January 06, 2004
Martian Ground
One of the sharpest images ever taken on the surface of Mars, via the Washington Post.
Posted by Michael J. Totten at January 6, 2004 04:31 PMIs that John Gray or Jeff Probst that's off in the distance?
Posted by: anon at January 6, 2004 05:21 PMLet the land grab by the "White Man" begin.
Posted by: sblafren at January 6, 2004 07:47 PMLessseee...
The William Jefferson Clinton Statue will go over yonder, beyond that smallish rock...No, not that one...
Posted by: John J. Coupal at January 7, 2004 05:56 AMMancow was on FoxNews this morning satirically screaming that this is a picture of Arizona.
I hope they find evidence of water.
Posted by: Stephen Gordon at January 7, 2004 07:25 AMWho is Mancow?
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 7, 2004 08:33 AMMancow is the name used by a deejay I believe from Chi or Detroit. And the photo cannot possibly be Arizona; if it was, tracks left by illegal aliens would be visible.
Posted by: Zhombre at January 7, 2004 10:14 AMI saw the photo last night at the end of the NOVA segment on PBS (let my kids stay up late, too). For the life of me, that really resembles large parts of the Mojave desert (Cal., AZ and Nev.), but what caught my ear was a quick description from one of the scientists about how the ground under the deployed airbags was acting differently than expected. I'll be interested in an explanation on that observation.
Posted by: Steve Malynn at January 7, 2004 01:08 PMIt looks like Chile's Atacama Desert to me. I was there 13 months ago, and was astonished how Martian that landscape looks.
NASA tests their rovers there because, they say, that particular desert resembles Mars more than anywhere else on earth, not only in terrain but in appearance, color, and lifelessness.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 7, 2004 01:20 PMAn interesting time to be alive.
Posted by: Fred Boness at January 7, 2004 07:28 PMWas anyone else struck by the . . . banality? It's just kind of a place with rocks and a horizon. That of itself is overwhelming to me.
Posted by: Kimmitt at January 8, 2004 11:08 AMWas anyone else struck by the . . . banality?
I agree. Mars is a place.
Jupiter is too abstract to clearly imagine. It has a solid core, a cloud top, and what, exactly, in between?
What's amazing about this Mars picture is that I can easily imagine myself standing there and looking at this scene.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 8, 2004 04:24 PM
