What is that curious looking object imaged by Mars Rover Perseverance yesterday?
No, it is not a target practice plate for SHERLOC the laser zapper, it is the calibration target for PIXL, the Planetary Instrument for X-Ray Lithochemistry, which is mounted at the end of the robotic arm along with SHERLOC and the drilling apparatus.
The calibration target contains 4 sample disks with known X-ray signatures that PIXL scans approx. once a month. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/raw-images/ #Mars#Perseverance#PIXL
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PIXL measures the fine-scale chemical makeup of rocks using an X-ray spectrometer and a camera. It focuses an X-ray beam to a small spot ~ 150 µm, scans the surface with this beam, and then measures the induced X-ray fluorescence.
The presence of different elements result in spikes at various wavelengths and energy levels, which are measured by PIXL's X-ray spectrometer.
Once again listening to some guy explaining "we can't colonize Mars because it has no atmosphere."
I'm thinking: <sarcasm type="dripping">Stop the presses! NASA and all the others must have forgotten that detail! We have a supergenius here!</sarcasm>
I'm also thinking: that guy's teeth were designed by Stable Diffusion.
If you're going to explain the reasons we may not be able to colonize Mars, focus on the ones we may not be able to fix. Much better argument.
"With our current capability, NASA would struggle to keep a crew alive for six months on the White House lawn, let alone for years in a Martian yurt.
The technology program required to close this gap would be remarkably circular, with no benefits outside the field of applied zero gravity zookeeping. The web of Rube Goldberg devices that recycles floating animal waste on the space station has already cost twice its weight in gold..."
Fresh down from Ingenuity's 51st flight, it photographed all of Belva Crater with the rover on the rim of it. Rover tracks are also visible. At the time the photo was taken, Perseverance was around 180 meters (590 feet) from Ingenuity. Some EDL landing debris is also visible on the bottom portion of the image. This is likely some MLI (Mylar) blanket insulation from the descent stage.
Now that I have a new home on solarsystem.social, here's a new #introduction!
I am a #planetary scientist working at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (#IPGP) in France. My research uses the #gravity field, #topography, and #MagneticField of the planets to decipher their internal structure and geologic evolution. My favorite terrestrial body is the #Moon, but I also work with #Mercury, #Venus, and #Mars. Soon I will need to learn about #Psyche and the icy satellites of #Jupiter!
Visibility plot from estimated landing 51, together with ground profile along the line-of-sight.
Despite the ~220m distance, #Perseverance received the last image when #Ingenuity had landed; the new location of the #MarsHelicopter is more than 4m below the local horizon created by what I believe is Mount Julian, which is blocking the view
If I were a few years, err... decades, younger I'd be eager to do a PhD on UHF Land Mobile Radio propagation on #Mars 🤓 😍
"Elon Musk is without doubt the most succesful confidence trickster in all human history. Basically the L. Ron Hubbard of our day - only he's somehow managed to convince even the US government that sci-fi gobbledygook fantasies are worth investing in. He could choose to use his vast wealth to develop negative emissions tech, and help to save our existing biosphere. But he won't."
Anyone reading Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars Trilogy" or any part of it quickly realizes that while the novels are full of technical details, there are very few maps and those that exist are very coarse.
Localization of the Transverse Highway crossing Valles Marineris, from #KimStanleyRobinson's #RedMars; the annotations are from the description of John Boone's drive from Argyre through Melas Chasma to Underhill and then Echus Overlook.
The fourth image shows some traces of the fallen Space Elevator carbon fiber cable, as described in reports received during that sol.
Localization of the Transverse Highway, crossing Valles Marineris, from #KimStanleyRobinson's #RedMars; the annotations are from the description of John Boone's drive from Argyre through Melas Chasma to Underhill and then Echus Overlook.
The fourth image shows some traces of the fallen Space Elevator carbon fiber cable, as described in reports received during that sol, near the end of the novel.