Looking Out Across Dao, Niger, and Harmakhis Valles

October 25, 2000 5:54 PM

Looking Out Across Dao, Niger, and Harmakhis Valles on Mars. Okay, boring subject. The Martian Global Surveyor has been in orbit around Mars for three years. Sometimes you just have to take some time to look at what's been coming back and admire the raw beauty of the landscape.

This is a mid-autumn view of three major valley systems east of the Hellas plains. From left to right, the first major valley, Dao Vallis, runs diagonally from the upper left to just past the lower center of the image. Niger Vallis joins Dao Vallis just above the center of the frame. Harmakhis Vallis extends diagonally across the right half of the picture, toward the lower right. These valleys are believed by some to have been formed--at least in part--by large outbursts of liquid water some time far back in the martian past. The picture is a composite of red and blue wide angle images obtained by MOC on September 13, 2000.
posted by lagado (10 comments total)

More pictures here.
posted by lagado at 5:56 PM on October 25, 2000

I guess they may not be as scientifically useful as the above photos, but I prefer the Viking Lander photos such as these.
posted by gluechunk at 6:17 PM on October 25, 2000

No doubt about it, those are very nice pictures.

Still, I like this aerial view of the North Pole in summer, too.
posted by lagado at 6:38 PM on October 25, 2000

Damn. Is there an $800 4-days-3-nights package?
posted by dhartung at 7:03 PM on October 25, 2000

Both the pictures from the ground and the oribital pictures are beautiful and scientifically valuable. But if you had to choose between them, we've learned far more from the orbital pictures than from the ones on the ground.

I must admit that the ones from ground-level are more romantic. Besides, I like 3D anaglyphic pictures even better. These are from Mars Pathfinder. You need a set of those red/blue glasses.

Also, from this site you can download programs called Mars3D, Venus3D and Earth3D which are well worth the trouble if you have a very fast PC running Windows with lots of RAM and a really good graphics card. These are not for those with gutless computers.

posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:15 PM on October 25, 2000

The legendary Cydonia face turned out to be nothing more than a trick of lighting on a fairly standard mountain.

Look here at the bottom stripe, about halfway down. If you don't look carefully you'll miss it, because it doesn't look anything at all like a face.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:40 PM on October 25, 2000

I heard that some government offical insisted on diverting the Global Surveyor mission from a scientifically more interesting target to get a picture of the "face", which is essentially just a muddy slope.

This highlights the sort of scientific sacrifices that are made on missions like this to give the public what they want. Although it can be frustrating, it's important to remember that it is the public's taxes that pay for these kind of missions, and if they don't get the kinds of stunning images linked to above, future missions are less likely.

Although I agree in the idea of public outreach, I don't like it when reality is sacrificed for the sake of appearance. There are many examples, for instance this admittedly beautiful image of Olympus Mons has had the vertical height increased by a factor of ten, no doubt to make it look more impressive. This kind of image manipulation is getting more common, particularly with images from the Hubble Space Telescope.
posted by astro38 at 2:25 AM on October 26, 2000

Nah, relax, astro38 -- MGS has plenty of time to photograph the approximately 95% of the Martian surface that it crosses. Trust me when I say that NASA and MSSS were enthusiastically interested in photographing the face in order to get the loons off their backs ... but also for the paradoxically enormous publicity value that releasing it would have.

The face photographs were taken during the shakedown/engineering checkout phase, before the official scientific mission began.

There's a huge difference between the pretty pictures released for the public, and the scientific data. If the scientific data is there, who cares what the public relations people do?
posted by dhartung at 10:02 AM on October 26, 2000

astro38:
There are many examples, for instance this admittedly beautiful image of Olympus Mons has had the vertical height increased by a factor of ten, no doubt to make it look more impressive.

Well, perhaps, but exaggerating and distorting imagery in different ways is also a good way to understand it better. It isn't necessarily *just* PR value :-)

Steven:
if you have a very fast PC running Windows with lots of RAM and a really good graphics card. These are not for those with gutless computers.

Wait a minute - they're supposed to be running Windows, but they can't be gutless? How do you make that add up to anything but zero?

::grin duck & run::

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 11:07 AM on October 26, 2000

It is planned to try to acquire images of the "Face" and other features in Cydonia. Contrary to what some people have said and written, this has been the plan for some time. This plan was not established in response to outside pressure; rather, there are two reasons for acquiring these images. First, given the interest in the general public about the "Face," it is appropriate to acquire such images for public relations purposes, especially since the public interest has been generated in no small way by the people who claim there is a conspiracy at NASA to withhold information from the public. Second, there are valid scientific reasons to examine landforms in the area (which, after all, is why the Viking spacecraft were photographing the area in the first place). From a Malin page posted before the mission began
posted by Steven Den Beste at 2:21 PM on October 26, 2000