Saturday, June 25, 2011

First Ever Television Picture of Mars Was Colored With Crayons in 1965

A 'real-time data translator' machine converted a Mariner 4 digital image data into numbers printed on strips of paper. Too anxious to wait for the official processed image, employees from the Voyager Telecommunications Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, attached these strips side by side to a display panel and hand colored the numbers like a paint-by-numbers picture.

The completed image was framed and presented to JPL director, William H. Pickering. Mariner 4 was launched on November 28, 1964 and journeyed for 228 days to the Red Planet, providing the first close-range images of Mars.
Mars

The spacecraft carried a television camera and six other science instruments to study the Martian atmosphere and surface. The 22 photographs taken by Mariner revealed the existence of lunar type craters upon a desert-like surface. After completing its mission, Mariner 4 continued past Mars to the far side of the Sun. On Dec. 20, 1967, all operations of the spacecraft were ended.

PIA14032: First TV Image of Mars 
This is an enhanced contrast version of the first Mars photograph released on July 15, 1965. This is man's first close-up photograph of another planet, a photographic representation of digital data radioed from Mars by the Mariner 4 spacecraft.

This archival image is an enhanced contrast version of the first Mars photograph released on July 15, 1965. This is man's first close-up photograph of another planet -- a photographic representation of digital data radioed from Mars by the Mariner 4 spacecraft. Data was either sent to Earth immediately for acquisition or stored on an onboard tape recorder for later transmission.

Mariner, launched on November 28, 1964, photographed Mars beginning at 5:18:33 P.M. PDT, July 14, 1965, at a distance of about 10,500 miles. Closest approach of about 9,846 kilometers (6,118 miles) from the planet occurred at 6:01 P.M.

The spacecraft carried a television camera and six other science instruments to study the Martian atmosphere and surface. The 22 photographs taken by Mariner revealed the existence of lunar type craters upon a desert-like surface. After completing its mission, Mariner 4 continued past Mars to the far side of the Sun. On December 20, 1967, all operations of the spacecraft were ended.

This image represents the first view of another planet from a vantage point in space. It was taken on July 15th, 1965, when the space probe Mariner 4 flew by only 6,118 miles from the surface of Mars. Before this image the most sophisticated, high res image of Mars was this image by Percival Lowell from the late 1800's (see below). The rectangles represent the location of the 22 images that were taken. The orange rectangle is this image. They are skewed because the camera is pointed from space at the ground at an angle, not straight down.
Percival Lowell
Credit:NASA/JPLVisit http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14033 for more information.

For an excellent story on the first images of Mars see: http://directedplay.com/first_tv_image_of_mars.html.

For comparison view these modern images of Mars:   http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/


Nature's Drilling Exposes Deeply Buried Minerals. This image shows the context for orbital observations of exposed rocks that had been buried an estimated 5 kilometers (3 miles) deep on Mars. It covers an area about 560 kilometers (350 miles) across, dominated by the Huygens crater, which is about the size of Wisconsin.

The impact that excavated Huygens lifted material from far underground and piled some of it in the crater's rim. At about the 10 o'clock position around the rim of Huygens lies an unnamed crater about 35 kilometers (22 miles) in diameter that has punched into the uplifted rim material and exposed rocks containing carbonate minerals. The minerals were identified by observations with the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

North is toward the top of this image, which is centered at 14 degrees south latitude, 304.4 degrees west longitude.

The image combines topographical information from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor with daytime infrared imaging by the Thermal Emission Imaging System camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter.

The Thermal Emission Imaging System was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing and is operated by a team based at ASU. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Odyssey mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is NASA's industry partner for the mission and built the spacecraft.
This image shows the context for orbital observations of exposed rocks that had been buried an estimated 5 kilometers (3 miles) deep on Mars.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State Univ.

Heart-shaped Feature in Arabia Terra

This picture of a heart-shaped feature in Arabia Terra on Mars was taken on May 23, 2010, by the Context Camera (CTX) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. A small impact crater near the tip of the heart is responsible for the formation of the bright, heart-shaped feature. When the impact occurred, darker material on the surface was blown away, and brighter material beneath it was revealed. Some of this brighter material appears to have flowed further downslope to form the heart shape, as the small impact occurred on the ejecta blanket of a much larger impact crater.

The heart-shaped feature is about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) long and is centered at 21.9 degrees north latitude, 12.7 degrees west longitude.
This picture of a heart-shaped feature in Arabia Terra on Mars was taken on May 23, 2010, by the Context Camera (CTX) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
These pictures are subframes of the full CTX image B21_017910_2002_XI_20N012W, taken just at the start of northern summer on Mars. North is to the right, and illumination is from the upper right. The CTX image has been colorized using a look-up table based on Mars Orbiter Camera red and blue wide angle images that maps albedo to color.

The Context Camera was provided by and is operated by Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft and operates it in partnership with JPL.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, managed the Mariner 4 mission for NASA, Washington, D.C.Image
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Dan Goods

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