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Last night I was looking over some of the raw images taken by the Spirit rover on the JPL website. Particularly here: http://origin.mars5.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit_p067.html
Sol 67 (March 11) Spirit Pancam images. According to an official press release the rover woke up at about 2:00 Mars local solar time to communicate with NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. At that time it took a few pictures of the night sky, in particular the Orion constellation. The picture on the press release says that the image had an exposure time of about 5 seconds. The raw images have an obviously longer exposure time because of the long star streaks. Anyway, what caught my attention was that on some of the images there seemed to have ‘stars’ with motion that was perpendicular to the rest of the stars. At first I thought that the streaks were meteors, but when comparing two images taken a few minutes apart, I noticed that one of the streaks had moved over a significant amount, but what would have been way too slow for a meteor. I’m including an animated gif of what I mean. The first frame was taken at 2:03:29 Mars local solar time and the second frame was taken at 2:08:36 Mars local solar time. I’ve drawn an arrow to the object I’m referring to. I think it’s either the Mars Global Surveyor or one of Mars’s moons (but I think that might not be likely given at what time the image was taken and how close of the orbits the moons have to the planet, but I could be wrong). Anyone else have an idea? If it is the Global Surveyor than I think these might be the first confirmed images of a man made satellite taken from the surface of another planet. Just wondering because I haven’t been able to find any information on it.
Thanks!
Here's the animated gif I made.
https://www.physicsforums.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=164171
Sol 67 (March 11) Spirit Pancam images. According to an official press release the rover woke up at about 2:00 Mars local solar time to communicate with NASA's Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. At that time it took a few pictures of the night sky, in particular the Orion constellation. The picture on the press release says that the image had an exposure time of about 5 seconds. The raw images have an obviously longer exposure time because of the long star streaks. Anyway, what caught my attention was that on some of the images there seemed to have ‘stars’ with motion that was perpendicular to the rest of the stars. At first I thought that the streaks were meteors, but when comparing two images taken a few minutes apart, I noticed that one of the streaks had moved over a significant amount, but what would have been way too slow for a meteor. I’m including an animated gif of what I mean. The first frame was taken at 2:03:29 Mars local solar time and the second frame was taken at 2:08:36 Mars local solar time. I’ve drawn an arrow to the object I’m referring to. I think it’s either the Mars Global Surveyor or one of Mars’s moons (but I think that might not be likely given at what time the image was taken and how close of the orbits the moons have to the planet, but I could be wrong). Anyone else have an idea? If it is the Global Surveyor than I think these might be the first confirmed images of a man made satellite taken from the surface of another planet. Just wondering because I haven’t been able to find any information on it.
Thanks!
Here's the animated gif I made.
https://www.physicsforums.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=164171
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