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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ MRO 2005 _ First HiRISE Images Coming Soon!

Posted by: paulanderson Mar 7 2006, 07:37 AM

Here's hoping for a safe orbital entry...

Powerful Orbiting Camera Will Send Its First View of Mars to UA Soon
http://uanews.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/UANews.woa/8/wa/SRStoryDetails?ArticleID=12261

"HiRISE scientists will power the HiRISE camera the week of March 20. It will begin taking pictures 18 hours later, and it will take pictures during two orbits. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory mission specialists will decide exactly which orbits will be HiRISE imaging orbits after Mars orbit insertion on March 10.

These will be the camera's only photos for the next six months because it will be turned off while the spacecraft "aerobrakes." This involves dipping repeatedly into the upper atmosphere to scrub off speed and drop into successively more circular orbits.

The camera will take pictures of the middle latitudes of the southern hemisphere, a region where many geologically recent gullies have been seen, gullies possibly carved by water. Researchers won't know the exact area they'll photograph until the spacecraft is safely captured into orbit around Mars.

The camera's first images will be taken when the MRO is flying between about 2,500 miles and 600 miles (4,000 km and 1,000 km) above the planet. After aerobraking, the camera will fly just outside the planet's atmosphere at only 190 miles (about 300 km) above the surface."

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 8 2006, 04:15 PM

QUOTE (paulanderson @ Mar 7 2006, 02:37 AM) *
[i]"HiRISE scientists will power the HiRISE camera the week of March 20. It will begin taking pictures 18 hours later, and it will take pictures during two orbits. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory mission specialists will decide exactly which orbits will be HiRISE imaging orbits after Mars orbit insertion on March 10.


March 20th? These plans are evidently in flux. The press release on the MRO website states:

QUOTE
The three cameras from the science payload -- the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, the Context
Camera, and the Mars Color Imager -- will take their first test images of Mars as the orbiter passes low over the southern hemisphere near the end of the third orbit, on March 14... Late in the fourth orbit, on March 16, a jitter test will be conducted to determine whether image quality is affected by operating motors of other instruments at the same time the high-resolution camera is taking an image.


I suppose the new plan was covered in the press conference yesterday?

Posted by: djellison Mar 8 2006, 04:23 PM

There's a conf at 1800 UT tonight, I'll listen in and see if anything's mentioned.

Doug

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 8 2006, 04:39 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Mar 8 2006, 11:23 AM) *
There's a conf at 1800 UT tonight, I'll listen in and see if anything's mentioned.

Doug


Oh, I was thinking the conference was yesterday... thanks. smile.gif

Posted by: crabbsaline Mar 11 2006, 03:43 AM

I've been watching the MOI from work today (and don't you know it, everything goes wrong here when the broadcast is in full swing blink.gif ). Anyway, I suppose the next big thing to look for is this test of the three cameras, eh?

I didn't notice any more info about the exact date on the conference thread. Any news? I'm itching to see a HiRise image.

Joe, do you have a link to the press release that you quoted?

----crabbsaline

PS: This http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0307mars0307.html shows the date as post-19th:

QUOTE
The powerful camera will shoot its first photographs after March 19, while the craft is 2,500 miles to 600 miles above Mars. Then, HiRISE will hibernate for six months while the spacecraft drops into an orbit about 190 miles above the planet.


edit: Never mind, Joe. I found the http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/143619main_mro-arrival.pdf (page 28).

Posted by: Steve G Mar 11 2006, 07:13 PM

A pity JPL won't try and get a shot of opportinty of negected Deimos.

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 11 2006, 07:32 PM

The current schedule shows the imaging happening on 3/22, but I'm not sure when the downlinking of the images will be finished, and there's still some schedule uncertainty depending on how the transition into orbital operations proceeds. It'll probably be better nailed down by the end of this week.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Mar 11 2006, 10:39 PM

Steve G said "A pity JPL won't try and get a shot of opportinty of negected Deimos."

Good point. Many folks don't appreciate how neglected it is. Our imaging coverage is very limited. The best images, which are very few, are all of one side. Most of the trailing side is seen in only one (yes, one... so not even stereo) high phase image. Anything new would be great. The highest priority ought to be the trailing side under different illumination conditions, to show topography better. That would allow a study of the relationship between the largest array of bright streaks and the otherwise completely unknown topography.

MOC took nice images of Phobos early in the mission during several close passes. After that I assumed there would be no more, but I was pleased to see an image taken later when Phobos was just over the limb of Mars. If that feat could be duplicated for Deimos we could get significant new information, despite the low resolution. And certainly a glimpse from MRO would be a real treat.

Of course, JPL is not in charge of HIRISE. Our buddies in Tucson would have to take care of that.

Phil

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 12 2006, 01:32 AM

QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Mar 11 2006, 02:39 PM) *
If that feat could be duplicated for Deimos we could get significant new information, despite the low resolution.

We've thought about doing Deimos imaging with MOC, but the resolution possible from the mapping orbit is pretty bad; about 82 m/pxl at the closest approaches, and poorer that that for the ones where we wouldn't be shooting into the sun. But we can think about it again; if you can work out when and where we would improve the coverage over Viking that would help to sell it.

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 12 2006, 03:27 AM

QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Mar 11 2006, 08:32 PM) *
But we can think about it again; if you can work out when and where we would improve the coverage over Viking that would help to sell it.


Do you mean with MRO? Not sure if the latest kernels are accurate, but using
spk_ab_ref060307_060310_060706_p-v1.bsp gives a closest approach to Deimos of 10,083 km on March 13 at 18:48 UTC. Something like 7/10000 = 700 uradians or 700 pixels across--10 m/pixel. How would that compare to Viking?

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 12 2006, 03:41 AM

QUOTE (jmknapp @ Mar 11 2006, 07:27 PM) *
Do you mean with MRO?

No. It's a lot easier for us to do this sort of stuff with MGS than it'll be with MRO; during aerobraking they're not going to perform imaging slews. (It was only the long suspension of aerobraking on MGS due to the SA damper problem that allowed the first MOC Phobos images to be done.) And I suspect it'll be a long time after MRO has gotten into mapping before they start doing stuff like slewing to image the moons.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Mar 12 2006, 04:57 AM

Mariner 9 never saw the trailing side of Deimos. Viking saw it in only one single image (with a second over-exposed). Absolutely anything that shows the trailing side will give new information. If several views could be obtained at different Ls the varying terminator positions and relief seen with different lighting would really help enlarge our understanding of Deimos, especially the interaction between the relief and the bright streaks. There would be no value in seeing the leading side. Mars Express has a few lower resolution images of the leading side so far, but MOC should be better.

Phil

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 12 2006, 02:35 PM

QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Mar 11 2006, 11:57 PM) *
Absolutely anything that shows the trailing side will give new information. If several views could be obtained at different Ls the varying terminator positions and relief seen with different lighting would really help enlarge our understanding of Deimos, especially the interaction between the relief and the bright streaks. There would be no value in seeing the leading side. Mars Express has a few lower resolution images of the leading side so far, but MOC should be better.


With MGS's orbit being so tight around Mars compared to Deimos' orbit, seems like MGS would see not much more than the Mars-facing side of Deimos, no? For the trailing side that would place 90E-180E out of sight. Or more accurately the MGS subpoint might get to 6E best case. Here's one view coming up in a few days (15MAR2006 15:00 UTC), with the subpoint at 5E, range 22863 km, using your cylindrical mosaic with the trailing side tinted red, modeled as a tri-axial ellipsoid:



At that range the narrow angle resolution would be 77 m/pixel.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Mar 12 2006, 04:25 PM

Very nice! But the real 3-D shape would allow a better view than the ellipsoid suggests, as that side appears to be flattened more than this triaxial ellipsoid. And the true shape of the limb at right is unknown. That if nothing else would be a new input to the shape model. This image shows nicely where the cut-off of high resolution imaging falls, not far east of the prime meridian. Then we have a strip about 40 degrees wide of low quality imaging based on just two very early Viking images, and then the outer strip based on only one high phase view. With good lighting we would still learn something new about this region.

By a happy coincidence your simulation date of 15 March is my birthday. I'll take this as a birthday card!

Phil

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 12 2006, 05:37 PM

QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Mar 12 2006, 11:25 AM) *
With good lighting we would still learn something new about this region... I'll take this as a birthday card!

Phil


Enceladus demonstrates that great things can come in little packages. cool.gif

Posted by: tedstryk Mar 12 2006, 11:00 PM

What can Mars Express do on Deimos in terms of coverage of the trailing hemisphere? Also, might Rosetta be able to help with this?

Posted by: Steve G Mar 12 2006, 11:10 PM

QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Mar 12 2006, 09:25 AM) *
Very nice! But the real 3-D shape would allow a better view than the ellipsoid suggests, as that side appears to be flattened more than this triaxial ellipsoid. And the true shape of the limb at right is unknown. That if nothing else would be a new input to the shape model. This image shows nicely where the cut-off of high resolution imaging falls, not far east of the prime meridian. Then we have a strip about 40 degrees wide of low quality imaging based on just two very early Viking images, and then the outer strip based on only one high phase view. With good lighting we would still learn something new about this region.

By a happy coincidence your simulation date of 15 March is my birthday. I'll take this as a birthday card!

Phil



The only opportunity to image Deimos (or Phobus) would be during the initial orbit phase of the mission. Those long looping orbits, I'm sure, would have presented with a few chances for some good shots. However, it's not a priority, obviously, which is a shame.

QUOTE (tedstryk @ Mar 12 2006, 04:00 PM) *
What can Mars Express do on Deimos in terms of coverage of the trailing hemisphere? Also, might Rosetta be able to help with this?



Dawn is planning a Mars flyby, isn't it. Oh, that's right, it was cancelled. Apparently Ceres and Vesta, each completely unique in the Solar System, aren't important enough to keep the mission aflaot.

Sorry for the sarcasm, there should have been dedicated asteroid missions decades ago.

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 12 2006, 11:24 PM

QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Mar 12 2006, 08:25 AM) *
By a happy coincidence your simulation date of 15 March is my birthday. I'll take this as a birthday card!

Alas, since a slew is involved it'll take a bit longer to get this planned, but it seems like a worthwhile image, so I'll see if we can get it taken.

Posted by: tedstryk Mar 12 2006, 11:35 PM

To "Investigate the global chemical heterogeneity on Phobos and Deimos" is a stated goal of the flyby, and I saw on a sequencing document that coverage on approach should occur, so there may be at least low resolution coverage. However, the documents hadn't been updated for the new trajectory, so exactly how it will play out isn't answered.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Mar 12 2006, 11:35 PM

Bless you, my child. (Has anyone come up with a theoretical explanation for why Deimos and Phobos have such radically different-looking surfaces?)

Posted by: Phil Stooke Mar 13 2006, 12:13 AM

Bruce said "Bless you, my child" - is that another birthday greeting?

The best explanation for the difference between P and D would appear to be that of Peter Thomas and colleagues at Cornell: that Deimos is basically completely covered with a thick layer of ejecta from a very large impact. No large crater? Yes, there is. The entire south polar region is saddle-shaped, and is interpreted by Thomas et al. as a crater with a diameter about the same as the diameter of Deimos itself. I happen to agree with this. Phobos lacks anything of this magnitude.

This is a good time to demolish the old idea that such a large impact would destroy the target. Modelling of such impacts does not support this old idea. This also applies to Mimas, where in another thread Bob Shaw mentioned the Voyager-era idea that the Herschel impact 'nearly destroyed' Mimas. It was nowhere near doing that. To destroy a body, the shock front from the point of impact has to completely engulf the target body while still having enough energy to dissipate the fragments. Herschel stopped growing when its shock wave energy/unit area dropped below the point at which it could throw out fragments, obviously long before the wave passed through Mimas entirely. Ditto Stickney on Phobos.

mcaplinger - no, the birthday card was jmknapp's picture! I know the image would take much longer to acquire. Oh, and say Hi to Ken from me!

Ted Stryk asked about Mars Express. I've posted a couple of the SR images elsewhere here. The resolution is probably a bit worse than MOC, but with the proper lighting it could add to the stock of images of that side. So far, though, all MEX images that I've seen show mainly the leading side.

Phil

Posted by: David Mar 13 2006, 02:23 AM

QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Mar 13 2006, 12:13 AM) *
This is a good time to demolish the old idea that such a large impact would destroy the target. Modelling of such impacts does not support this old idea. This also applies to Mimas, where in another thread Bob Shaw mentioned the Voyager-era idea that the Herschel impact 'nearly destroyed' Mimas. It was nowhere near doing that. To destroy a body, the shock front from the point of impact has to completely engulf the target body while still having enough energy to dissipate the fragments. Herschel stopped growing when its shock wave energy/unit area dropped below the point at which it could throw out fragments, obviously long before the wave passed through Mimas entirely. Ditto Stickney on Phobos.


It's true that the idea that Herschel Crater was something outlandish now seems slightly quaint. biggrin.gif There are relatively bigger impact basins on Iapetus, and megacraters on almost every moon of Saturn, including little Hyperion.

By the way, does anybody know if Herschel Crater is named after William (who discovered Mimas) or John (who named it)?

Posted by: Steve Mar 13 2006, 03:15 AM

QUOTE (tedstryk @ Mar 12 2006, 06:35 PM) *
To "Investigate the global chemical heterogeneity on Phobos and Deimos" is a stated goal of the flyby, and I saw on a sequencing document that coverage on approach should occur, so there may be at least low resolution coverage. However, the documents hadn't been updated for the new trajectory, so exactly how it will play out isn't answered.
Am I right that you're referring to the planned Rosetta flyby? Google turned up that phrase on an ESA page describing the OSIRIS instrument flying on Rosetta. http://lisa.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=35061&fbodylongid=1642.

-- Easily Confused sad.gif

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 13 2006, 03:25 AM

QUOTE (tedstryk @ Mar 12 2006, 03:00 PM) *
What can Mars Express do on Deimos in terms of coverage of the trailing hemisphere? Also, might Rosetta be able to help with this?

Rosetta, though the Mars flyby is a lot closer than I would have guessed, doesn't get all that close to Deimos, nor does the geometry look very favorable. See http://www.space.irfu.se/rosetta/sci/mars/
MEx would be able to do better on the occasion of a close flyby -- you'd think there would be some. (Edit: oops, no, the MEx orbit only goes a bit outside that of Phobos.)

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 13 2006, 11:09 AM

QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Mar 12 2006, 06:24 PM) *
Alas, since a slew is involved it'll take a bit longer to get this planned, but it seems like a worthwhile image, so I'll see if we can get it taken.


Also consider what Phil said about different sun angles. Looks like the subpoint of MGS on Deimos ranges +/- 5 degrees in latitude and longitude from 0,0. Also over the ~30 hour period there's an opportunity to get just about any phase angle. Here's an animation of one 30-hour period in May:

http://cboh-t.cboh.org/~jmk/mgs7.mpg

The jumps occur when MGS goes behind Mars and no view of Deimos is available.

Posted by: Jyril Mar 13 2006, 12:47 PM

QUOTE (David @ Mar 13 2006, 04:23 AM) *
By the way, does anybody know if Herschel Crater is named after William (who discovered Mimas) or John (who named it)?


William, of course. I don't think naming moons is more important than discovering them. wink.gif

Posted by: ljk4-1 Mar 13 2006, 03:12 PM

QUOTE (Steve G @ Mar 12 2006, 06:10 PM) *
The only opportunity to image Deimos (or Phobus) would be during the initial orbit phase of the mission. Those long looping orbits, I'm sure, would have presented with a few chances for some good shots. However, it's not a priority, obviously, which is a shame.
Dawn is planning a Mars flyby, isn't it. Oh, that's right, it was cancelled. Apparently Ceres and Vesta, each completely unique in the Solar System, aren't important enough to keep the mission aflaot.

Sorry for the sarcasm, there should have been dedicated asteroid missions decades ago.


This must be a tradition with JPL - they had no formal plans with Mariner 9 to
image Phobos and Deimos until the global dust storm of 1971 essentially forced
them to show the public something other than a bland ball.



MRO took a distant image of Deimos:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA02699

Original Caption Released with Image:

This image showing the position of the Martian moon Deimos against a background of stars is part of a successful technology demonstration completed by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter before arrival at Mars.

The spacecraft's Optical Navigation Camera was used in February and March 2006 to demonstrate the use of pictures from a small camera for calculating precise location of a Mars-bound spacecraft by comparing the observed positions of Mars' two moons to their predicted positions relative to background stars. While this technique was not necessary for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's own navigation, the demonstration prepares the way for relying on it for navigating precise arrivals for future missions that land on Mars.

This example image from the Optical Navigation Camera was taken on March 6, 2006, at a distance of 1.08 million kilometers (671,000 miles) from Deimos. That moon, the smaller of Mars' two, has a diameter of 15 kilometers (9 miles), and orbits 23,459 kilometers (14,577 miles) above the planet's surface.

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 13 2006, 04:14 PM

QUOTE (jmknapp @ Mar 13 2006, 03:09 AM) *
Also over the ~30 hour period there's an opportunity to get just about any phase angle.

There are a few operational constraints; we're not allowed to point within 30 degrees of the Sun. I've been assuming that the half-phase, trailing-illuminated case is of most interest. Phil, does that sound right? I don't think I can sell a survey of phase angles, at least initially.

Thanks for the animation; very useful.

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Mar 13 2006, 04:47 PM

QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Mar 13 2006, 03:25 AM) *
Rosetta, though the Mars flyby is a lot closer than I would have guessed, doesn't get all that close to Deimos, nor does the geometry look very favorable. See http://www.space.irfu.se/rosetta/sci/mars/
MEx would be able to do better on the occasion of a close flyby -- you'd think there would be some. (Edit: oops, no, the MEx orbit only goes a bit outside that of Phobos.)

If memory serves me, the original Deep Space 1 (DS1) mission profile, which involved a Mars flyby, would have also allowed an extremely close flyby of either Phobos and/or Deimos. I remember discussing this specifically with one of the mission designers at the 1997 International Astronautical Congress in Torino, Italy. Of course, with the launch delay DS1 lost the Mars flyby opportunity.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Mar 13 2006, 05:33 PM

"I've been assuming that the half-phase, trailing-illuminated case is of most interest. Phil, does that sound right?"

Yes, perfect!

Basically, as I've said, anything which adds to our coverage in this area is great. Peter Thomas will have an extra bit of input for his shape model. If in the future an additional image or two should be possible, anything which gave different phases would help too. Sub-solar longitudes on Deimos of about 225 and 315 would help reveal topography in this area.

Phil

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Mar 13 2006, 06:49 PM

QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Mar 12 2006, 04:25 PM) *
By a happy coincidence your simulation date of 15 March is my birthday. I'll take this as a birthday card!

Happy Birthday, Phil biggrin.gif But remember what the soothsayer said to Caesar: "Beware the Ides of March." http://www.william-shakespeare.info/act1-script-text-julius-caesar.htm.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Mar 17 2006, 05:33 PM

Well, Alex, I bewore the Ides of March as instructed... but nothing happened.

Phil

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Mar 17 2006, 06:48 PM

QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Mar 17 2006, 05:33 PM) *
Well, Alex, I bewore the Ides of March as instructed... but nothing happened.

I guess you didn't get the present labeled: "To Phil from your old pals Brutus and Cassius."

Posted by: Bob Shaw Mar 17 2006, 11:34 PM

QUOTE (AlexBlackwell @ Mar 17 2006, 06:48 PM) *
I guess you didn't get the present labeled: "To Phil from you old pals Brutus and Cassius."


Alex:

Phil, liking British comedy as he does, probably took the Kenneth Williams option:

'Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it infamy!'

Ooh, er, Matron!

Bob Shaw

Posted by: Phil Stooke Mar 18 2006, 05:49 PM

Actually Frankie Howerd is the person I think of in connection with such classical goings-on. My apologies to all the non-brits out there whose upbringing didn't include frequent exposure to the cream of British culture. It is - uh - cream that floats to the top, isn't it?

Phil

Posted by: Toma B Mar 21 2006, 11:33 AM

"test images to be taken week of March 20"
Are they just going to snap few images of anywhere on Mars or is there some specific target for those test images...
If they asked me I would take image of Opportunity’s way to Victoria...that could help a bit in navigating through those dunes...
Does anybody knows more?

Posted by: MahFL Mar 21 2006, 11:57 AM

You don't just "snap anywhere" with a multi million $ camera..................

Posted by: ugordan Mar 21 2006, 12:03 PM

QUOTE (MahFL @ Mar 21 2006, 12:57 PM) *
You don't just "snap anywhere" with a multi million $ camera..................

True, but the uncertainties in MOI burn performance can lead to large differences in what part of Mars will be under you during, say, 10th periapsis passage. This limits and possibly prevents any extensive planning before MOI on what targets you'll get to see.
So in a sense, they might just be "snapping anywhere", pointing nadir and catching whatever is below. It's an engineering test anyway, not scientific observation.
Once they get into their science orbit they'll have much more accurate ephemeris and be able to actually target their observations.

Posted by: Cugel Mar 21 2006, 12:22 PM

It's going to be March 23! Images will be taken during 2 orbits. The camera will take pictures of the middle latitudes of the southern hemisphere. (From space.com)

Posted by: Steve Mar 21 2006, 01:17 PM

QUOTE (Cugel @ Mar 21 2006, 07:22 AM) *
It's going to be March 23! Images will be taken during 2 orbits. The camera will take pictures of the middle latitudes of the southern hemisphere. (From space.com)
Does anyone know where they'll be found? I can't find any obvious links at JPL, Ames, or the Univ. of Arizona.

Posted by: djellison Mar 21 2006, 01:24 PM

They'll be unveiled at HiROC in a special event if you look at the hiroc website.

Doug

Posted by: ljk4-1 Mar 21 2006, 02:00 PM

I hope they'll get some shots of those canals I keep hearing everyone
talk about. Maybe even some of those ancient Martian cities along the
planet's equator made of solid crystal, or even the giant cannon they
used to launch that Earth invasion back in 1897 - and 1953 - and 1988 -
and 2005.

cool.gif

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 21 2006, 03:23 PM

Interestingly enough, per the latest SPICE prediction kernel MRO won't have a periapsis passage on March 23rd UTC. There will be a periapsis around ~5:00am UTC on the 24th, which would be the 23rd Mountain Time at least.

MRO will be over the night side at periapsis so I guess the HiRISE images will be taken some time before, at higher altitudes? Here's the nadir track showing MRO as a red dot at 04:50am March 24th UTC, just going into the night side:



Altitude at that point is about 1500km. Altitude when MRO is over the Valles Marineris region is about 4000km at 04:30.

Posted by: ugordan Mar 21 2006, 04:04 PM

QUOTE (jmknapp @ Mar 21 2006, 04:23 PM) *
Interestingly enough, per the latest SPICE prediction kernel MRO won't have a periapsis passage on March 23rd UTC.

Is that the prediction based on actual orbit elements reconstructed after MOI or an a priori best-guess value?

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 21 2006, 04:12 PM

QUOTE (ugordan @ Mar 21 2006, 11:04 AM) *
Is that the prediction based on actual orbit elements reconstructed after MOI or an a priori best-guess value?


Since it came out on March 20th I would think the former. Here's a bit of the lbl file:

QUOTE
MISSION_NAME = "MARS_RECONNAISSANCE_ORBITER"
SPACECRAFT_NAME = "MARS_RECONNAISSANCE_ORBITER"
DATA_SET_ID = "SPICE_SPK_FILE"
KERNEL_TYPE_ID = "SPK"
PRODUCT_ID = "spk_ab_ref060320_060312_060914_p-v1.xsp"
PRODUCT_CREATION_TIME = 2006-03-20T08:47:06
PRODUCER_ID = "MRO_NAV_TEAM"
MISSION_PHASE_NAME = "CRUISE"
PRODUCT_VERSION_TYPE = "SPK-SFDU"
PLATFORM_OR_MOUNTING_NAME = "N/A"
START_TIME = 2006-03-12T09:38:55
STOP_TIME = 2006-09-14T04:25:19


Obviously most of file is based on prediction, since it covers the entire aerobraking phase out to September 14.

Posted by: paulanderson Mar 21 2006, 04:57 PM

QUOTE (Cugel @ Mar 21 2006, 04:22 AM) *
It's going to be March 23! Images will be taken during 2 orbits. The camera will take pictures of the middle latitudes of the southern hemisphere. (From space.com)

Yes, and that was mentioned in the original article at the beginning of this thread also, re Toma's question. Except there it was just said to be the week of March 20, but not more specific than that. Not long now...

Posted by: RNeuhaus Mar 22 2006, 03:22 AM

Now, the question, as we know that the qt.exploration.edu/mars is a image repository place of MER-x images, does anyone know where will go the future MRO's images. The mro webpage (http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro) looks like dead, the last update was of March 10. No recent updates about the MRO's orbit status and no any new news.

The University of Arizona’s super-powerful High Resolution Imaging Experiment (HiRISE) camera is scheduled to relay first test shots of Mars on March 23 to the HiRISE Operations Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Rodolfo

Posted by: GravityWaves Mar 23 2006, 02:28 PM

QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Mar 22 2006, 12:22 AM) *
Now, the question, as we know that the qt.exploration.edu/mars is a image repository place of MER-x images, does anyone know where will go the future MRO's images. The mro webpage (http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro) looks like dead, the last update was of March 10. No recent updates about the MRO's orbit status and no any new news.


Sorry, don't know - but if I hear info on the location of future pics I'll post here

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 23 2006, 02:39 PM

QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Mar 21 2006, 07:22 PM) *
Now, the question, as we know that the qt.exploration.edu/mars is a image repository place of MER-x images, does anyone know where will go the future MRO's images.

Unlike MER, there isn't going to be a central repository for all MRO images, because each instrument team is doing its own thing so far as I know. You'll go to the HiRISE site for their images, you'll go to the MSSS site for MARCI and CTX, etc. I still don't know the details of anyone's release policy.

For these initial test images, I'd just keep an eye on the MRO website at JPL. I don't know what the release timetable for these images is either.

Posted by: djellison Mar 23 2006, 02:56 PM

Speaking to JB - he doesnt know the image release policy for CTX and MARCI yet either.

He suggested that the intention is to wait till after the test images, and then make a decision during the 6 month hiatus.

History would suggest that CTX and MARCI probably wont get the same treatment that HiRISE will, and to be fair, the baseline now is 3 or 6 month batches, 6 months after aquisition, which MER, MGS and Odyssey are doing. Wr.t. real time raw JPG's - anything in the MER or Cassini style has to be considered a major bonus ( and at no small cost w.r.t. processing and hosting ) - it's all too easy to get complacent and assume that that's the sort of thing we can come to expect - but realistically, it isnt.

Doug

Posted by: Nix Mar 23 2006, 03:07 PM

http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/HiRISE/public.html

Here's some information too.

Nico

Posted by: volcanopele Mar 23 2006, 09:54 PM

First HiRISE Mars Images watch party blog:

http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/first_images/

From Loretta:

A live web blog will be updated tonight and Saturday morning as HiRISE receives its first images from Mars! Please send to those who might be interested. The blog begins tonight, Thursday, March 23, about 9 p.m. On Saturday, March 25, it will be updated starting about 8 a.m.

The page will detail what's going on in HiROC, and will have images of the team viewing the first images will be posted, as well as information about HiRISE. The first images of Mars will also be posted here, probably some time Friday, as soon as NASA and JPL release them. HiRISE is scheduled to take four images on Thursday night, and four on Saturday morning.

The page will also be left up for those curious about the events in the future.

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 24 2006, 01:27 AM

QUOTE (volcanopele @ Mar 23 2006, 04:54 PM) *
First HiRISE Mars Images watch party blog:

http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/first_images/


That site says: "The HiRISE camera -- the most powerful telescopic camera ever sent to another planet -- will take four images of Mars between 9:41 p.m. and 9:50 p.m. Mountain Time Thursday, March 23 (between 4:41 and 4:50 Universal Time Friday, March 24)."

I wonder if that's MRO time, or Earth received time.

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 24 2006, 02:12 AM

QUOTE (jmknapp @ Mar 23 2006, 05:27 PM) *
I wonder if that's MRO time, or Earth received time.

It's MRO time. One-way light time is 13m02s but the data playback will take several hours, so I wouldn't expect any data until 2 AM PST at the earliest, and probably not until even later.

Posted by: Toma B Mar 24 2006, 06:39 AM

If I have understand this right MRO should send us 8 (eight) HiRISE images in the next few days...
That would be those monster 20,000 x 40,000 pixel images or color images up to 4,072 pixels wide?

Posted by: paulanderson Mar 24 2006, 08:46 AM

The first images are in, as reported on the blog (1:31 am MST)!

"Sharp, clear and beautiful"...

Posted by: Rakhir Mar 24 2006, 08:46 AM

From Loretta's blog :
THE FIRST HiRISE IMAGES ARE IN! And they are gorgeous! These images are sharp, clear and beautiful in the "quick-look" or raw form. "Incredible," says Candy Hansen, Deputy Principal Investigator. biggrin.gif
The first image is 2.5 meters per pixel. The fourth image will be about 1.5 meters per pixel.

I can't wait to see them !

-- Rakhir

Posted by: Toma B Mar 24 2006, 08:57 AM

THE FIRST HiRISE IMAGES ARE IN! And they are gorgeous! These images are sharp, clear and beautiful in the "quick-look" or raw form. "Incredible," says Candy Hansen, Deputy Principal Investigator.

"I am VERY happy!" says Alfred McEwen, Principal Investigator and chief scientist of the HiRISE camera. "They are sharp, clear, and beautiful!"


But we won't let you see them until tomorrow
Yeah!!! He didn't say that part earlier... mad.gif mad.gif mad.gif

Posted by: Nix Mar 24 2006, 08:59 AM

My printer is ready cool.gif

Nico

Posted by: edstrick Mar 24 2006, 09:06 AM

Aack!... My keyboard just shorted out from collected puddles of drooling!

<well.... not really....>

Posted by: Nix Mar 24 2006, 09:08 AM

first pic is up! > not 20000x40000 px yet but looking good!

Posted by: Toma B Mar 24 2006, 09:09 AM

You can see first image in the background here:


Posted by: edstrick Mar 24 2006, 09:20 AM

Quote: .....The first image is 20,000 by 10,000 pixels, a small image.....

Posted by: Bob Shaw Mar 24 2006, 09:24 AM

A fuzzy version of the first image:

Bob Shaw

 

Posted by: chris Mar 24 2006, 09:37 AM

That fuzzy image of a screen in the control room is clearer than the images that the first mariner probe sent back. How far we have come.

Chris

Posted by: Nix Mar 24 2006, 09:51 AM

a grayscale crop of the screenshot -we have come far indeed Chris. smile.gif

Nico

 

Posted by: djellison Mar 24 2006, 09:53 AM

Look at the size of the scroll bars on there - that image is HUGE smile.gif

Doug

Posted by: Bob Shaw Mar 24 2006, 09:56 AM

Hehe. Fifteen minutes after the first chance to see something, it's screenshots. Ten minutes later, it's turned to grayscale. Just wait till we see the real thing!

Bob Shaw

Posted by: Nix Mar 24 2006, 10:04 AM

wow yes, hadn't noticed that ohmy.gif
Better get another HD once the big data comes our way biggrin.gif

Nico

WOAW -regarding the image... and the display tongue.gif

 

Posted by: djellison Mar 24 2006, 10:05 AM

Oh my
http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/first_images/images/PICT0093-med.jpg

Look at the size of THOSE scroll bars ohmy.gif

Doug


http://pdsimg.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/Atlas/dbQuery.pl?INSTRUMENT_HOST_NAME=MARS_GLOBAL_SURVEYOR&INSTRUMENT=MOC_NARROW_ANGLE&TARGET_NAME=MARS&MIN_CENTER_LATITUDE=-41&MAX_CENTER_LATITUDE=-40&MIN_CENTER_LONGITUDE=302&MAX_CENTER_LONGITUDE=304&action=1&DB=ops&INSTRUMENT_HOST_TYPE=ORBITER&TARGET_TYPE=TERRESTRIAL&loadForms=done&formsInfo=/export/jbcache/scratch/3810_formsInfo.db&whichform=tab1&CN=FALSE&PRODUCT_TYPE=MARS&PROCESS=PROCESS&DATA_SET_ID=MGS-M-MOC-NA/WA-2-DSDP-L0-V1.0&DATA_SET_ID=MGS-M-MOC-NA/WA-2-SDP-L0-V1.0&INSTRUMENT_NAME=NA

The MOC NA images of the quoted target area.

Doug

Posted by: Toma B Mar 24 2006, 10:12 AM

QUOTE (djellison @ Mar 24 2006, 01:05 PM) *
http://pdsimg.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/Atlas/dbQuery.pl?INSTRUMENT_HOST_NAME=MARS_GLOBAL_SURVEYOR&INSTRUMENT=MOC_NARROW_ANGLE&TARGET_NAME=MARS&MIN_CENTER_LATITUDE=-41&MAX_CENTER_LATITUDE=-40&MIN_CENTER_LONGITUDE=302&MAX_CENTER_LONGITUDE=304&action=1&DB=ops&INSTRUMENT_HOST_TYPE=ORBITER&TARGET_TYPE=TERRESTRIAL&loadForms=done&formsInfo=/export/jbcache/scratch/3810_formsInfo.db&whichform=tab1&CN=FALSE&PRODUCT_TYPE=MARS&PROCESS=PROCESS&DATA_SET_ID=MGS-M-MOC-NA/WA-2-DSDP-L0-V1.0&DATA_SET_ID=MGS-M-MOC-NA/WA-2-SDP-L0-V1.0&INSTRUMENT_NAME=NA

The MOC NA images of the quoted target area.
Doug

Something is wrong with that link Doug... sad.gif

Posted by: djellison Mar 24 2006, 10:15 AM

Not for me there isnt.

Anyway - there were three MOC NA images within one degree of the target I put in

One was a tiny Geodesy image, the others are these..

http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m07_m12/images/M07/M0701521.html
http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/m13_m18/images/M13/M1300036.html

Doug

Posted by: Tesheiner Mar 24 2006, 10:19 AM

B)-->

QUOTE(Toma B @ Mar 24 2006, 11:12 AM) *

Something is wrong with that link Doug... sad.gif
[/quote]

I've got this:

Planetary Image Atlas Error:
Search List Expired
Your original search list has expired and may no longer be retrieved. (The lists are deleted after four hours.) Please redo your search by returning to the image browser or catalog pages and re-issuing the search command.

Posted by: Nix Mar 24 2006, 10:24 AM

Tired of scrolling huge MRO data? blink.gif

> http://spds.ece.uci.edu/~sjenks/Pages/HIPerWall.html

Nico

Posted by: chris Mar 24 2006, 10:25 AM

Interesting quote from the blog:

"Strange channels with various levels of some type of flows are showing up in some images."

Chris

Posted by: djellison Mar 24 2006, 10:32 AM

I don't think we're expecting this stuff to be particular high res are we?

Then again - 400km was one suggested altitude at the time of taking, what are we talking, a nominal 60cm/pixel?

Doug

Posted by: chris Mar 24 2006, 10:42 AM

Depends on your definition of high res I suppose. The blog says:

"The first image is 2.5 meters per pixel. The fourth image will be about 1.5 meters per pixel."

Chris

Posted by: djellison Mar 24 2006, 10:45 AM

So MOC non-cproto res so far ( with the centre in pseudo-colour of course )

Doug

Posted by: Bob Shaw Mar 24 2006, 11:04 AM

Another quick and dirty:

Bob Shaw


 

Posted by: djellison Mar 24 2006, 11:08 AM

Honestly, I am as excited about HiRISE imagery as I was about the rovers landing.

It's just all SUCHHH good stuff smile.gif

Doug

Posted by: Nix Mar 24 2006, 11:11 AM

I agree 100% Doug, good stuff is coming our way. I look forward to stereo in particular.

Nico

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 24 2006, 11:18 AM

QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Mar 23 2006, 09:12 PM) *
It's MRO time. One-way light time is 13m02s but the data playback will take several hours, so I wouldn't expect any data until 2 AM PST at the earliest, and probably not until even later.


Thanks--I was wondering about the predicted ground track from 04:41 to 04:50. Here's what I get:



The main feature there is Argyre Planitia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyre_Planitia

Note smiley-face crater at right. smile.gif

AKA Galle Crater. Nice coincidence considering this item:

http://barsoom.msss.com/mars_images/moc/3_11_99_happy/index.html

So Galle is the official greeter?

Posted by: Bob Shaw Mar 24 2006, 11:30 AM

A bit more of a warp.

Bob Shaw

 

Posted by: ustrax Mar 24 2006, 01:59 PM

I'm here...
Back.
Waiting.
And enjoying...

rolleyes.gif

Posted by: Steve Mar 24 2006, 02:05 PM

QUOTE
the HiRISE images should be approved and released by NASA some time this afternoon (March 24).

-Loretta, HiROC Webmaster

Given the recent directives on openness policy from NASA HQ, is this delay really necessary? huh.gif One thinks it would have been possible to get advance clearance on a newsworthy item like this. I guess they'll get their procedures straightened out in the next six months before the real data begins to come down.

Posted by: odave Mar 24 2006, 02:28 PM

They need time to Photoshop-out the @l!en c!ty wink.gif

Posted by: Decepticon Mar 24 2006, 02:46 PM

mad.gif Pachents running out..... ** Taps Finger On desk**

Posted by: djellison Mar 24 2006, 02:55 PM

Chill - these things take time. We've waited since the launch in August for these first images, another day or two isn't going to kill anyone.

Doug

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 24 2006, 04:05 PM

The White House has to verify that the images don't undermine creationism, & have NASA change all Mars references to "Mars theory."

Posted by: volcanopele Mar 24 2006, 04:06 PM

QUOTE (chris @ Mar 24 2006, 02:37 AM) *
That fuzzy image of a screen in the control room is clearer than the images that the first mariner probe sent back. How far we have come.

Chris

LOL, control room laugh.gif I think that's just the projection screen in our lobby area.

I'm glad to see this all work out for Alfred and his HiRISE crew. I'm certainly not a Mars person by any stretch of the imagination, but I can understand the excitement they must be feeling. I remember when we got our first close-up Titan images in October 2004, I stayed up all night processing images, not because I had to, but because I wanted to see what each image actually showed. Great times....

Posted by: Phil Stooke Mar 24 2006, 04:22 PM

First pics are at JPL now...

Phil

Posted by: mhoward Mar 24 2006, 04:24 PM

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/pia08013.html

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/pia08014.html

Posted by: centsworth_II Mar 24 2006, 04:38 PM

QUOTE (Decepticon @ Mar 24 2006, 09:46 AM) *
mad.gif Pachents running out..... ** Taps Finger On desk**


Hey, you few (I hope) who find reason to complain: What are you going to do for the NEXT SIX MONTHS?

Posted by: um3k Mar 24 2006, 04:51 PM

Once they release the full resolution images, I'll have plenty to do for the next six months. biggrin.gif

Posted by: volcanopele Mar 24 2006, 05:02 PM

Here is the location in Google Mars, centered on the subtle crater at center in the downscaled image:

http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=-33.644349&lon=-54.997558&zoom=9&map=infrared

Posted by: chris Mar 24 2006, 06:05 PM

QUOTE (volcanopele @ Mar 24 2006, 04:06 PM) *
LOL, control room laugh.gif I think that's just the projection screen in our lobby area.


Silly me. No liptovan visible. How could it be a control room?

Chris

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Mar 24 2006, 06:24 PM




Posted by: odave Mar 24 2006, 07:05 PM

I was poking around in the http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/ to see if there were any narrow angle images in the vacinity. As far as I can tell, http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15/images/R10/R1001370.html comes closest, just catching the SW corner of the large-area MRO image.

I found this by just looking in each of the different phase pages - is there an easier way of looking at all of the narrow angle images on one quadrangle map?

Posted by: chris Mar 24 2006, 08:09 PM

Links to the first image, in various resolutions, all the way to the Full Monty (44.8MB), are now on the http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/first_images/

Chris

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 24 2006, 08:10 PM

QUOTE (odave @ Mar 24 2006, 11:05 AM) *
I was poking around in the http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/ to see if there were any narrow angle images in the vacinity. As far as I can tell, http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15/images/R10/R1001370.html comes closest, just catching the SW corner of the large-area MRO image.

I think that's the only one. M03-05898 is too far to the north.

I've got a good CTX image of this area though biggrin.gif Unfortunately, I think the release won't occur until next week.

There are two THEMIS VIS frames of this area, V05982004 and V16266005, both 18 m/pxl.

Posted by: djellison Mar 24 2006, 08:13 PM

So CTX behaved well then?

Doug

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 24 2006, 08:17 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Mar 24 2006, 12:13 PM) *
So CTX behaved well then?

Couldn't have asked for better. MARCI is working well too. Now cue the usual tirade about MSSS release policies smile.gif I think we're just letting McEwen have his day in the sun.

Posted by: Nix Mar 24 2006, 08:32 PM

Good news!! All right! Got that 44 meg file coming in tongue.gif -jumps up and down on chair like a little kid waiting to have a good look at it biggrin.gif

Nico

edit: OM*G it looks awesome

Posted by: Steve Mar 24 2006, 09:04 PM

At first glance the images look smooth and almost polished (as do some of the images from the HRSC on Mars Express). By comparison, the Mars Global Surveyor MOC images had a more granular or matte finish. I'd always assumed much of that was real surface texture, but now I'm wondering.

Was the MOC "texture" merely noise and are we seeing the promised improved signal/noise ratio from HiRISE?

Incidentally, does anyone know how the HiRISE camera's various options were set for the current picture?

Posted by: volcanopele Mar 24 2006, 09:10 PM

Defintely worth the download. The image even extends a little further to the east than the press release version.

Note that this is just one of four from tonight. This also happens to be the SMALL image. The fourth image is 10000 pixels wide by 52000 pixels long!!! It is truly a sight to behold. Also, the dynamic range is excellent, the view is crystal clear in very bright slopes and shadows alike.

I may be cynical about Mars, but I can handle it for a day.

QUOTE (Steve @ Mar 24 2006, 02:04 PM) *
At first glance the images look smooth and almost polished (as do some of the images from the HRSC on Mars Express). By comparison, the Mars Global Surveyor MOC images had a more granular or matte finish. I'd always assumed much of that was real surface texture, but now I'm wondering.

Was the MOC "texture" merely noise and are we seeing the promised improved signal/noise ratio from HiRISE?

Incidentally, does anyone know how the HiRISE camera's various options were set for the current picture?

The signal to noise ratio is very good for these first set of images, which is why even these "low" resolution images appear so crystal clear. In addition, the original images were taken in 14-bit mode, as opposed to 8 bits for MOC.

Posted by: Bob Shaw Mar 24 2006, 09:16 PM

I think it's at least in part due to local dust conditions - look at this crop from the first MRO image of an area where the winds don't appear to be depositing as much material in the lee of various surface features.

Bob Shaw

 

Posted by: djellison Mar 24 2006, 09:21 PM

I can see the joins smile.gif

Doug

Posted by: Bob Shaw Mar 24 2006, 09:31 PM

Doug:

Joking aside, I swear I saw a join on the first release image, too!

BTW, the HiROC site says 'The camera will take a second set of Mars images Saturday morning, March 25. These are test images and may not be of interest to the public.'

Bob Shaw

Posted by: volcanopele Mar 24 2006, 09:41 PM

Non-Martian geologist alert. Read at your own risk.

Started looking through this first image and there are a few features that stand out. BTW, the central feature in this image is the north-south trending scarp just right of center called Ogygis Rupes.

First up are the promient east to west trending channels: http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/Channel.jpg . This is a close-up (well, actually full-res) view of one of them. Now the channels here are very interesting. On the south side are inactive, transverse dunes (I assume inactive since a few dunes have small impact craters on them). just north of the center line of the channels is a smooth area, and on the north slope is some kind of blocky layer. Now, these north-slope blocky areas is a running theme in this region through the first hirise image. Relatively featureless south slopes, blocky north slopes. Now, combine this with the layers we see in the release full-res sample image from earlier in the day, and you get this sense that this is a layered region with perhaps tilted layers with a generally east-west strike with a dip presumably toward the southwest, thus the blocky stuff comes from one layer, and the more massive, smooth appear layer appears on top. As you go more toward the northwest, the blocky stuff is more exposed until you hit Ogygis Rupes. Complicating this is the topography which runs downhill from east to west. Regardless, an interesting area.

Here's a look at a more broadly exposed area of blocky terrain: http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/Rootless_cone.jpg . Here we see small hills, 50-100 meters in size. The small-scale roughness is much greater than in the previous area. Just above and to the right of center, we see a pit at the top of a hill. Rootless cone maybe? Or a crater where the surrounding rock has been eroded away?

Finally, we have a 4.5 km wide crater near the right edge of the swath: http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/4.5km_crater.jpg . here again we see a depression, a crater this time, with a rough north side and a dust-covered south side. Could this be due to preferential aeolian deposition? Very odd.

Regardless, a very interesting area.

Posted by: djellison Mar 24 2006, 09:41 PM

Hmm - dark side perhaps for noise? Or badly smeared for flat fielding?

Doug

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Mar 24 2006, 09:53 PM

QUOTE (volcanopele @ Mar 24 2006, 09:41 PM) *
Non-Martian geologist alert. Read at your own risk.

Is this your analysis?

Posted by: volcanopele Mar 24 2006, 09:59 PM

Actually, it is from my evil twin who likes Mars. biggrin.gif

Why what't wrong with it? other than the fact that it doesn't really say anything substative?

Posted by: Decepticon Mar 24 2006, 10:29 PM

QUOTE (centsworth_II @ Mar 24 2006, 11:38 AM) *
Hey, you few (I hope) who find reason to complain: What are you going to do for the NEXT SIX MONTHS?


Listen to Hogland complain about six months of pictures that JPL is stealing and miss leading the rest of us. tongue.gif

Kidding aside, I was tired and grumpy.
I just wanted to see the pictures. sad.gif

Posted by: AlexBlackwell Mar 24 2006, 10:40 PM

QUOTE (volcanopele @ Mar 24 2006, 09:59 PM) *
Why what't wrong with it? other than the fact that it doesn't really say anything substative?

Nothing, as far as I can tell. However, that doesn't mean a whole lot since, if truth be told, I haven't even looked at the image closely enough to comment. I just wanted to make sure whose analysis it was up front in case I do have any comments. In other words, I didn't want a "Moomaw"-type response to any comments/criticisms (viz., "Well, Alex, I ran my interpretation by Scientist X and he agrees with everything I said." biggrin.gif

Posted by: babakm Mar 24 2006, 10:59 PM

Tried to find the location in the MEX HRSC archives, but it falls neatly in a sliver of uncovered territory between two huge images.

Posted by: volcanopele Mar 24 2006, 11:26 PM

QUOTE (AlexBlackwell @ Mar 24 2006, 03:40 PM) *
Nothing, as far as I can tell. However, that doesn't mean a whole lot since, if truth be told, I haven't even looked at the image closely enough to comment. I just wanted to make sure whose analysis it was up front in case I do have any comments. In other words, I didn't want a "Moomaw"-type response to any comments/criticisms (viz., "Well, Alex, I ran my interpretation by Scientist X and he agrees with everything I said." biggrin.gif

Alex, it's Mars. I fully admit ignorance. If I am wrong, it is okay!!

Posted by: BillyMER Mar 24 2006, 11:45 PM

I don't think it's been said enough in this thread,these first photos are spectacular,unbelievable ! What endless knowledge to be gained from photos of this quality.
It would be interesting to see a before and after pic,like the best photo taken from this piece of Mars with one of the other orbiters.

Posted by: djellison Mar 24 2006, 11:55 PM

Well - MOC imagery would exceed this resolution - but we've not found any overlapping parts yet. It's bound to be in some Themis VIS images at 18m/pixel though - to this HiRISE imagery is 6x better than that.

This imageyr is utterly superb news not because of the image itself, but because it means the camera works properly, in the right sort of environment, doing what it was designed to do. It means that, aerobraking allowing, we're going to have some really very very good imagery in a few months time biggrin.gif

Do we know if they took the blue-green or near-IR with this test run? Perhaps they're saving the release of that for the mars madia event mentioned at the HiRISE website.

Doug

Posted by: tty Mar 25 2006, 12:14 AM

QUOTE (volcanopele @ Mar 24 2006, 10:41 PM) *
Here's a look at a more broadly exposed area of blocky terrain: http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/Rootless_cone.jpg . Here we see small hills, 50-100 meters in size. The small-scale roughness is much greater than in the previous area. Just above and to the right of center, we see a pit at the top of a hill. Rootless cone maybe? Or a crater where the surrounding rock has been eroded away?

Finally, we have a 4.5 km wide crater near the right edge of the swath: http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/4.5km_crater.jpg . here again we see a depression, a crater this time, with a rough north side and a dust-covered south side. Could this be due to preferential aeolian deposition? Very odd.

Regardless, a very interesting area.


To me the whole area seems strongly eroded by wind, which has preferentially removed softer sediments leaving the harder "knobbly" material. The "Rootless cone" is probably a pedestal crater where the softer material around it has been removed. Apparently the south side of craters and channels are the lee side and dust settles there.

tty

Posted by: Nix Mar 25 2006, 12:36 AM

QUOTE (djellison @ Mar 25 2006, 12:55 AM) *
............ It's bound to be in some Themis VIS images at 18m/pixel though - to this HiRISE imagery is 6x better than that.
...........
Doug



Here's one for context -roughly north-south context, about 1/3 down the image.

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/I14731003.html

Nico

and right next to it;

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/I15043004.html

Posted by: odave Mar 25 2006, 12:37 AM

QUOTE (djellison @ Mar 24 2006, 06:55 PM) *
Well - MOC imagery would exceed this resolution - but we've not found any overlapping parts yet.


I think there's a tiny overlap with http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15/images/R10/R1001370.html. I'm guessing that the crater at the bottom of the MOC narrow angle image is the same one that we see a corner of in the extreme SW of the HiRISE large area image. The channel above appears to match as well. I haven't downloaded the full res beastie to take a closer look yet, as I'm at home with my 28k dialup sad.gif

Posted by: Nix Mar 25 2006, 12:50 AM

roughly center, near the bottom of the frame;

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/browse/I04871003?

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 25 2006, 12:54 AM

QUOTE (odave @ Mar 24 2006, 04:37 PM) *
I think there's a tiny overlap with http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/r10_r15/images/R10/R1001370.html.

Maybe. I spent 15 minutes trying to match these up and failed, but the lighting conditions are pretty different. It's not much overlap because the MOC image is slanted the other way.

I have to give the HiRISE team credit, this image is very nice. Now, by analogy, Viking orbiter images were clearly superior to those of Mariner 9, but it was the latter that revolutionized our view of Mars. We'll see if the same is true for MRO compared to MGS smile.gif

Posted by: Nix Mar 25 2006, 01:08 AM

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/I09502003?tab=1

Posted by: Jeff7 Mar 25 2006, 04:52 AM

So how long until we get a pic of one of the rovers, or of Victoria Crater? biggrin.gif

Posted by: Nix Mar 25 2006, 06:17 AM

I think we'll see Victoria from the ground first. I don't mind biggrin.gif

Nico

Posted by: paulanderson Mar 25 2006, 07:27 AM

QUOTE (Bob Shaw @ Mar 24 2006, 01:16 PM) *
I think it's at least in part due to local dust conditions - look at this crop from the first MRO image of an area where the winds don't appear to be depositing as much material in the lee of various surface features.

There are some interesting similarities between the two deepest craters in that attached image. Within the "scooped out" areas in their bottoms (as the HiRISE team referred to them), there is a very similar patterning of debris including the outlines / shapes of the scoops, their positioning and orientation within the craters, and other curved, quasi-s shaped ridges within the scoops. And what looks like the remaining bits of a similar pattern in the third larger crater, but much more degraded.

I'm not implying anything other than natural processes (of course... blink.gif), but I'm curious about this. The HiRISE team also referred to these debris scoop features as strange on the blog. What process might create such similar features in two adjacent craters, which appear to be just ordinary impact craters? I would just think that usually any debris patterning would be much more random and haphazard looking, especially from impacts.

Posted by: dilo Mar 25 2006, 09:24 AM

In this elaboration of the 4.5 km http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~perry/4.5km_crater.jpg highlighted by Jason, in addition to unsharp and colorization I brightened the shadowed portion and the result is very encouraging, confirming the good S/N ratio...


probably, we will not have other dark areas mis-interpretations like Ultreya/Eldorado patch... wink.gif

PS: now slowly downloading full TIFF image...

Posted by: djellison Mar 25 2006, 09:54 AM

QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Mar 25 2006, 12:54 AM) *
I have to give the HiRISE team credit, this image is very nice. Now....


Now now now, 5 of the 8 cameras at Mars Orbit are MSSS instruments (for those that don't keep count. MOC NA, MOC WA, Themis Vis, CTX and MARCI from MSSS, Themis IR, HRSC and HiRISE are not ) - and they all contribute to the bigger picture in valuable and different ways smile.gif Let some one else have some fun biggrin.gif

(although I admit - occasionally I got MOC Gallery browsing just for fun, and not once I've I randomly clicked around and not found something that's made me go "Woah!" )

Anyhoo - the MOC image mentioned above, and the bottom corner of the HiRISE image

Tried to match MOC onto HiRISE, then I realised that the MOC image is the one projected to a proper orientation, so I then matched HiRISE onto that instead.
Doug

 

Posted by: Nix Mar 25 2006, 10:37 AM

Yes. That's it for comparison (at this MRO-altitude). woaw. Talk about improvement.

Nico

Posted by: Steve Mar 25 2006, 10:54 AM

QUOTE (djellison @ Mar 25 2006, 04:54 AM) *
Anyhoo - the MOC image mentioned above, and the bottom corner of the HiRISE image

Tried to match MOC onto HiRISE, then I realised that the MOC image is the one projected to a proper orientation, so I then matched HiRISE onto that instead.
Doug
Thanks for the comparison. To my untrained eye, comparable areas in the HiRISE look a bit smoother and less granular. That could be:
  • smile.gif Improved S/N ratio
  • sad.gif Blurring and loss of detail
  • huh.gif Something to do with image processing / sharpening
Being an optimist, I trust it's the first.

Posted by: Fred Mar 25 2006, 01:28 PM

[quote name=QUOTE REMOVED - totally unneeded
[/quote]

Some of the sand ripples in the attached image are practically one pixel wide. So there couldn't be any blurring, or we wouldn't be able to see features this small. I think the smoothness is due to most of the terrain being smooth and rounded, and due to the improved s/n ratio.

Just thought I'd chime in and add my two cents.


 

Posted by: Steve Mar 25 2006, 03:09 PM

QUOTE (Fred @ Mar 25 2006, 08:28 AM) *
Some of the sand ripples in the attached image are practically one pixel wide. So there couldn't be any blurring, or we wouldn't be able to see features this small. I think the smoothness is due to most of the terrain being smooth and rounded, and due to the improved s/n ratio.
Nice point, Fred.

I enlarged a portion of your image to show the pixels, and found the dunes are two or three pixels wide, still quite a respectable result. This approach won't tell us much more until they image areas with ground truth objects (Spirit, Opportunity, or any of the well mapped details in Gusev and Meridiani).


I also subtracted the general low frequency brightness, and enhanced the remainder and found that the plains areas are really smooth and the only texture left there looks suspiciously like JPEG artifacts. The s/n ratio looks very nice.


(My little machine is pushing its limits handling the JPEGs; anyone interested in trying to repeat this with the TIFFs?)

Posted by: djellison Mar 25 2006, 03:59 PM

The easy answer is that they're not the same pixel resolution. smile.gif

Doug

Posted by: alan Mar 25 2006, 04:06 PM

I think it looks smoother because th lighting is different. The shadows are the other way around and the sun is higher in the sky.

Posted by: mcaplinger Mar 25 2006, 04:41 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Mar 25 2006, 01:54 AM) *
Anyhoo - the MOC image mentioned above, and the bottom corner of the HiRISE image

Outstanding job, Doug. Thanks very much.

The illumination of the MOC image is pretty unfavorable for seeing the topography, so it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison. The MOC inevitably will have worse signal-to-noise ratio, so HiRISE will always win in that regard. Also, note that R10-1370 is summed 2 so it has a nominal resolution of about 3 m/pxl.

Posted by: paulanderson Mar 25 2006, 06:50 PM

QUOTE (paulanderson @ Mar 24 2006, 11:27 PM) *
There are some interesting similarities between the two deepest craters in that attached image. Within the "scooped out" areas in their bottoms (as the HiRISE team referred to them), there is a very similar patterning of debris including the outlines / shapes of the scoops, their positioning and orientation within the craters, and other curved, quasi-s shaped ridges within the scoops. And what looks like the remaining bits of a similar pattern in the third larger crater, but much more degraded.

I'm not implying anything other than natural processes (of course... blink.gif), but I'm curious about this. The HiRISE team also referred to these debris scoop features as strange on the blog. What process might create such similar features in two adjacent craters, which appear to be just ordinary impact craters? I would just think that usually any debris patterning would be much more random and haphazard looking, especially from impacts.

Re my previous post 127, I've linked to a cropped 150% zoom I did of the two craters in question. The similarities in patterning are still puzzling to me. Thoughts anyone...?


Posted by: djellison Mar 25 2006, 07:00 PM

Vortex like aeolian work from prevailing wind and local topography combined with similar sub surface layering?

Doug

Posted by: wohba Mar 25 2006, 07:09 PM

http://wohba.com/2006/03/test-photos-from-mro.html

http://wohba.com/2006/03/test-photos-from-mro.html

Posted by: SigurRosFan Mar 25 2006, 08:38 PM

Whoa!! blink.gif

Posted by: Bob Shaw Mar 25 2006, 08:47 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Mar 25 2006, 07:00 PM) *
Vortex like aeolian work from prevailing wind and local topography combined with similar sub surface layering?

Doug


Doug:

Certainly a 'yes' to the common strata; in fact, there's really obvious stratification all over the valleys, too. As for the offset debris, the craters may simply be on a slope.

Bob Shaw

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 25 2006, 08:50 PM

QUOTE (Bob Shaw @ Mar 24 2006, 04:31 PM) *
BTW, the HiROC site says 'The camera will take a second set of Mars images Saturday morning, March 25. These are test images and may not be of interest to the public.'


They're testing to see whether operating the motors for other MRO instruments will cause jitter and interfere with HiRISE imaging, so hopefully these images will be as sharp and of as much interest as the first round--unless maybe they will be pointing at stellar targets?

Posted by: paulanderson Mar 25 2006, 09:10 PM

QUOTE (Bob Shaw @ Mar 25 2006, 12:47 PM) *
Doug:

Certainly a 'yes' to the common strata; in fact, there's really obvious stratification all over the valleys, too. As for the offset debris, the craters may simply be on a slope.

Could be, and a wind / topography / subsurface layering combination as Doug suggested? It's the near-identical similarity of the sinuous ridges, etc. in both craters that has me intrigued. I don't see how the impacts alone by themselves would have produced that (initial debris patterning just by itself), it must involve some post-impact process(es) and / or underlying similar topography or layering? Also that two such similar topography / layering (?) patterns are contained within such a small geographic area, inside each separate crater. The patterns are almost a carbon copy of each other, except that the larger crater has more debris lying inside it.

Posted by: BillyMER Mar 25 2006, 09:31 PM

That zoom chart is most impressive,probably would mean a lot more to me if I knew how the craters in the chart compared in size to say endurance or Victoria.

Posted by: djellison Mar 25 2006, 10:38 PM

They're not that similar really.

Ignore the 'outer' circle - every crater has that - and all that's similar between them on the inside is the evidence of a lower layer, with a bias to one side. That's all really.

Doug

Posted by: monty python Mar 25 2006, 11:42 PM

QUOTE (paulanderson @ Mar 25 2006, 12:50 PM) *
Re my previous post 127, I've linked to a cropped 150% zoom I did of the two craters in question. The similarities in patterning are still puzzling to me. Thoughts anyone...?


Were these craters made at the same time by an impactng rubble pile object (similar densities and impact angles)? It would create a strange ejecta blanket.

Posted by: Bill Harris Mar 26 2006, 02:14 AM

I'd buy Doug's and Bob's, et al, explanations: similar formation, similar subsurface, similar aeolian activity. Although one of my first thoughts was "homeplate"...

The imagery _is_ wonderful.

--Bill

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Mar 26 2006, 02:38 AM

QUOTE (paulanderson @ Mar 25 2006, 06:50 PM) *
The similarities in patterning are still puzzling to me. Thoughts anyone...?

If you look at the larger context you can see that these craters are on the downstream end of a channel. I can't help but wonder if these are swirl patterns created at the tail end of a flash flood or deluge of some kind.

Posted by: nprev Mar 26 2006, 05:39 AM

I've got to vote for aeolian processes as the prime factor...most of that material is probably the "talcum powder" stuff that will undoubtedly plague the first manned expedition someday...

Also gotta add my blink.gif at the incredible resolution and quality of these images, even with high relative groundspeed and altitude at this point...I mean, like, wow! If there's still a hot spring or two cooking on Mars, HiRISE looks like the first instrument capable of finding them.

Posted by: Bubbinski Mar 26 2006, 06:38 AM

Very, very nice pics. I'm looking forward to the pics of the rovers and other spacecraft on the surface. And lots and lots of other great pics showing wonders we haven't seen yet.

One question....when are we going to see pics in living color? And will they be as high resolution as these grayscale pics? Also will MRO be able to make mosaics of the globe like MOC has done? (Today's APOD pic)

It's gonna be a long 6 month wait, fortunately the rovers are still working. I remember during one of the first press conferences, the lady (on the MER project) said that the rovers wouldn't be operational when MRO arrived at Mars. She must be eating some very delicious crow!

Posted by: edstrick Mar 26 2006, 09:41 AM

When are we going to see the other pics?... taken thursday and saturday? (unless the saturday are indeed featureless nighttime calibration shots or the like)

And.... hold on to your airplane-bags...

Hoaxland, at enterprisemission.com is already identifying abundant artyfakts in those craters and other parts of the scene.

Posted by: djellison Mar 26 2006, 10:09 AM

The central 1/5th of full res HiRISE images can be taken in pseudo-colour ( nIR, Red and B-G ) - but they've not processed that yet.

As I understand it - they took more than just the one image as well, I guess they'll be released at that Mars Mania event next month.

Doug

Posted by: nprev Mar 27 2006, 02:53 AM

QUOTE (edstrick @ Mar 26 2006, 01:41 AM) *
When are we going to see the other pics?... taken thursday and saturday? (unless the saturday are indeed featureless nighttime calibration shots or the like)

And.... hold on to your airplane-bags...

Hoaxland, at enterprisemission.com is already identifying abundant artyfakts in those craters and other parts of the scene.



Good grief-really??? Hasn't this crowd ever heard of Rorschach blots? They need to talk to any reputable psychiatrist for enlightenment on the subject!

Edit...argh, never mind, just followed the link. What an obvious con artist; the site is a cyber version of the National Enquirer.

Posted by: Joffan Mar 27 2006, 08:35 PM

It would only be surprising if that joker didn't pounce on new images as evidence of a pet theory. The swirly craters were obvious targets.

Posted by: jmknapp Mar 28 2006, 12:53 PM

Just looked at the site--unless I missed it, they haven't glommed onto that particular image yet, but are anxiously waiting the higher resolution images in general from MRO, as I suppose everyone is.

While the tall tales of Hoagland and the Art Bell crowd are uniformly insipid, I wonder if their attention to Mars isn't in the end a net positive for NASA and solar system exploration. So many people don't really care at all, and there's no such thing as bad publicity. As a lightning rod, Hoagland is a handy target for many scientific types to tee off against and spread the word about Mars.

Posted by: Bob Shaw Mar 28 2006, 01:03 PM

There may be no such thing as bad publicity, but there sure as hell is such a thing as bad science!

Not only do these clowns knowingly pollute the minds of the innocent with regard to real scientific enquiry, but they also serve as a brake on genuine technological progress - after all, what's the point in wasting all that money on Dawn's ion drive when 'everybody knows' that there's a Skunk Works Z*ro-P*int En*rgy drive spacecraft already flying?

I'd bring back the stakes, the bonfires, and the sharp pointed confession extraction equipment, just for that crew!

Bob Shaw

Posted by: Toma B Mar 30 2006, 05:41 PM

QUOTE
THE FIRST HiRISE IMAGES ARE IN! And they are gorgeous! These images are sharp, clear and beautiful in the "quick-look" or raw form. "Incredible," says Candy Hansen, Deputy Principal Investigator. The first image is 2.5 meters per pixel. The fourth image will be about 1.5 meters per pixel. We will get to less than a meter per pixel after the primary science orbit is achieved in September, when the orbiter is closer to Mars.

When will other 3 HiRISE images taken last friday be released to public?
They said that the fourth one will have resolution of 1.5 meters...(fitst one was 2.5 m)...

Posted by: paulanderson Mar 30 2006, 05:58 PM

Next images to be released April 6, including a press release:

http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/first_images

Just to note also, my previous overlay image of the two "swirly" craters, which has been deleted, was not meant to imply that I thought there was anything artificial about them, in Hoagland-style. I had already stated that in the text in my posts about them, to make that clear. I was simply interested in what geological processes might produce similar-looking patterns in the two separate craters, that's all. The overlay was meant only to highlight some of the finer similar features, which are there and seen when the photos are closely examined, but they might not "jump out" at everyone. I did explain this to Doug already also.

Posted by: Sunspot Mar 31 2006, 12:44 PM

Taking into account the quality of these test images, what do you think the likelyhood is of MRO and HiRise achieving the final image resolution/quality often quoted on the MRO webpages etc?

Posted by: djellison Mar 31 2006, 01:17 PM

Personally - I think it's quite good, that test image was fairly sharp - good detail - good SNR - I certainly think MC's caution is valid however, and I don't think we'll be getting a genuine 25cm/pixel at any point - but I certainly think 50cm/pixel x-track and down track will be doable. After a few months with the science orbit, they'll probably find the combination of binning etc that returns the most science per bit, and my personal guess is that it will be 2 x 2 binning for the outer 8 x red channels, with no binning for the central 2 nIR, R and BG channels

Doug

Posted by: tedstryk Mar 31 2006, 05:00 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Mar 31 2006, 01:17 PM) *
Personally - I think it's quite good, that test image was fairly sharp - good detail - good SNR - I certainly think MC's caution is valid however, and I don't think we'll be getting a genuine 25cm/pixel at any point - but I certainly think 50cm/pixel x-track and down track will be doable. After a few months with the science orbit, they'll probably find the combination of binning etc that returns the most science per bit, and my personal guess is that it will be 2 x 2 binning for the outer 8 x red channels, with no binning for the central 2 nIR, R and BG channels

Doug


Well, one other possibility is the altitude...I don't know the orbit it is in know, but it may be at a higher altitude...also, the scanning speed is a factor...if it is moving faster than it would be in its science orbit, they may be forced to bin the images for the SNR. Also, remember that early on, MOC was a bit out of focus. This wasn't a flaw - the focus was supposed to be refined once it got to its science orbit - and HIRISE might be similar.

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Mar 31 2006, 05:04 PM

Does anyone have details about MRO's science orbit, i.e., inclination, eccentricity,
and time of equatorial crossing? As far as I recall, MGS and Odyssey cross Mars'
equator at 3 p.m., while MRO is to cross at 4 p.m. This lower sun angle should help
MRO pick out detail, as I have always been frustrated by the flat appearance of most
MOC and Odyssey images. I was spoiled by the stunning detail visible in Lunar Orbiter
images taken at low Sun angles (as close to the terminator as LO's film speed would
allow).
I imagine that MRO, MGS and Odyssey needed higher illumination for other instruments
such as CRISM and Mars Color Imager. However, if MRO is to be a true Recon mission for
future landing missions, manned and unmanned, then wouldn't it be preferable to
place it in an orbit as close to the terminator as possible? There is nothing like long shadows
to pick out small scale topography such as samll craters, rockes, crevasses and dunes.
If MRO is to be anchored in one orbit for its mission duration, then I would vote for
some future mission to obtain true Lunar Orbiter type landing site recon images.

Another Phil

Posted by: remcook Mar 31 2006, 05:12 PM

QUOTE
To get desired groundspeeds and lighting conditions for the images, researchers programmed the cameras to shoot while the spacecraft was flying about 1,547 miles or more above Mars, nine times the range planned for the primary science mission. Even so, the highest resolution of about 8 feet per pixel - an object 8 feet in diameter would appear as a dot - is comparable to some of the best resolution previously achieved from Mars orbit.


http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mro/060324hirise.html

QUOTE
Does anyone have details about MRO's science orbit, i.e., inclination, eccentricity,
and time of equatorial crossing


some on the mission page .

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/mission/tl_science_orbit.html

Posted by: tedstryk Mar 31 2006, 05:49 PM

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08030

This is exciting to see - the first data from MCS (Mars Climate Sounder). It is a new, modernized version of an older instrument from the same team, the Pressure Modulated Infrared Radiometer, which flew on Mars Observer and Mars Climate Orbiter! It must be a great moment for them!

Posted by: PhilHorzempa Mar 31 2006, 10:44 PM

In reference to MRO's Sun-synchronous orbit, does anyone know at
what altitude MRO's orbit becomes "anchored" with reference to the Sun.
My orbital mechanics is bit shaky, but I know that the ellipsoidal shape
of Mars is utilized, along with MRO's inclination, to "drag" the plane of
MRO's orbit by about 1/2 degree per day so that it always crosses the
equator at the same time (apparently 3 p.m. local on Mars).
I know that at a sufficiently high altitude, MRO's orbit will be inertial, i.e.,
Mars will rotate below MRO without "dragging" the plane of MRO's orbit.

Does anyone know if there is enough fuel onboard MRO to raise its orbital
altitude, after its prime mission is complete, so that its orbit once again
becomes inertial? This would allow MRO to later lower its orbit again,
but this time in a Sun-synchronous orbit that crosses Mars' equator at
about 5 p.m. This would allow low-Sun photography of future landing sites
looking for craters, slopes, etc.


Another Phil

Posted by: Bob Shaw Mar 31 2006, 11:05 PM

Another Phil:

And also, perhaps, a longer role as a data relay orbiter.

Bob Shaw

Posted by: remcook Apr 1 2006, 09:02 AM

The altitude depends on the inclination. THere is a range of altitudes and corresponding inclinations that result in a sunsynchronous orbit. I don't have the formula's handy right now, but the basic principle is right: J2 effect causes a preseccion of the orbit that has the same rotational velocity as the motion of Mars around the Sun.

Posted by: paulanderson Apr 6 2006, 04:32 AM

Just a reminder:

More multiple images from MRO tomorrow, April 6. Press release at 10:00 am MST.

http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/first_images

"Look for another release of new HiRISE images on April 6, 2006. A press release is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Thursday. Please come back to this site for more information. Multiple images of Mars taken by HiRISE in March will be released! These newly released images will also be available for viewing or download on NASA's web sites."

Posted by: Sunspot Apr 6 2006, 06:04 PM

10:00 a.m., April 8, 2006 (Thursday): The new batch of HiRISE images will be released later today. We're sorry for the delay. The exact time will be posted soon. Your busy HiRISE Webmaster is finalizing the web page now! Multiple images of Mars taken by HiRISE in March will be released! These newly released images will also be available for viewing or download on NASA's web sites.

Posted by: Bubbinski Apr 6 2006, 06:20 PM

Thursday April 8 2006?? They must be on summer vacation tongue.gif wink.gif lol....

(I remember those glorious summers as a kid when I didn't know which day was which....)

Posted by: volcanopele Apr 6 2006, 07:00 PM

QUOTE (Bubbinski @ Apr 6 2006, 11:20 AM) *
Thursday April 8 2006?? They must be on summer vacation tongue.gif wink.gif lol....

(I remember those glorious summers as a kid when I didn't know which day was which....)

I think it is just the stress from dealing with JPL and NASA. I don't know what caused the delay, but given my past experience with JPL and NASA, I think it has to do with getting captions approved. As of Tuesday, the HiRISE team wasn't quite sure which images would be released since a few were still being processed at the time. So it is possible that everything is ready and prepared, but since they only very recently sent along the to-be-released data to NASA HQ, they are waiting for approval.

So be patient. From what I have seen, expect some awesome stuff. I might as well ask this now, what is the central wavelength for the near-IR band?

Posted by: Bubbinski Apr 6 2006, 07:21 PM

You said that the team wasn't quite sure which images would be released....do you mean there will be some images taken last month that will be held back and released later?

Regardless, I'm waiting with anticipation for the ones that do come out.

Posted by: djellison Apr 6 2006, 07:53 PM

QUOTE (Bubbinski @ Apr 6 2006, 07:21 PM) *
do you mean there will be some images taken last month that will be held back and released later?


As Jason said - they're probably still processing them - they've got a hell of a lot of data to deal with, and they're doing all this for the first time with real data. 200 - 800 Mpixel images take some work.

The real problem is that the hoaglanderati will go nuts over all this, because they have no grasp of the realities of the situation. They've already imposed huge numbers of artificiality into the first image, and they'll no doubt be doing the same with the following ones, and then suggesting that the delay was an attempt to edit them out. They're predictable beyond belief.

Doug

Posted by: Bubbinski Apr 6 2006, 08:01 PM

Understood, thanks.

The site's timing out right now, so I'm continuing to eagerly wait. I especially look forward to the color image.

Posted by: Sunspot Apr 6 2006, 09:54 PM

....damn, I guess we won't be seeing anything today afterall. sad.gif

Posted by: volcanopele Apr 6 2006, 10:14 PM

Hehe, our server went down this afternoon. It was down when I left work early (if I can't get to my files, I can't work, therefore I went home). And it looks like it is still down. Sorry about the delay everyone!

Posted by: um3k Apr 6 2006, 10:14 PM

QUOTE (Sunspot @ Apr 6 2006, 05:54 PM) *
....damn, I guess we won't be seeing anything today afterall. sad.gif

What makes you say that? huh.gif

EDIT: Nevermind.

Posted by: mhoward Apr 6 2006, 10:19 PM

QUOTE (volcanopele @ Apr 6 2006, 10:14 PM) *
Hehe, our server went down this afternoon. It was down when I left work early (if I can't get to my files, I can't work, therefore I went home). And it looks like it is still down. Sorry about the delay everyone!


Must have been all the UMSF members continuously pressing "refresh" on our browsers. Let that be a lesson to us.

Posted by: djellison Apr 6 2006, 10:21 PM

Anyone got a spare F5 key? Mine's all worn out.

Actually - I've been using this - http://www.btinternet.com/%7Emarkwell/webmon/ to track the HiRISE website, Steve's blog, etc etc - very usefull.

Doug

Posted by: volcanopele Apr 6 2006, 10:40 PM

No, one of the disks malfunctioned on our main server. Not sure when it will be back up again since they will need to rebuild the disk. I'll let you know when the server is back up if I am still on when it happens, but I wouldn't expect any images today. But you never know.

In terms of releases, remember that some of the images will take more processing than others to look good. Some are taken too close to twilight. But, rest assured, blown away ye shall be.

Posted by: gpurcell Apr 7 2006, 12:58 AM

Web site is back up, but no pix yet.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Apr 7 2006, 03:05 AM

QUOTE (gpurcell @ Apr 6 2006, 04:58 PM) *
Web site is back up, but no pix yet.

Arghhhh...

This is like waiting for Hayabusa to land. If someone will get me an address I'll send over a case of Lipovitan-D. Maybe that will get them moving.

Posted by: paulanderson Apr 7 2006, 03:29 AM

Hopefully tomorrow...

"News Flash: The HiRISE images release scheduled for April 6 has been postponed due to some server hardware problems. Hopefully they will be released on Friday, April 7. As soon as a date and time are confirmed, it will be posted here."

Posted by: GertVdB Apr 7 2006, 08:34 AM

New HiRISE images are available at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/!

Posted by: djellison Apr 7 2006, 09:02 AM

I'm guessing the scarey colour is using nIR as red, red as green and blue-green as blue.

If you use a channels mixer in, say, photoshop with these settings

CODE
Percentage :  R     G     B
Red              0      100    0
Green          0       50    50
Blue           0       0      100


You get something looking roughly sort of sensibly martian...ish (attached)

What's odd is that it's roughly 3k pixels across - not the 4k across I'd expect for a colour image from HiRISE. Who knows, one day, eventually, perhaps this decade, MM might release the MARCI and CTX images they took back then biggrin.gif


As for the other HiIRISE image, http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/e07_e12/images/E12/E1201440.html overlaps it just about, I believe... not quite sure yet. (yes - it does - thru the middle just about - I'll try and match up and get some images up in a moment)

Doug

 

Posted by: Nix Apr 7 2006, 10:21 AM

Great stuff!

Posted by: djellison Apr 7 2006, 12:20 PM

Here's where the two overlap. I've not got the time to do a nice sharp line-them-up overlay, but it gives you an idea of the extent of the overlap.

Doug

 

Posted by: mcaplinger Apr 7 2006, 01:40 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Apr 7 2006, 02:02 AM) *
Who knows, one day, eventually, perhaps this decade, MM might release the MARCI and CTX images...

I've been told this is going to happen this coming Thursday, 4/13.

You can partly blame the NASA press people, who apparently want stuff released on Thursdays and don't want multiple things released on the same day. Or something.

Posted by: djellison Apr 7 2006, 02:20 PM

Well - we know they're good and sharp, and that's all that really matters. I'm sure the MARCI image is a wallpaper waiting to happen smile.gif

Doug

Posted by: Sunspot Apr 7 2006, 02:24 PM

So how many pictures were they planning on releasing yesterday?

Posted by: mcaplinger Apr 7 2006, 02:43 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Apr 7 2006, 07:20 AM) *
I'm sure the MARCI image is a wallpaper waiting to happen...

Sorry to disappoint, but the MARCI image is pretty bad, since we were so close to the terminator. You can see Argyre, but the color is fairly muddy and the resolution is only 4-8 km/pixel due to the altitude.

Remember that MARCI's resolution in mapping is only about 1/4 that of the MOC WA.

Posted by: djellison Apr 7 2006, 02:47 PM

One presumes the colour part of the first large image, and the new one ( which I show a MOC overlay on above) just in greyscale. I'm not sure how many different images they actually took - and of those, which are 'valid' for looking at instead of just health checking, and of the 'valid' images, I'm not sure what binning, or colour options were used - but so far from what we've seen they took

One image that's 20k x 10k (unbinned) with central colour
Another images thats 10k x 26k 2x2 binned without colour.

Pity that the Marci image isn't too cool - I've always thought the MOC WA images during the break in aerobraking were some of the most spectacular images of Mars.

(while we're at it - just as a quite thought - how are global WA monitoring observations and the WA observations for context or other purposes combined in terms of scheduling etc - never quite understood that )

Doug

Posted by: mcaplinger Apr 7 2006, 04:02 PM

QUOTE (djellison @ Apr 7 2006, 07:47 AM) *
how are global WA monitoring observations and the WA observations for context or other purposes combined in terms of scheduling...

By use of extreme cleverness in implementation, the MOC WA is "virtualized" in that we can take the summed global map and a full-res regional at the same time, subject to CPU cycle constraints. (The hardware maintains a ring buffer of running pixel sums and the CPU subtracts lines from the ring buffer; for full-res it subtracts adjacent lines, for higher summing it subtracts lines farther apart.) After that it's just a question of what data volume you choose to devote to what.

MARCI has no such capability (there was only so much I could jam into the 4K of program memory in the DSP) but we expect to use less summing anyway so it hopefully doesn't matter.

Posted by: paulanderson Apr 7 2006, 05:11 PM

Another update from the HiRISE weblog:

"News Flash: Look for a release of three new HiRISE images about 10:15 a.m. at this site! Then more will be released at 1 p.m. Please check back!"

Posted by: Sunspot Apr 7 2006, 06:09 PM

Heres another one:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08049

This image shows part of a low mountain belt that rings the Argyre impact basin in Mars' southern hemisphere. The mountains or hills seen here are located in the northwestern part of the Charitum Montes.

Posted by: paulanderson Apr 7 2006, 06:51 PM

Now on the HiRISE weblog, including the first of five colour 3-D perspective views (more this afternoon)!

http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/first_images/first_three/index.shtml

Posted by: djellison Apr 7 2006, 08:16 PM

Get creative with the current image urls, and bingo - they're all there
http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/first_images/first_three/images/JPG/

Doug

Posted by: Nix Apr 7 2006, 08:41 PM

Lovely! Thanks Doug

Nico

Posted by: Bob Shaw Apr 7 2006, 09:14 PM

My Crystal Ball predicts that, suddenly, there will be lots of Mars Express images released...

Bob Shaw

Posted by: lyford Apr 7 2006, 09:40 PM

http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/first_images/first_three/images/JPG/Release_AEB_000001_0150_Red_Brow1.jpg (and that's the small 712k jpg version!) smile.gif

Posted by: Sunspot Apr 7 2006, 10:54 PM

The full size images are too big for me to download ohmy.gif ... if anyone did get the full size images, would they consider posting some 100% crops of a few of the more interesting features in them? biggrin.gif

Posted by: elakdawalla Apr 7 2006, 11:32 PM

I posted a few tiny postage stamps at full resolution here:
http://www.planetary.org/news/2006/0407_Color_Images_and_Sharp_Details_from.html

So many different things to look at in one image!

--Emily

Posted by: Bob Shaw Apr 7 2006, 11:38 PM

Emily:

Yup! And the exhumed craters, the valleys full of rocks, the strange linear features where material has fallen into craters...

...and, when the statistical analysis is done, perhaps an answer to the mini-craters problem!

Bob Shaw

Posted by: Sunspot Apr 7 2006, 11:48 PM

Thanks smile.gif

OK....I managed to get one of the half size images. The quality is stunning.. and they sharpen up nicely too. Here's my crop

 

Posted by: Sunspot Apr 8 2006, 12:14 AM

One more.........


Look at all the dunes... Imagine what Merdiani will look like from the final mapping orbit ohmy.gif


 

Posted by: alan Apr 8 2006, 01:09 AM

Notice how there are no dunes near the small crater inside that large crater. The ejecta must have disrupted them. I wonder how old those dunes are.

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Apr 8 2006, 02:01 AM

QUOTE (alan @ Apr 7 2006, 05:09 PM) *
Notice how there are no dunes near the small crater inside that large crater. The ejecta must have disrupted them. I wonder how old those dunes are.

It also makes you wonder if in the future dunes might be used as a rough dating yardstick on a regional basis or perhaps globally. Note in the image above one crater is free from dunes as you pointed out, but a similar sized one (upper-left) is evenly criss-crossed by the dunes. Clearly from superposition (geomorphology 101) the age of the dunes is somewhere between the ages of those two craters. All we need to do is devise a methodology for dating dunes regionally and we'll have something a bit better than crater counts (not to mention a way to peg cratering rates more accurately).

Posted by: ljk4-1 Apr 8 2006, 02:29 AM

Are there some images from other recent Mars orbiters we can compare
them to the ones shown by MRO?

And is there some kind of terrestrial scale we could use on some of
the MRO images to get a better idea just how big (or small) things
are being revealed?

Thank you.

Posted by: BillyMER Apr 8 2006, 02:49 AM

wow my thoughts exactly 'jk4-1 I was begining to think I was the only one...... I guess right now people are just interested in seeing the pics rather then comparing them if they can. I've been wondering how all these craters compare in size to Victoria and endurance. Are some of the craters we are seeing so well now ever been seen before ? What size would the rovers be,could they be clearly seen. I'm looking for a basis of camparison and not finding any.

Posted by: paulanderson Apr 8 2006, 02:53 AM

QUOTE (lyford @ Apr 7 2006, 02:40 PM) *
http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/first_images/first_three/images/JPG/Release_AEB_000001_0150_Red_Brow1.jpg (and that's the small 712k jpg version!) smile.gif

Beautiful. The whitish streaks in the lower left corner are interesting, how they smoothly cross over the varied terrain. If the detail is in these images is so good, wait until 6 months from now!

Posted by: ljk4-1 Apr 8 2006, 02:58 AM

QUOTE (BillyMER @ Apr 7 2006, 10:49 PM) *
wow my thoughts exactly 'jk4-1 I was begining to think I was the only one...... I guess right now people are just interested in seeing the pics rather then comparing them if they can. I've been wondering how all these craters compare in size to Victoria and endurance. Are some of the craters we are seeing so well now ever been seen before ? What size would the rovers be,could they be clearly seen. I'm looking for a basis of camparison and not finding any.


No, you are not alone, BillyMER.

It kind of reminds me of a Mars Pathfinder/Sojourner press conference I saw
on CSPAN in 1997. A group of MP/S scientists and engineers were being asked
about what the probe was finding out about Mars and in particular what the
surface was made of. The responses were all aimed at university geology
student levels and higher until finally one gently confused and frustrated
reporter asked if the eminent folks before them could convey their findings
in terrestrial terms: What would the Martian ground around MP be like if
you had to compare it to ground on Earth?

One geologist answered with "Kind of like beach sand." That's when you
could hear the press folk go "Aha!" both literally and figuratively, and the
MP team started explaining things in less abstract terms, and the whole
atmosphere of the conference went so much better after that right to the end.

Posted by: mcaplinger Apr 8 2006, 04:05 AM

QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Apr 7 2006, 07:29 PM) *
Are there some images from other recent Mars orbiters we can compare
them to the ones shown by MRO?

These look pretty much like MOC images. They're about the same resolution and they show pretty much the same thing -- Mars has a lot of sand dunes and craters smile.gif

Posted by: ljk4-1 Apr 8 2006, 04:11 AM

Yep - that's why I was asking to see other images from other orbiters
to know just how more detailed the MRO images are. Or do I need to
wait for the really detailed ones?

And do you know if the MRO team plans to image not just the old and
new USA landers and rovers, both intact and crashed, but also the
Beagle 2 and the three Soviet Mars landers, also both intact and crashed?

Posted by: Circum Apr 8 2006, 04:35 AM

QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Apr 8 2006, 12:05 AM) *
These look pretty much like MOC images.


mcaplinger, I'm very glad to have you here posting, and I'm glad to have MOC there imaging -- we should be so lucky as to have MRO healthy and useful as many years from now as MGS has provided (and counting!) -- and I confess I don't really know nor do I have a good feel for the exact image size comparisons, but in glancing at what the test images have shown so far, I am minded of the old saying: "Quantity has a quality all its own."

Posted by: mcaplinger Apr 8 2006, 04:48 AM

QUOTE (Circum @ Apr 7 2006, 09:35 PM) *
I confess I don't really know nor do I have a good feel for the exact image size comparisons...

Doug did all the hard work on this; look back at
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=2364&view=findpost&p=49703

I'm not sure if there's some overlap with one of these craters, but that'd be instructive. I'd say the MOC image is better than the HiRISE one in Doug's overlap, but MOC probably had better illumination. Clearly from the mapping orbit, HiRISE will outperform MOC.

Posted by: Circum Apr 8 2006, 05:20 AM

QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Apr 8 2006, 12:48 AM) *
Doug did all the hard work on this; look back at
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=2364&view=findpost&p=49703


Ahh, yes, thanks, I had seen that composite image of Doug's but wasn't clear in my head what was overlapping what; although connecting it with his earlier message it becomes obvious from the 'MOC' in the listed URL.

Two conclusions spring to mind: 1) If one is interested in large-area coverage, it takes a *lot* of thin strips -- and no doubt a lot of work to target them -- with MOC, and, 2) Once the science orbit is achieved though, the areal coverage disparity obviously won't be as large.

Posted by: edstrick Apr 8 2006, 10:32 AM

Mars 2 (high speed impact),
Mars 3 (landed, maybe hard), and
Mars 6 (low speed impact -- went silent at MER-like retrofire or impact)

are not located well enough to find except by accident. Landing coordinates are given to 1 degree or certainly no better than 0.1 degree accuracy, and the coordinate system used is undoubtably not well tied to the current one.

I'd love to find'm, but the area to be imaged at full HIRES resolution and the uncertainty of uniquely identifying them till we have 0.1 meter resolution rather than HIRES resolution makes it probably not worth the effort.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Phil.

Posted by: BillyMER Apr 8 2006, 11:28 AM

QUOTE (ljk4-1 @ Apr 7 2006, 11:11 PM) *
Yep - that's why I was asking to see other images from other orbiters
to know just how more detailed the MRO images are. Or do I need to
wait for the really detailed ones?

And do you know if the MRO team plans to image not just the old and
new USA landers and rovers, both intact and crashed, but also the
Beagle 2 and the three Soviet Mars landers, also both intact and crashed?


all i can figure is that no body here has the info (photos) on how well these areas have been photographed by other orbiters in the past or they would post comparisons. The only comparison I can think of in my mind is how blurry the sand dunes appear on all the route maps for oppy and how clear the dunes appear in these new MRO photos.

Posted by: Bob Shaw Apr 8 2006, 03:24 PM

The MRO test images were 'sold' as being significantly lower resolution than the expected final quality from the mapping orbit. The images which came down are of most interest as synoptic snapshots of a large area at good, but not highest, resolution, and as such are valuable in their own right (for once, we're not seeing small swathes but big areas at the same time, lit the same way, from the same camera and at resolutions which are still 'good'). They are not so detailed as the best MGS images - yet. And the quantity of data is immense!

Bob Shaw

Posted by: Phil Stooke Apr 8 2006, 07:40 PM

edstrick: "Correct me if I'm wrong, Phil."

No need. You're dead right.

I assume all known sites will be imaged to help provide geological context and (for Viking 2) still try to nail down the location. Right now we have three candidate objects within about 1 km of each other. HiRISE might resolve the issue.

Phil

Posted by: ljk4-1 Apr 9 2006, 03:45 PM

QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Apr 8 2006, 03:40 PM) *
I assume all known sites will be imaged to help provide geological context and (for Viking 2) still try to nail down the location. Right now we have three candidate objects within about 1 km of each other. HiRISE might resolve the issue.

Phil


According to this, Viking 2 was found, with some help by a fellow with a name
very similar to yours:

http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/05/05/

Is there some new information out now?

And I know it will not be easy, but I do hope MRO will search for the three Soviet
landers, as we will then learn what finally happened to them. Mars 3 will probably
be the only intact one, but that is why we should search, because we don't know.

And they were the first probes on Mars, regardless of the fact that they didn't come
off nearly as well as the two Vikings - those show-offs.

Posted by: BruceMoomaw Apr 9 2006, 11:18 PM

The most interesting thing I've found on those early photos was pointed out by Emily at http://planetary.org/news/2006/0407_Color_Images_and_Sharp_Details_from.html , next-to-last photo -- a very, very small multiply branching channel, no more than a few hundred meters long and just a few meters wide, that absolutely MUST have been carved by flowing surface water from the rim of Argyre Crater. Now, what the hell does that signify? Something important, surely? Snowmelt off the slope of Argyre during Mars' most recent obliquity climate cycle a few tens of thousands of years ago, maybe?

Posted by: lyford Apr 10 2006, 01:04 AM

Hope this isn't too past it's "freshness date" but Phil Plait has a good little bit comparing the resolution to a Google Earth image:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/03/26/first-image-from-mars-orbiter-2/

Posted by: Phil Stooke Apr 10 2006, 02:10 AM

ljk4-1 asks about Viking 2.

Yes, I have a candidate point, Mike Malin has a candidate point, and Tim Parker (JPL) has a third candidate point. Each one is a tiny lump. Either two of them are boulders and one is Viking 2, or all three are boulders! We will need MRO to distinguish these possibilities.

I have tried using the best cPROTO MOC image to map the pattern of boulders around the candidate lander. This is at the limit of resolution. Unfortunately, Malin's lander position looks like it matches boulders better than the other two... but on the other hand, I can make Tim's point and mine match distant topography, but I can't make Malin's point match the distant topography. So it's not conclusive.

Phil

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Apr 10 2006, 02:30 AM

QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Apr 9 2006, 06:10 PM) *
ljk4-1 asks about Viking 2.

Yes, I have a candidate point, Mike Malin has a candidate point, and Tim Parker (JPL) has a third candidate point.

Well if you win, we'll have to pour a bottle of wine on me.

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