Talk:Spirit rover
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An event in this article is a January 4 selected anniversary
[edit] Adirondack section
Somebody already made a reference to the Mars rock in Adirondack disambiguation page. So I went ahead and created the Adirondack (Mars) page taking content from the Adirondack section of MER-A (with slight modification). Obviously, now there's redundancy. Can I remove the Adirondack section from the MER-A page? - Kums 19:58, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- Ok. I removed the section. The reason for this is 1)The MER-A Page is getting lengthy. 2) Adirondack has its own page. -- Kums 04:27, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
[edit] UTC for Time and dates
Should we not use UTC for times and dates? Seems more appropriate as Mars is not exactly on PST :-) SmilingBoy 01:27, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
- Yes and no. All the Mars reports come out of NASA JPL, which is located in California and definitely not UTC. - UtherSRG 02:57, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)
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- As another note, if you're going to use days of the week (Monday etc) in the text, then you should include them in the dates of the timeline (Not simply "March 4" but "Thursday. March 4")DavidA 20:19 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I think we should use a changing "Current plan" section if people want to record expected activities day by day. I introduced that recently, but it just went away. I think the timeline should include brief notes on what has what actually happened (the facts), and it should be expressed in the past tense like most such sections of wikipedia. This requires changes in the early part of the timeline. NealMcB 22:26, 2004 Jan 14 (UTC)
- In a couple of months both of these rovers will be dead, and I expect there will be a big overhaul of these articles with "past tense" in mind. :) Currently there's a heck of a lot of minute-by-minute minutiae included in here, and once the mission is finished we'll be able to go through it all with a more historical perspective, trimming down on some of the stuff that turned out to be irrelevant after all. I'm thinking specifically of the speculation and status of Spirit's flash crisis, but I'm sure there will be other things. Bryan 20:36, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
The quotes from today's breifeings are quite messy and have some dictation errors. If you see any typos, feel free to correct them. Sennheiser 18:37, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Rover's OS
What OS does the rover's computer use and what did it use to manage flash memory? - Logotu 22:29, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- VxWorks from Wind River Systems. -- rbs, 2004-02-09 22:46 (UTC)
- Yes, and you could have found this out at the Mars Exploration Rover Mission article. --Sennheiser! 22:45, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
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- Logotu hangs head in shame for having missed it
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- But not a single mention of "Spirit was willing but the Flash was weak?" *cough* --JohnDBuell 01:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
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- Bastard! ;-) JamesHoadley 11:37, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] green rocks
Wow! I didn't know that there were green rocks on mars! NASA 22:24, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- There aren't. The photos' colors were stretched to enhance differences in color, however the color of green is not real. Riffsyphon1024 05:37, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Well, Mars is a big place. There are probably green rocks somewhere. But we're not seeing them in these photos. (Good assignment for somebody - "Find the real green rocks on Mars") -- 201.51.201.107 00:47, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] explaining dates, PST, UTC and sols
Nice first image at the top there Rbs!
Watch out with [nasa.gov]'s updates, they sometimes get the date wrong:
- sol 55, Feb 29, 2004
- Spirit used its rock abrasion tool for brushing the dust off three patches of a rock called "Humphrey," during its 55th sol on Mars, ending at 5:53 p.m. Saturday,
Anyone suggest a better table of contents layout? I've added an initial section ==Introduction== to trigger the TOC there, but I don't feel that's the best location... moved further down maybe?
I've posted a question on an enhanced TOC at Wikipedia talk:Section#unnumbered TOC possible? Wikibob 20:19, 2004 Mar 1 (UTC)
- The apparent error in date on the MarsRovers site is almost certainly because of an inconsistency in time zones. Sol 55 for MER-A did end at 5:53:34 p.m. on Feb 28 if you're using PST for your local clock. But in UTC was 01:53:34 on Feb 29. I have been sorely tempted to go through the entire article and change all "Earth timestamps" to UTC.
- I figured the only quick way to fill the space alongside the TOC would be a tall, medium-width photo. The page could use a few more photos anyway. - Rbs 00:44, 2004 Mar 2 (UTC)
[edit] Spirit Archive copy
NASA's Report archive only goes back to sol 33, Feb 05, 2004, so I copied what's there to subpage Talk:MER-A/reports in case we need to fill in some MER-A timeline gaps from early February. Wikibob 20:08, 2004 Mar 4 (UTC)
[edit] image for this page
I've just uploaded this what lies ahead map from NASA for MER-A:
Mars MER-A what lies ahead sol 59
This map shows the path the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit will travel toward its future target, the large crater dubbed "Bonneville." The red line indicates Spirit's travels up to the 59th martian day, or sol, of its journey, and the blue line, the route it will follow. Engineers pinpointed the rover's exact location by comparing images taken by the panoramic camera on the rover (inset panels) to those acquired during descent by the descent image motion estimation system camera (underlying map).
Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Ohio State University
Wikibob 00:28, 2004 Mar 8 (UTC)
[edit] Ring shaped object. Interesting enough for this page?
Can anyone explain what this ring shaped object is? uploaded from Nasa, Sol 65, MER-A, Microscopic and Pan Cam images.
It's obviously a space ship. How else would the Martians be able to abduct people? They tried to hide it under the sand but didn't do a very good job, did they. :=) pir 14:26, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The grey part in the middle is where they sit. (They're v. small) Washington Irving | Talk 14:28, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- LOL. I first thought the Rover was losing pieces, but other images show it is the raised central mark left by the grinding tool, before the dust is brushed away. The rock was particularly smooth and left a smooth disc-like impression, unlike the earlier samples which were porous and granular.-Wikibob 13:58, 2004 Mar 15 (UTC)
You're right it is an artifact of the rover's investigations. But I think what we're actually seeing is compressed sand rather than ground rock (prompted by your comment I went back to look at other images and I found some similar but less ambiguous pictures. The semi-circular footprint is left by an instrument that looks at soil chemistry (I forget the name), then imaged so that the physical properties of the soil/sand can be inferred from the way it is pressed down... Thanks for helping to clear this up! Washington Irving | Talk 14:22, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
The timelines are getting very long and I'd soon like to split them into months, mainly to help readers, as there's no problem with editing yet. I'm happy to keep pasting in NASA's daily reports, even though these will probably be edited down in the future, but please say if anyone has any other ideas. -Wikibob | Talk 22:18, 2004 Apr 1 (UTC)
[edit] more images uploaded for page
These images were uploaded and added to MER-A timeline
Wikibob | Talk 23:41, 2004 Apr 1 (UTC)
[edit] RAT links in MER-A and MER-B articles
I noticed links to RAT on the MER-B article, which yesterday went to a disambiguation page that didn't have Rock Abrasion Tool listed. I added it, fixed up the links on the MER-A and MER-B articles, and wrote a Rock Abrasion Tool stub. I know that the RAT is covered on the Mars Exploration Rover article, but that article is getting very long and Wikipedia is now warning against expanding it and in favor of splitting it into multiple articles.
I just thought that those who contribute this content should know this. You might want to tear down my stub and link back to the MER article, or the MER article folks might want to start setting up separate articles for instrumentation and etc. I leave it to others.
Jeff Medkeff 01:22, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
- It might be running out of space due to all the pictures on it. And the same could be happening here. Maybe if each of those items was covered with its own article, then the pictures could be re-routed to those new articles. For example: my post on Pot of Gold Rock. If enough is known about this particular rock, then it could get its own article much like Adirondack did. Riffsyphon1024 05:42, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Why the maddeningly obscure article title?
Please read and discuss at Talk:MER-B.--Pharos 09:30, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- I am now proposing to rename the articles on the two rovers. Discussion at Talk:MER-B--Pharos 07:32, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- I left a message for the user that changed the title of this article. Please discuss at above talk page! Awolf002 14:47, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Is it Sol or sol?
While typing the word "sol", I'm not sure if it should be capitalized when put along with a day (i.e. Sol 354 vs. a sol). Half the "sol"s in the article are capitalized, half undercase. So what should the standard be? Riffsyphon1024 18:40, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- Judging by Time and date and astronomy on Mars#Keeping track of sols, counts of sols elapsed on Mars should be capitalised.
- Urhixidur 00:47, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC)
[edit] Introduction picture issues?
Why can't I see any image very first image on this page, "Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera image of Spirit's landing site"? Is anyone else having this problem? Semiconscious (talk ยท home) 08:58, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Intro
We're trying to improve the opening Summary, picture placement. I had the Husband Hill photo near top, on my screen it did not ruin text layout, apparently on some screens it does. Also, when I put the rover model on I was totaly incapable of putting any text under the picture. It would accept the text from a copy paste from another photo on the page but not when I would put the text in from the picture I loaded in Commons. I also don't like all the white space in the article to the left of small pictures. I'd rather somehow consolidating somehow text and / or pictures or something to get rid of the white space. Kyle Andrew Brown 01:32, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
- Yes, more good text and fewer pictures would help a lot with that. I think we need to clean up things that were added in the "heat of the moment" when this was a heavily edited page. I will try to work on a good summary/intro and change the current one over this weekend. Awolf002 01:41, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
- I agree that this article needs cleanup, and the images better arranged rather than simply left out of the article. Since not much has happened in the past few months, other than the climb, I stopped contributing to it and moved on, but I'd be glad to try and help again. Also the timelines for both rovers could be added from JPL's site with daily updates, although they're not as daily now. Opportunity rover should have the same cleanup. -- Riffsyphon1024 02:02, September 3, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] There is a cultural connection between Mars missions and 3D
The full color 3D conversion was done in the most advanced methodology. Please allow the tiny alternative to co-exist with the larger rover image. Millions of Kids and Space Exploration fans have 3D glasses, and the new "stereo" solar mission is soon to launch.
3dnatureguy 06:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Color Photos
"First color photograph", etc. is clearly stating that Spirit is taking color photos. This is not true in the stict sense. The color images are constructed by taking photos of the same thing using different filters. Note that the filters are not the same as the RBG pigments in the human eye thus the color is not exactly what a human would see. Also one would hope the lighting does not change too much in the time it takes to take the photos: usually three (six if one takes photos with both left and right cameras). It would be more accurate to say, the "first color image released" or "first color image generated." MichaelSH 01:55, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
- You raise good points, but at the same time you don't want to obscure that the Pancam is a multispectral instrument. Perhaps "first color image generated from rover data"? Eluchil404 02:21, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
