Three Minutes and 13 Miles Across the Martian Frontier

[Andy Chalk]

Three Minutes and 13 Miles Across the Martian Frontier

​

NASA has compiled a three-minute-long video of the Mars Rover Opportunity's long, lonely trek across the surface of Mars.

The "life" of Opportunity is nothing short of amazing. It was launched from Earth in July 2003 and landed on Mars in January 2004 for a planned 90-day mission. Today, nearly eight years later, it's still going, currently perched at the edge of the enormous Endeavour crater, where it's conducting a geological analysis following a 13-mile journey from the Victoria crater that took three years to complete.

Three years is a long time to travel 13 miles but Opportunity tops out at about two inches per second and typically travels even slower than that. Fortunately for those of us back home, NASA has compressed those three years on Mars into three minutes on YouTube with an awesome time-lapse video of the journey. At the end of each day's drive, a photo of the horizon was taken; 309 of those photos depict this epic crossing.

Opportunity is a machine, doing no more or less than it was designed and built to do, but I still can't help but feel a little glowing admiration for it. Well done, little guy. Well done indeed.

Source: Dvice [http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=114782241]


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[Zhukov]

I am suddenly reminded of this:

Spoiler

 

[KeyMaster45]

My geology professor had some nice hi-res shots of the Martian surface he used to mindfuck the class by having people guess what location on earth the pictures were taken. His trolling aside, the pictures were beautiful. It's very sobering experience to look at them and realize that's another planet, not a moon, a mother f'ing planet that we've yet to put our grubby little hands on.

Makes me wish there was as much a drive to land on mars as we had for getting to the moon. Someone piss in Putin's cheerios so we can get another cold war going.

 

[Hungry Donner]

Huh, the one with two sets of tracks intrigues me. I wonder what the little thing was doing that day.

 

[-Samurai-]

I'm beyond interested. The fact that there's nothing there is ridiculously interesting to me.

And no, I'm not being sarcastic.

 

[deth2munkies]

While it's the other rover, it made me think of this: http://xkcd.com/695/

And made me a little bit sad.

So is the white stuff rock, salt, or ice?

Ack, beaten.

 

[FFHAuthor]

In a completely un-sarcastic way, watching that really did put a chill up my spine. It's not every day that you get to see the face of another planet. It's one of the things that we should never lose wonder in.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

If it was coming home it would deserve it's own ticker-tape parade. Hell, if an inanimate carbon rod can get one...

 

[Phlakes]

...I've known about all this space shit for my entire life, and about this rover since it launched, and it just hit me that it's actually on fucking Mars...

 

[Andy Chalk]

That's the amazing thing about this. We are literally watching footage of the surface of another world, beamed to us from across the vastness of space, in the comfort of our living rooms.

That is one serious mindfuck.

 

[General Vagueness]

I just watched it and I'm overwhelmed with emotion. The thing is I'm not sure what emotion it is. I know I was about to cry a minute ago. freaking heck man
I watched part again and it's doing it again... I think it's a reaction like "it's so beautiful", like, for obvious reasons but the accomplishment and the power and the significance of it all... it's just overwhelming.
I'm practically crying over a dune buggy on Mars... if I didn't know I had the soul of a scientist before, I do now.

 

[thiosk]

I am suddenly reminded of this:

Spoiler

What came to mind for me was this:

 

[Zhukov]

I am suddenly reminded of this:

Spoiler

That's friggin' sad.

Whoever wrote that is a horrible, horrible person. ;-;

Yeah, ain't it just?

As for whoever wrote it, xkcd.com [http://www.xkcd.com/]. Not everyone's cup of tea, but quite well regarded and generally worth a look.

 

[spectrenihlus]

Next time send one of these...

 

[SinisterGehe]

Looks like rather desolated place...
...
...
... Lol...


No aliens, but I am sure someone youtube will "spot" something out and upload hes version of the video where he "points" it out. I hate humanity...

 

[spectrenihlus]

Looks like rather desolated place...
...
...
... Lol...


No aliens, but I am sure someone youtube will "spot" something out and upload hes version of the video where he "points" it out. I hate humanity...

Well it is probably the middle of a desert and a 15 mile journey isn't going to take you that far away.

 

[Reaper195]

Dammit, why couldn't it have taken recordings of some giant robot, so giant transformers would appear on Earth and only seem to fuck America (Well, three cities and a damn) and Jordan up?

I am suddenly reminded of this:

Spoiler

Oh god, I loved that comic. Brought me to a manly/nerd tear shedding incident.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Anybody who found the Rover sobering will find this one inspiring.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

That's the amazing thing about this. We are literally watching footage of the surface of another world, beamed to us from across the vastness of space, in the comfort of our living rooms.

That is one serious mindfuck.

There was a TV commercial here in Australia a few years back, it had the rover crossing Mars taking snap shots and sending them back to earth. Turns out the rover was taking photos of photos of boring landscapes the martians had printed out on a high rez printer (the printer the ad was for) and were holding up in front of the rover to see, covering the sprawling city behind them.

A mindfuck within a mindfuck.