Any Astronomy Buffs Here?

[CameronBornAndBred]

Watching Perseverance feed on Space.com. Everything is autonomous now...hope they got their math right! (Those pesky decimal points and metric conversions.)

[-jk]

Touchdown!

-jk

[CameronBornAndBred]

That Was AWESOME!!!

[fisheyes]

That is just so freaking cool!

We are capable of such amazing achievements.

AMAZING!

[Phredd3]

This is so much better than politics. Congratulations, NASA, and thanks for helping us all rise above.

[CameronBornAndBred]

This is so much better than politics. Congratulations, NASA, and thanks for helping us all rise above.

mars_attacks.jpg

[DevilHorse]

Very enjoyable presentation.

Enjoyed the dials on the bottom with velocity, height, and Dow Industrials (updated about every 10-20 seconds, but damn good).

I found myself measuring speed in the number of football fields per second at one point, just as a point of reference. Worked for me. Tremendous deceleration!

I'd like a bit deeper interpretation of the information they provided earlier. -65 degree temperatures with 2% atmospheric pressure is way out of anyone's experience. Room temperature at 2% atmosphere would still feel really cold. How is that temperature measured. Sorry, but I digress.

Great Day, on to the pictures and Helicopter tours; please don't point the camera at the sun.

Larry
DevilHorse

[weezie]

Go Perseverance! Such a wonder.

I'll bet all those rocket scientists had to show their work and loved it.

[JasonEvans]

First of what should be many photos... if nothing was damaged during landing, we will soon have the best images ever taken of Mars. They will look a lot better than these.

In the days to come, much better images will arrive. The rover is better equipped to document its journey than ever before, with 25 cameras and two microphones, many of which were used to document the journey down to Mars.

As such, mission controllers will get to see things they never have before, including the view of the enormous parachute opening and slowing the spaceraft, as well as the ground getting closer as the vehicle moves towards the ground.

“A feast for the eyes and ears. It’s really going to be spectacular,” observed Arizona State University’s Jim Bell, lead scientist for a pair of mast cameras that will serve as the rover’s eyes.

[OldPhiKap]

You can follow Percy on Twitter:

@NASAPersevere

For present and future pictures, info, etc.

[DevilHorse]

Percy discovers freezer Bern, on Mars:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eui3Hx2X...png&name=small

Larry
DevilHorse

[DevilHorse]

Not sure if folks want to geek out further on Perseverence (which I will surely misspell if I continue to long hand type), but..

Here is an interesting link showing where exactly the touchdown point was:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/missi...-is-the-rover/
Really a great spot! It is interactive too.

One of those "dials" that were changing at the bottom of the screen during the descent was the Mach number. The only time you hear about Mach is when someone is trying to break the sound barrier (Mach 1). It struck me later on that I wasn't sure what that number was. Could it have just been an Earth multiple of the Speed of Sound/ Speed of Percy as it decelerated through the atmosphere, just to give us all perspective? Or was it the real Mars Mach value, because the sound barrier of course has to be different on Mars. Well, it seems that the Mach value on Mars is roughly just 2/3 of what it is on Earth. So with values changing so quickly on the screen, it would have been roughly the same during descent. But would there have been a sonic BOOM of any kind? Yes, but it wouldn't have much impulse. With a 2% atmosphere relative to what is on Earth, sound doesn't propagate up there. You would be essentially deaf, or would need a major hearing aid like what is on Perseverence.
Here is a discussion on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comme...res_and_sound/

Larry
DevilHorse

[Wander]

Not sure if folks want to geek out further on Perseverence (which I will surely misspell if I continue to long hand type), but..

Here is an interesting link showing where exactly the touchdown point was:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/missi...-is-the-rover/
Really a great spot! It is interactive too.

Nice spot – only a couple km to the delta to the northwest. About 3 years travel to the crater rim. Watch out for a (blurry) picture of the rover descending on parachute.

[DevilHorse]

Nice spot – only a couple km to the delta to the northwest. About 3 years travel to the crater rim. Watch out for a (blurry) picture of the rover descending on parachute.

As the martian crow flies, it looks to be about 7km to the rim of the crater. Percy can move at 100m a day, so if NASA wanted to reach the rim, it could do so in 70 days. But then, 1) it will not go in a straight line (pot holes, hills, and rocks) or other interesting features 2) it will make stops to dig holes (collect samples) 3) it will stop to fly its helicopter and visit any Celestial Stuckey's it encounters (different definition of a pit stop).

I found this article about what the next few days of Space Camp will look like for Percy:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...n-its-mission/

Larry
DevilHorse

[Wander]

As the martian crow flies, it looks to be about 7km to the rim of the crater. Percy can move at 100m a day, so if NASA wanted to reach the rim, it could do so in 70 days. But then, 1) it will not go in a straight line (pot holes, hills, and rocks) or other interesting features 2) it will make stops to dig holes (collect samples) 3) it will stop to fly its helicopter and visit any Celestial Stuckey's it encounters (different definition of a pit stop).

I found this article about what the next few days of Space Camp will look like for Percy:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...n-its-mission/

Larry
DevilHorse

Yeah, we'll want to spend a while sampling the geology – it's probably good that it landed outside the delta, because it means easily sampling both the delta and the other stuff.

In addition to looking for life, flying a helicopter, and storing samples, another fun thing it's doing is an experiment to produce oxygen from the carbon dioxide atmosphere, in preparation for eventual human exploration.

Pics at the press conference in an hour will be great!

[PackMan97]

I found this article about what the next few days of Space Camp will look like for Percy:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...n-its-mission/

tl;dr version:
They are going to science the *@#$ out of it.

[JasonEvans]

Here is a shot from the parachute taking Percy to the surface.

[JasonEvans]

A wheel...


A long distance shot of the parachute, doing its thing...

[duke79]

Yeah, we'll want to spend a while sampling the geology – it's probably good that it landed outside the delta, because it means easily sampling both the delta and the other stuff.

In addition to looking for life, flying a helicopter, and storing samples, another fun thing it's doing is an experiment to produce oxygen from the carbon dioxide atmosphere, in preparation for eventual human exploration.

Pics at the press conference in an hour will be great!

When will we see the photos of the Alien bases on Mars? (or is the wrong thread)

[JasonEvans]

When will we see the photos of the Alien bases on Mars? (or is the wrong thread)