by Matthew Cobb
@MarsCuriosity (the tw*tter feed of Curiosity rover) just posted this image of Gale Crater on Mars, taken on 11 December by the Mars HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) Camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which we’ve featured here a number of times. Given how much fun everyone has been having with spotting nightjars and moths, have a go at this. There’s a rover hidden somewhere in this pic. Click on the image if you can’t spot it:
Here’s the big version. See it now?
Here’s a false colour image of the tracks:
These images were all taken from here, and are from NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona.
And for those of you in the UK, it’ll shortly be time to go and watch the brilliant Stargazing Live from the Jodrell Bank Observatory of the University of Manchester. They have been doing some great stuff crowd-sourcing gravitational lenses, which they’ll be reporting on tonight. To see what the fuss is about, go here and join in. This is a crowdsourcing project by Zooniverse, who also did the spiders of Mars project we talked about this time last year.
And above all, it appears that Tuesday’s coronal mass ejection from the Sun may lead to the northern lights being visible even from Manchester, after midnight! Woop woop!
Way easier than the nightjar, though I guess the nightjar would also be easy if there were no vegetation.
You mean you haven’t yet spotted the nightjar that’s perched on the rover?
That’s actually a mimic octopus, not a nightjar.
What looks like the rover is actually a nightjar.
Cheers,
b&
Yeah, I saw the rover right away. I never found the nightjar until it was revealed!
Golly — many thanks for these, which I hadn’t seen before! I especially like the false-colour photo of the tracks.
A hundred years ago — less, in fact — our knowledge of our neighbour was so slight that reasonable people could argue about the canals on Mars and the agriculture of the mighty civilization there. Makesyerthink, dunnit?
It’s so cool that we have an orbiter taking pics of a rover on Mars.
For me, this is more exciting than any supposed ghost sightings.
The tracks give it away. Easy spot.
Yep, I saw the tracks on my first glance at the photo, and then figured the dot at the lower end of them was the rover.
Fun fact of the week – the mars rover reported higher temperatures on Tuesday than some places in the midwest.
My eyes were drawn to the black and white mark immediately. I think it is its shadow that gave it away.
Rovers are easy. Nightjars are hard. The latter have been working at concealing themselves far longer!
Concealment is not one of the skills of a Mars Rover. Unlike surprise and rigorous attention to the precepts of the Spanish Inquisition.
I’d better go and commit seppuku with a blunt parrot now.
Right. Just don’t spill your tea on the comfy chair!
b&
Next up: spot the nightjar from orbit!
Are you trying to make us all cross-eyes, Matthew?
Mucho cool.