Mariner Mars 1964, Mariners 3 and 4 to Mars: imaging plans? |
Mariner Mars 1964, Mariners 3 and 4 to Mars: imaging plans? |
Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Jun 12 2006, 08:54 AM
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#61
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Guests |
There was certainly little mention of this at the time.
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Jun 12 2006, 10:21 AM
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#62
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2488 Joined: 17-April 05 From: Glasgow, Scotland, UK Member No.: 239 |
Note that despite the overwhelming impression of historical press coverage and post 1970 "historical" space reporting, Mariner 6 and 7 did see some of the "best" pieces.. Yes, certainly chaotic terrain was a discovery, and the polar cap images were good too - but it remains the case that the show-stoppers were all missed. What's really frustrating is the way that so many features were almost visible during the far encounter - and then Mars turned it's face away. Olympus Mons, Valles Marineris and the rest are all just visible, but were not understood. Phil Stooke and I have both got old globes of Mars which were based on Mariner 6 & 7 data (and earlier) and on these Olympus Mons is depicted as a giant double crater (the outer aureole was interpreted as a crater wall). Mariner 6 & 7 certainly saw many interesting features, but it was Mariner 9 which breached the floodgates. Bob Shaw -------------------- Remember: Time Flies like the wind - but Fruit Flies like bananas!
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Jun 12 2006, 11:52 AM
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#63
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
I think a lot of the reason was that the Tharsis area had long been thought of as the "boring" area - not many pronounced features visiblie in a telescope. The southern hemisphere had much more intricate features.
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Jun 12 2006, 12:18 PM
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#64
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
The famous August, 1970 issue of National Geographic Magazine discusses
Mars pre-Mariner 9. They make it very clear that - at least for the scientists they interviewed - Mars was a dull place, mainly craters and some rough terrain at best. Amazingly different talk from just a few years earlier, when most of them assumed Mars was enough like Earth to at least have simple life forms (lichen and such). Even the infamous canals were thought to at least be natural water channels. http://www.aliensonearth.com/catalog/detai...4219.html#image Here is an image of an old Mars globe with Mariner 6 and 7 photos pasted across it: http://beacon.jpl.nasa.gov/Histphotos/hpom/241-267.html -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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Jun 12 2006, 03:26 PM
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#65
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10184 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
Bruce said "There was certainly little mention of this at the time", but actually it was reported as early as the Mariner 6/7 Mission Report MR-6, dated 10/29/69, and in Science, vol. 166, 3 Oct. 1969, p. 62... chaotic terrain was well seen and described. The real problem was the high sun angle which made it harder to interpret. With hindsight small channels can be seen too (frame 6N16). But hindsight is the big help here. If you expect another moon that's what you see.
Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PD: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Oct 22 2007, 03:57 PM
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#66
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Member Group: Members Posts: 568 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Silesia Member No.: 299 |
Little bit of history.
Mariner IV - voyage through Earth's magnetosphere. For the first 16 2/3 hours of flight, the Mariner IV spacecraft was programmed to roll at a rate of about 1 revolution every 30 min. Since the magnetic field of the Earth was known, it was possible to correct the magnetometer data for any bias caused by the small remnant field of the spacecraft itself. The roll calibration insured that later data taken from the instrument in the very small field of interplanetary space could be assigned absolute values. Source : Mariner 4 Master Data Records Tape : K-0141 5400 frames extracted Transmision rate - 33 1/3 bps Time period: 28 november 15:20 - 29 november 10:10, year 1964 Averaging - 12,6 sec per pixel (4 measurements from 1 frame) Z - axis top X - axis middle Y - axis bottom -------------------- Free software for planetary science (including Cassini Image Viewer).
http://members.tripod.com/petermasek/marinerall.html |
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Nov 6 2007, 09:34 PM
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#67
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Member Group: Members Posts: 568 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Silesia Member No.: 299 |
Little bit of history.
Mariner IV - significant proton event February 5, 1965 The class 2 solar flare of February 5 started at 17:50 U.T., reached a maximum near 18:10 U.T., and ended near 20:00 U.T. An X-ray burst was detected at 18:09 U.T. Type IV radiation was observed at meter wavelengths at Ford Davies, Texas, from 18:00 U.T. to 19:40 U.T. and at decameter wavelengths at Boulder from 18:10 U.T. to 19:05 U.T. Solar protons and possibly electrons started arriving at Mariner IV at 18:40 U.T. which, at the time , was 3500 Earth radii downstream from Earth. The optical flare consisted of double filaments which slowly drifted apart, first at 6 km/sec and later at 2 km/sec. The flare associated with this event was responsible for the largest proton event of 1964 and 1965. Proton event detected by Mariner 4's Ion Chamber Diagram description: Tape : K-0126 2400 frames extracted Transmision rate - 8 1/3 bps Time period: 05 feb 10:00 - 06 feb 19:00, year 1965 Ion Chamber experiment - 2400 measurements extracted Averaging - three frames per pixel (151,2 sec per pixel) Diagram description: Tape : K-0126 8000 frames extracted Transmision rate - 8 1/3 bps Time period: 05 feb - 09 feb, year 1965 Ion Chamber experiment - 8000 measurements extracted Averaging - ten frames per pixel (504 sec per pixel) Proton event detected by Mariner 4's Geiger-Muller B tube Tapes : K-0125,K-0126 9600 frames extracted Transmision rate - 8 1/3 bps Time period: 05 feb - 10 feb, year 1965 Geiger-Muller B tube - 2400 measurements extracted Averaging - three measurements from 12 frames per pixel (604,8 sec per pixel) Proton event detected by Mariner 4's Geiger-Muller/Ion Chamber tube Tapes : K-0125,K-0126 9600 frames extracted Transmision rate - 8 1/3 bps Time period: 05 feb - 10 feb, year 1965 Geiger-Muller/Ion Chamber tube - 2400 measurements extracted Averaging - three measurements from 12 frames per pixel (604,8 sec per pixel) Proton event detected by Mariner 4's solid-state detectors Tapes : K-0125,K-0126 19200 frames extracted Transmision rate - 8 1/3 bps Time period: 02 feb - 14 feb, year 1965 Solid-state detectors - 2400 measurements extracted Averaging - three measurements from 24 frames per pixel (1209,6 sec per pixel) Proton event detected by Mariner 4's Geiger-Muller A and C tube Tapes : K-0125,K-0126 19200 frames extracted Transmision rate - 8 1/3 bps Time period: 02 feb - 14 feb, year 1965 Geiger-Muller A tube - 2400 measurements extracted Geiger-Muller C tube - 2400 measurements extracted Averaging - three measurements from 24 frames per pixel (1209,6 sec per pixel) -------------------- Free software for planetary science (including Cassini Image Viewer).
http://members.tripod.com/petermasek/marinerall.html |
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Nov 8 2007, 04:20 PM
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#68
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Member Group: Members Posts: 568 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Silesia Member No.: 299 |
Mariner 4's picture #1 is about 350 km parallel to the limb; from the limb to the lower edge of photograph is about 1290 km.
Image source: NSSDC - 35 mm microfilm Used scanner: Drum scanner - CROSFIELD CELSIS 6250 CASC Source: NSSDC - 35 mm microfilm Used scanner: Drum scanner - CROSFIELD CELSIS 6250 CASC Processing: Image - scanned, contrasted and blurred Inset - original digital data with contrast enhancement factor four. -------------------- Free software for planetary science (including Cassini Image Viewer).
http://members.tripod.com/petermasek/marinerall.html |
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Nov 9 2007, 10:47 PM
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#69
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Member Group: Members Posts: 568 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Silesia Member No.: 299 |
Van Allen belts detected by Mariner 4's Ion Chamber.
The ionization chamber instrument performed nominally through the first 70 days of the mission (through February 5). A profile of radiation intensity was faithfully recorded by the instrument as the spacecraft passed through each of the Van Allen radiation belts on November 28, 1964 Source: Mariner 4 Master Data Records (Tape K-0141) 900 frames extracted Transmision rate - 33 1/3 bps Time period: 28 nov. 15:20 - 28 nov 18:00, year 1964 Ion Chamber experiment - 900 measurements extracted No Averaging - 12,6 sec per pixel Van Allen belts detected by Mariner 4's Geiger-Muller/Ion Chamber tube The Geiger-Muller tube counts individual particles, the Ion Chamber yield a measurement related to the average energy and amount of radiation. Results from the two intruments can be correlated to yield data on the density of cosmic rays and their energy levels. Source: Mariner 4 Master Data Records (Tape K-0141) 3200 frames extracted Transmision rate - 33 1/3 bps Time period: 28 nov. 15:20 - 29 nov 02:30, year 1964 Geiger-Muller/Ion Chamber tube - 800 measurements extracted No Averaging - 50,4 sec per pixel (2 measurements from 8 frames) -------------------- Free software for planetary science (including Cassini Image Viewer).
http://members.tripod.com/petermasek/marinerall.html |
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Jan 18 2008, 08:44 PM
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#70
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 55 Joined: 1-May 06 From: Cincinnati, Ohio Member No.: 758 |
For those who were born after 1970, you have to realize what an incredible undertaking that Mariner IV was. I remember very vidily the grainy pictures appearing in the local paper, and it was just WOW! Craters on another world, that didn't look that different, perhaps, than the Moon.
In the middle 1960s CBS had a program named "Spectrum" every Sunday night (I think at 7 PM) hosted by Walter Cronkite. The program on Mariner IV was incredible (and we watched it on our black and white RCA TV). The program (was it 30 minutes long?) covered the mission, spacecraft and the findings. The info about the transmission power from Mars to Earth was 8 1/3 watts just blew my mind away. The Mariner IV mission had a huge influence on me, and the whole Space Race led to me becoming an engineer. Those 22 grainy smeary pictures changed more lives than my own... Rob |
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Jan 18 2008, 09:01 PM
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#71
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Member Group: Members Posts: 568 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Silesia Member No.: 299 |
Those 22 grainy smeary pictures changed more lives than my own... Rob Of course you are right. Picture #3 Picture #5 Picture #7 Picture #8 Picture #9 Picture #10 Picture #11 Picture #12 Picture #13 Picture #14 Picture #15 -------------------- Free software for planetary science (including Cassini Image Viewer).
http://members.tripod.com/petermasek/marinerall.html |
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Jan 19 2008, 01:22 PM
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#72
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
wow! I really like those context images!
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Jan 19 2008, 06:32 PM
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#73
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
Yes -- I never realized before that one of the Mariner IV images included one of the major outflow channels, but at such a resolution and sun angle as to be unrecognizable for what it was.
-the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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Jan 20 2008, 04:50 AM
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#74
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gl_iRDdIUc
Part one of a short film on Mariner 4. Link to part two should appear somewhere on the page. |
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Jul 14 2008, 08:20 AM
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#75
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Member Group: Members Posts: 568 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Silesia Member No.: 299 |
Today is the 43 anniversary of the first Mars flyby.
I would like propose you a very interesting article written by Doug Rickard. Memoirs of a space engineer. Doug Rickard was a very unusual man, with very unusual biography. Doug worked on the British Atomic Weapons Tests at Maralinga in South Australia in the late 1950s, and was victim of incident known as "Maralinga Cobalt 60 incident". I emailed with him a few times maybe eight years ago. -------------------- Free software for planetary science (including Cassini Image Viewer).
http://members.tripod.com/petermasek/marinerall.html |
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