Due to the generally noisy nature of the data tolerances were set high (0.90 correlation) to help avoid spurious reseau identifications. This resulted in severe salt and pepper random noise that hampers the automatic identification of reseaux, especially in areas with low signal such as terminator regions and space. The majority of Mariner 10 high resolution images were sent back in real time (117.6 Kbits/s) with an attendant increase in bit errors during transmission. answer mentions this looks like salt-and-pepper noise.įrom Arizona State University's Space Exploration Resources Control Network: If you look closely you can notice both white and black dots. The Uvicon, a UV-variant Vidicon was also used by NASA for UV duties Vidicon tubes were also used aboard the first three Landsat earth imaging satellites launched in 1972, as part of each spacecraft's Return Beam Vidicon (RBV) imaging system. Prior to the design and construction of the Galileo probe to Jupiter in the late 1970s to early 1980s, NASA used vidicon cameras on nearly all the unmanned deep space probes equipped with the remote sensing ability. Voyager's cameras are 1970's technology they are based on vidicon tubes not solid state detectors. Notice that the dots are bright, not dark in the raw data. The picture was taken from a range of 1,873 kilometers (1,162 miles).īelow is a closer-to-raw-data image from Views of the Solar System: Raw Viking Orbiter Image 035a72 of the Face. The feature is 1.5 kilometers (one mile) across, with the sun angle at approximately 20 degrees. Planetary geologists attribute the origin of the formation to purely natural processes. Shadows in the rock formation give the illusion of a nose and mouth. Bit errors comprise part of one of the 'eyes' and 'nostrils' on the eroded rock that resembles a human face near the center of the image. The speckled appearance of the image is due to missing data, called bit errors, caused by problems in transmission of the photographic data from Mars to Earth. NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter spacecraft photographed this region in the northern latitudes of Mars on Jwhile searching for a landing site for the Viking 2 Lander. See Galileo (spacecraft) Solid State Imagerįrom PIA01141: Geologic 'Face on Mars' Formation Read more about the Voyagers' cameras in What is the brown band in which we find the pale blue dot that is Earth?īy the 1980's NASA spacecraft used solid state CCD detectors and end-to-end digital transmission. The explanation seems a bit handy-wavy to me so I think we'll need to dig deeper to see if they are received noise on Earth or some electrical or imaging problem on the spacecraft. They are called "bit errors" in the NASA JPL image catalog for PIA01141. What are the dark spots in the “face of Mars” picture? You can follow the mission on Facebook at and on Twitter at.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, built the rover and manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.įor more information about Curiosity, visit and.
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments and major changes in Martian environmental conditions. The next of each type visible from Mars will be Mercury in April 2015, Venus in August 2030 and Earth in November 2084. Mercury and Venus transits are visible more often from Mars than from Earth, and Mars also offers a vantage point for seeing Earth transits. The next Mercury transit visible from Earth will be May 9, 2016. Many viewers on Earth observed a Venus transit in June 2012, the last visible from Earth this century. The sunspots move only at the pace of the sun's rotation, much slower than the movement of Mercury. In addition to showing the Mercury transit, the same Mastcam frames show two sunspots approximately the size of Earth. The observations were made on June 3, 2014, from Curiosity's position inside Gale Crater on Mars. "Observations of Venus transits were used to measure the size of the solar system, and Mercury transits were used to measure the size of the sun." "This is a nod to the relevance of planetary transits to the history of astronomy on Earth," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, College Station, a member of the Mastcan science team. The observation by the telephoto camera of Curiosity's two-eyed Mast Camera instrument is available online at: Mercury fills only about one-sixth of one pixel as seen from such great distance, so the darkening does not have a distinct shape, but its position follows Mercury's expected path based on orbital calculations. This is the first transit of the sun by a planet observed from any planet other than Earth, and also the first imaging of Mercury from Mars.
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