Artsnova Digital Art and Space Blog Launched

As you look through my entries on the Digital Mars Blog you will see that some of them are unrelated to Mars. In order to keep this blog devoted exclusively to items about Mars, I have launched another Blog that addresses digital art and photography, space art, astronomy, and presentations.

The URL for the Artsnova blog is http://artsnova.com/blog/.

See you there.

Jim

Spirit Celebrates 1000 Sols on Mars

Today, Oct. 26, 2006, is the 1,000th Sol (a Martian day) that the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has spent on Mars. It's hard to believe that the two rovers Spirit and Opportunity continue to operate, having exceeded their rated lifetime of 90 Sols by a factor of more than 10. As a sort of celebration, JPL has today released a panoramic image of Spirit's current location on a small hill called "Low Ridge".

Referred to as PIA01907: 'McMurdo' Panorama from Spirit's 'Winter Haven', a small portion of which can be seen above, the panorama was created from individual pictures taken by Spirit's panoramic camera, commonly referred to as the Pancam. The most interesting component of this panorama is the field of rocks that appears in the center of the image. While the image is impressive, its true beauty can only be seen in the full resolution version (a 28 meg JPEG).

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Astonishing Picture of Victoria Crater

Wow! The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) team just released a picture of Victoria Crater taken by the HiRISE camera. The picture can be seen at http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/TRA/TRA_000873_1780/

The picture of Victoria crater, seen in Figure A below, is the destination of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.

Figure A. MRO picture of Victoria Crater
(click picture to enlarge)

For purposes of comparison you may want to check out the picture of Victoria Crater that I created from a Mars Global Surveyor MOC Narrow-Angle Camera image at http://www.marsartgallery.com/victoriacrater.html

What makes the MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) picture truely astonishing is that the rover Opportunity can be seen in the picture. Even more astonishing is that the shadow from the PanCam mast can be seen in the full resolution version. The image resolution is 27 centimeters per pixel.

Figure B. Closeup of Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity

(click picture to enlarge)

More about this detailed view of Opportunity is available at http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/TRA/TRA_000873_1780/opportunity.html

For more information, the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) home page is at http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/ and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter home page is at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/.

Way to go MRO.

Space Videos on the Net

There is a surprising abundance of space related videos on the web that are hosted by non-NASA web sites. Following is a list of a few of the better ones that I have recently come across.

Video: ISS Assembly Sequence
URL: http://www.tietronix.com/anim/AnimationTop.html
Comments: A nice animation of the full assembly sequence for the International Space Station. Note that to access the video, you've got to do the following:

1) Go to the web page http://www.tietronix.com/anim/AnimationTop.html

2) In the left-side navigation area is a series of small picture icons. Moving your mouse over the image pulls up a larger version in the main area. Clicking on the icon starts the movie.

3) Find the icon for the ISS Assembly Sequence (3rd row, 1st column in the section labeled Space.

4) Click the icon and enjoy.

There are also several other animations available, including Orbiter Reentry Maneuver and Crew Return Vehicle animation.

Video: The Best of Hubble... Part l
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJW1hof_4_I
Comments: Nice background music for a film that pans various Hubble
Space Telescope images. Not very exciting.

Video: Yuri Gagarin Flight video
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2C1FkPz5vU&NR
Comments: Great video overview of the pioneering flight of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, with a lively soundtrack as well.

Video: Man on the Moon
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QX3mE6N-2c&mode=related&search=
Comments: Opening with Kennedy's famous speech "we choose to go to the
Moon", this is a video review of the Apollo 11 mission. Nice song as a soundtrack 6.5 minutes long

Video: Lift Off Soyuz Baykonur
URL:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7635123402210104777&q=gagarin
Comments: At almost 8 minutes, this video could have been shortened to about 4 minutes. It features the launch of a Soyuz to the International Space Station. Most interesting prelaunch are the views of the launch pad. Most interesting postlaunch are the views of the interior of the Soyuz spacecraft.

Meanwhile back at NASA, there is a great video from the Solid Rocket Booster Camera of the SRB's descent back to the surface, complete with sound. I'd give it two-thumbs up.

The video can be found on the "Index to NASA Podcasts" web page at

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/index.html

There is also a nice video of the STS-115 ISS Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver

Enjoy the shows.

Jim, http://www.marsartgallery.com