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Chris Rowan is a geologist specialising in the dark arts of paleomagnetism, and getting people to pay him to travel to exotic destinations for fieldwork. Having drilled up New Zealand during his PhD, and South Africa in his first post-doc, he now works at the University of Edinburgh.
Anne Jefferson has a love of all things water-related and blends hydrology, geomorphology, geology, and climate change in her work. She has a Ph.D. from Oregon State University and is now an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
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Category: planets
Posted on: May 30, 2008 3:10 PM, by Chris Rowan
You've probably already seen the close-up of Phoenix descending to Mars, captured from orbit by HiRISE. Like me, you probably thought it was pretty cool. But have you seen the wide view?
If that's not a Sputnik moment, I don't know what is.
(from the HiRISE blog)
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Comments
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Stunning indeed.
Posted by: The Flying Trilobite | May 30, 2008 5:05 PM
Wow. Can you point out where it actually landed? How high was it when photographed, how much lateral drift, what's the scale of the features on the ground?
Posted by: Hank Roberts | May 30, 2008 5:36 PM
Nevamind, the detailed info was already in the tubes:
Shown here is a 10 kilometer (6 mile) diameter crater informally called "Heimdall," and an improved full-resolution image of the parachute and lander. Although it appears that Phoenix is descending into the crater, it is actually about 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) in front of the crater.
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images.php?gID=646&cID=13
Posted by: Hank Roberts | May 30, 2008 6:06 PM
Looks like it is coming down smack dab in the middle of what appears to be a big crater. I thought it landed on a flat plain.
Posted by: Art | May 30, 2008 6:11 PM
See the note before yours, you can also see Heimdall Crater in this image among others:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/226792main_6406-516.jpg
Posted by: Hank Roberts | May 30, 2008 8:06 PM
"Although it appears that Phoenix is descending into the crater, it is actually about 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) in front of the crater."
That makes a lot of sense because range from the observer is very difficult to gauge without any stereoscopic information. This set against the flat visual cues of the lander being a relative point and the crater edge being much very much larger and easier to scale.
I knew there was an explanation of why what seemed to be immediately apparent wasn't.
Posted by: Art | May 30, 2008 8:22 PM
I'm always amazed at the quality of these pictures the fact that they can even transmit them back here. Anyone able to explain how it's done?
Posted by: Joel | May 30, 2008 9:30 PM
Wow! I thought that the closeup had the atmopshere in the background. Silly me.
Thanks for sharing this. Really cool image.
Posted by: Antimonite | May 31, 2008 2:47 AM
That is way cool.
NASA also has an image on their site of the Earth and the moon (both half full) in a single shot taken from orbit around mars. I think that was pretty cool too.
Posted by: yogi-one | May 31, 2008 11:55 AM
I saw that on APOD. Great picture!!!
Posted by: The Science Pundit | May 31, 2008 12:34 PM