", miniature whirlwinds that move across the arctic plain.
(Martian whirlwind Phoenix Mars Lander)
At least six different dust devils appear in the images, some of them in more than one image. They range in diameter from about 2 meters (7 feet) to about 5 meters (16 feet).“It will be very interesting to watch over the next days and weeks to see if there are lots of dust devils or if this was an isolated event,” Lemmon said.
The Phoenix team is not worried about any damage to the spacecraft from these swirling winds. “With the thin atmosphere on Mars, the wind loads we might experience from dust devil winds are well within the design of the vehicle,” said Ed Sedivy, Phoenix program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, Denver, which made the spacecraft. “The lander is very rigid with the exception of the solar arrays, which once deployed, latched into position and became a tension structure.”
Phoenix monitors air pressure every day, and on the same day the camera saw dust devils, the pressure meter recorded a sharper dip than ever before. The change was still less than the daily change in air pressure from daytime to nighttime, but over a much shorter time.
“Throughout the mission, we have been detecting vortex structures that lower the pressure for 20 to 30 seconds during the middle part of the day,” said Peter Taylor of York University, Toronto, Canada, a member of the Phoenix science team. “In the last few weeks, we’ve seen the intensity increasing, and now these vortices appear to have become strong enough to pick up dust.”
However, I've been taking a closer look at these photographs, and I believe I can see a rotund robot driving a utility vehicle in the distance. Start the following video at about 1:35 to see what I mean. Turn the sound off, though; someone added a voice-over for Robby that is not particularly good or useful.
(Dust devils in the distance)
Via NASA’s Phoenix Lander Sees, Feels Martian Whirlwinds in Action.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 9/14/2008)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Space Tech ")
Elon Musk Tweets Versions Of Clarke's Operation Cleanup
'Fortunately, the old orbital forts were superbly equipped for this task.' - Arthur C. Clarke, 1978.
Espresso Telescope Searches For Exoplanets
'These instruments were the wonderful ones our astronomers had perfected.' - Edmond Hamilton, 1936.
Manned Maneuvering Unit From 1984
'The glittering little rocket bolted to the black iron behind him.' - Jack Williamson, 1933.
Astronaut Gets Younger In Space
'So what we're looking for now is not an antibiotic - an anti-life drug - but an anti-agathic, an anti-death drug...' - James Blish, 1957.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Current News
IBM's Grain Of Sand Computer
'Our ancestors... thought to make the very sand beneath their feet intelligent...'
Liquid Metal Shape-Changing 'Soft Robotics'
'A mimetic poly-alloy... 'What the hell does that mean?''
The Hammock Caravan And Italo Calvino's Octavia
'Now I will tell you how Octavia, the spider-web city, is made.'
Super-Resolution Microscopy Provides '4D' Views
View the magnified interior of living cells.
Have I Seen The Tesla Roadster Story Before?
'Only it wasn't a vessel. It was an automobile...'
Watch 'Do You Trust This Computer' For Free Today
Thanks for making this available, Elon.
Self-Driving Car Ticketed
This just missed making my day.
Elon Musk Tweets Versions Of Clarke's Operation Cleanup
'Fortunately, the old orbital forts were superbly equipped for this task.'
Burner Generates Temporary Phone Numbers
'Interesting phone system he's got, by the way...'
Walmart’s Autonomous Robot Bees
Everyone loves bees.
EA Created AI That Taught Itself To Play Battlefield
Harmless fun for computer scientists.
Is Teleportation A Death Sentence?
'A long trail of dead, he thought, left across the stars...'
New Brain Scanner Lets You Move Around
'In Bob Arctor's living room his thousand dollar custom-quality cephscope crafted by Altec...'
Can An Entire Brain Be Simulated In A Computer?
'The miles of relays and photocells had given way to the spongy globe of platinum iridium about the size of the human brain.'
Physicists Try To Turn Light Into Matter
If E=mc squared, then... m=E/c squared!
Save Your Brain's Connectome, Upload Yourself Elsewhere
'You've got remote storage. How regular is the update?'
