New videos sent from Mars by the veteran Curiosity rover show its shadow moving across the surface of the Red Planet during a 12-hour sequence while it remained stationary.
Read also: (Scientists reveal details of how the first animals on Earth evolved)
When this robotic NASA rover on Mars isn’t moving, it functions quite well as a sundial, as seen in two black-and-white videos recorded on November 8, the mission’s 4,002nd Martian day. The rover captured its own shadow moving across the surface of Mars using its black-and-white hazard avoidance cameras, or Hazcams, NASA reports.
related topics
The instructions to record the videos were part of the last set of commands sent to Curiosity just before the start of Mars’ solar conjunction, a period when the Sun is between Earth and Mars. Because plasma from the Sun can interfere with radio communications, missions postpone sending commands to the Mars spacecraft for several weeks during this period. (The missions were not entirely out of contact: they still radioed regular health checks throughout the conjunction.)
Rover drivers typically rely on Curiosity’s Hazcams to detect rocks, slopes and other hazards that might be risky to navigate. But because the rover’s other activities were intentionally curtailed shortly before the conjunction, the team decided to use the Hazcams to record 12 hours of snapshots for the first time, hoping to capture clouds or dust devils that could reveal more about the climate. of the rover. Planet.
When the images arrived back on Earth after the conjunction, scientists didn’t see any noteworthy weather, but the pair of 25-frame videos they put together capture the passage of time. From 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. local time, the videos show Curiosity’s silhouette changing as the day transitions from morning to afternoon to evening.
The first video ( ), with frontal Hazcam footage, looks southeast along Gediz Vallis, a valley located on Mount Sharp. Curiosity has been climbing the base of the 5-kilometer-high mountain, located in Gale Crater, since 2014.
As the sky lights up during sunrise, the shadow of the rover’s 2-meter-long robotic arm shifts to the left, and Curiosity’s front wheels emerge from the darkness on either side of the chassis. Also visible on the left is a circular calibration target mounted on the shoulder of the robotic arm. Engineers are using the target to test the accuracy of the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, an instrument that detects chemical elements on the Martian surface.
In the middle of the day, Front Hazcam’s automatic exposure algorithm sets exposure times of about a third of a second. As night falls, the exposure time increases to over a minute, causing typical sensor noise known as “hot pixels” that appears as white snow in the final image.
The second video ( ) shows the rear view of the Hazcam as it looks northwest along the slopes of Mount Sharp to the floor of Gale Crater. The right rear wheel of the rover is visible, along with the shadow of Curiosity’s power system. A small black artifact appearing on the left center of the video, during frame 17, was the result of a cosmic ray hitting the camera’s sensor. Likewise, the bright flash and other noises at the end of the video are the result of heat from the spacecraft’s power system hitting the Hazcam’s image sensor.
These images were reprojected to correct for the Hazcams’ wide-angle lenses. The speckled appearance of the images, particularly noticeable in the video from the rear camera, is due to 11 years of Martian dust that has settled on the lenses.
EUROPE PRESS
2024-01-07 17:05:54
#NASAs #Curiosity #rover #captures #Martian #day #Mars #sunrise #sunset