You’ve no doubt heard about some of the images coming from the newly landed Curiosity device on the Martian surface. Above is a 360 degree panorama (from NASA/JPL) assembled from lots of smaller images, showing its surroundings in the Gale crater where it landed. (Some parts of the image are black due to not having images for those parts…) There’s great discussion about the grey bits you can see not far off from the craft. They are believed to be the disturbance of the ground cover (of red weed*) caused by the rockets on the landing platform during the landing phase on Sunday. That alone can give some beginnings of insights into the history of the Martian surface in the area…
Keep an eye on the mission site for more photos.
-cvj
* 🙂 Again, as I have had on and off for several months, I’ve got the music from Jeff Wayne’s rock musical of the H. G. Wells classic The War of the Worlds playing in my head. Anyone remember that? Look here – corny in places, but full of memories for me! Stick with it…. it gets wonderful in places. (It stayed in my head so much over the last months I had to go out and buy a CD copy of the album, as I’d only ever owned it on cassette tape…)
