Mt. Erebus from space

June 27, 2004 4:50 PM

Mt. Erebus from space. NASA's Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment software, which controls the Earth Observing-1 spacecraft, took some amazing images of the lava lake of Antarctica's Mount Erebus volcano without any human interaction. [Via Fark.]
posted by homunculus (14 comments total)

[Via Fark.]
posted by Keyser Soze at 5:48 PM on June 27, 2004

I have a camera that does the same thing in my bedroom. What's the big deal?
posted by PigAlien at 7:22 PM on June 27, 2004

Maybe I'm just easily impressed, but I think taking pictures of Antarctic volcanoes from space is very cool.
posted by homunculus at 7:29 PM on June 27, 2004

Skynet is now online.
posted by DaShiv at 7:51 PM on June 27, 2004

I have a camera that does the same thing in my bedroom. What's the big deal?

Do you really have a camera in your bedroom that autonomously decides what to take interesting pictures of? Or a volcano? ...Never mind, don't answer either of those two questions, thanks.

OP DaShiv - yep. I thought this was totally cool, but there's something ... creepy about the whole thing.
posted by freebird at 7:55 PM on June 27, 2004

After reading how the blasted thing works, I'm a skosh bit concerned that I might trigger it off during my next BBQ party.
posted by dakotadusk at 8:04 PM on June 27, 2004

Well I liked it.
posted by carter at 8:06 PM on June 27, 2004

Man was not meant to know the secrets of the Plateau of Leng. For there are the Mountains of Madness.
posted by Nelson at 8:41 PM on June 27, 2004

This is cool.
posted by spazzm at 9:50 PM on June 27, 2004

I know a guy who works on the imaging software they use for these spacecraft. This is just the beginning.

For there are the Mountains of Madness.
Vizzini: "THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY!"
posted by brownpau at 10:05 PM on June 27, 2004

Cliffs of Insanity?
posted by dhartung at 12:21 AM on June 28, 2004

It seems to me that we have had computerized sensors for quite a while now. For instance, we have video-cameras that can turn on when they sense movement and tape recorders which turn on when they detect conversation. Dashboard-mounted radars can automatically apply the brakes when your car comes too close to the car in front of it. This is simply another program to tell a camera when it should take photographs of certain phenomenon. It didn't spontaneously decide to photograph this volcano all on it's own. Someone wrote a program that said, "if you detect this activity, photograph it." So, I'm not being a killjoy, I just don't honestly understand how this is different.
posted by PigAlien at 8:44 AM on June 28, 2004

maybe you should try reading all the links PigAlien, for instance, this one. there's just a tad more AI involved here than motion sensors.

(but for fuck's sake, AI does not equal killer robots that want to eat humanity for breakfast.)
posted by badstone at 10:37 AM on June 28, 2004

AI does not equal killer robots that want to eat humanity for breakfast.

They seem to be more interested in volcanology anyway.
posted by homunculus at 1:42 PM on June 28, 2004