A distant cliff and a rocky path forward
Click for full image.
Click for full image.
Two cool images arrived today from Curiosity, as it is about to enter the Martian canyon of Gediz Vallis. The mosaic above, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, was assembled from photos taken by the rover’s right navigation camera on August 15, 2022. The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken the same day by the rover’s Chemistry camera, normally designed to take very close-up pictures of nearby features. In this case the science team aimed it at a distant cliff face, marked by the arrow in the panorama above, to get a preview of some of the many layers in that mesa.
And has become quite expected from Mars, the number and types and variety of layers is astonishing. The layer that forms the flat bright area at the center of this image is what scientists have dubbed “the marker layer”, since they have found it at similar elevations in many places on the flanks of Mount Sharp. (See the annotated overview map from a post last week.)
Curiosity’s planned route is to head to the right of this mesa, circling around it to get into the upper reaches of Gediz Vallis. First however engineers are going to have to figure out how to get the rover past the somewhat large scattered rocks on the ground directly ahead, without further damaging Curiosity’s already tattered wheels. At first glance there does not appear to be any clear path.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for full image.
Click for full image.
Two cool images arrived today from Curiosity, as it is about to enter the Martian canyon of Gediz Vallis. The mosaic above, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, was assembled from photos taken by the rover’s right navigation camera on August 15, 2022. The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken the same day by the rover’s Chemistry camera, normally designed to take very close-up pictures of nearby features. In this case the science team aimed it at a distant cliff face, marked by the arrow in the panorama above, to get a preview of some of the many layers in that mesa.
And has become quite expected from Mars, the number and types and variety of layers is astonishing. The layer that forms the flat bright area at the center of this image is what scientists have dubbed “the marker layer”, since they have found it at similar elevations in many places on the flanks of Mount Sharp. (See the annotated overview map from a post last week.)
Curiosity’s planned route is to head to the right of this mesa, circling around it to get into the upper reaches of Gediz Vallis. First however engineers are going to have to figure out how to get the rover past the somewhat large scattered rocks on the ground directly ahead, without further damaging Curiosity’s already tattered wheels. At first glance there does not appear to be any clear path.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Pictures like the one of the cliff face interest me very much. Knowing that the “photographer “ can’t see the subject to frame it. Like taking a photo in a dark room and framing the shot from what you remember it looked like earlier and 90 million miles away.