These are (amazing) high-definition photos of Mars landscape
August 31, 2012 16
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NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory sent to the Curiosity rover to Mars. It landed in early August. Since then there have been many images sent back to Earth thanks to the various cameras NASA attached to the rover. One such example are the high-definition photos Curiosity’s Mars Descent Imager camera took while the rover was landing; if you remember, these photos were turned into a timelapse video. Now we have more Mars photos to show you.
The following photos are from Curiosity. They are in high-definition as before but this time, instead of seeing Mars from atop, you get the see Mars landscape, in color and black and white. Check it out (click on the images if you want to enlarge them):
Don’t these photos strike awe in you? If these were photos of some place on Earth, they may not be so amazing. However, being from Mars, they are literally alien to this world which makes them so damn cool.
[Images via NASA/JPL]
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They take my breath away. Thank you.
Sue sums it all.
Similar, for me, to high altitudes in the Andes mountains,
Fantastic photos ! Thank you Ashraf.
@Mike: Like Atacama Desert but without telescopes? ;)
Just simply amazing! Thank you Ashraf.
Thank you for the views of Mars. This is only the beginning, and humans will walk on the Red Planet someday, hopefully within my lifetime. I believe it is in our nature to explore and open frontiers, to seek out other life (wait a minute, I’m getting too Star-Trekkie here), and I’m glad we’ve started. We have just scratched the surface, now let us carve out the future.
Great pictures,and amazing accomplishment-Buuuutt,considering the economic condition of the USA (you know,citizens unemployed,homeless,kids with no food-little stuff like that)-great example of pissing away money!!
This would be like going out and buying a brand new car,and coming home to tell your family that you can’t pay the rent,or utility bills,and by the way,there’s nothing to eat either.But I did get some great high res photos of the vacant lot down the street we will be living on.
Go NASA!! Go U.S. Government!! Spend those tax $$ wisely!!
“Out of this world!” Corny, but true. Thank you Ashraf for finding and publishing these truly awesome views.
@chuck (detailer):
If you think about it, the money hasn’t been p*ss*d away. Every dollar spent has paid someone’s wages or procured materials that went into the construction of ‘Curiosity’. The great majority of the dollars were spent in the US.
The movement of money around an economy is what keeps it alive. If every citizen of any particular country horded their hard earned dollars/pounds sterling/euros/whatever in a box under the their bed, then that country would shut down within the month.
Rejoice in the colossal technical achievement of your country. As a Brit., I’m envious!
Great photos. It would be nice to have some URLs to find descriptions (like for photo mars_landscape_14, how was that one taken?). I’ll do some searching of the nasa.gov site.
@jayesstee: I assume you mean that tiny sector of specialized jobs and ridiculously overpriced pure unobtanium?Sorry mate-Can’t agree-not a bit.Too many problems here that money could have helped to solve.And I certainly wasn’t suggesting that we “hide or keep” our money.Just a little more common sense about where we put it to use.
I’m thinking jobs and materials aimed at infrastructure-you know,improved quality of life here -where most of us HAD homes and jobs prior to the Bush era
Sorry,but the INSANE cost of this undertaking can’t begin to justify the expenditure-jobs and materials be damned.
@chuck (detailer):
That “tiny sector of specialized jobs” spend there dollars in the grocery shops, auto dealers and the rest of the economy. Each time it moves it gets taxed, that is the Government take a cut. If they don’t spend some on the essentials that you list then kick their ass – you have elections coming up!
Nobody parceled up the dollars an sent the directly to Mars. The money stayed on earth (mostly in the US). The economy needs money to flow like a circuit needs electricity.
If I didn’t know I was looking at photos of and from Mars I might think I was looking at photos of certain parts of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and even California, as well as, other parts of the this great big world. It will be interesting to learn, probably years from now, what the research accomplished about Mars turns up.
And I suppose I have plenty to say about the money spent on the Rover project, but I just don’t feel this is the forum to discuss politics.
@JonE:
Yep, I apologize for going seriously off topic.
@jayesstee: I get it-So it’s OK that I bought the car that bankrupted my family and left us homeless because it created jobs?
Strange a Brit should speak to politics in the U.S.We have this thing called Congress,where there seems to be no term limit,and very little to nothing being done to help this country’s financial woes.They approve massive amounts of cash for needless projects such as this one.Don’t even try to argue the need for Mars exploration.
But what the hell,if you want to pay 100 times what the electric is worth and use it to power the wrong lamp,then I guess it’s OK.
As a “Brit”,you may be envious,but somewhat clueless as you simply don’t live here in the US
They are indeed amazing, thanks. Am glad also were not described as “jaw dropping,” which ranks in cliché status as “addictive” is to describe games or multiple exclamation marks (!!!!) to describe anything.
@jayesstee: Don’t know whether you are following this post, but I’m a seriously opinionated crap and I always have to watch what I say on here. It doesn’t take too long to figure out that even techies have different opinions about hardware, software, and such things, but I figure that’s what we’re here to discuss; tech issues. My way of saying I understand; I have to watch my tongue on a regular basis.