Hi! I'm a tech guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS and science of all stripes. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.
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OMG! We sent a robot to another planet and it’s sending us pictures! Science fucking ROCKS! /HadToGetThatOutOfMySystem
Yup. I want to send Curiosity (and all its engineers!) fucking love letters, I’m so jazzed about this project.
Uh. Weird.
This is awesome.
However, it makes me want to see a true-color image to get a sense of how red the red planet really is.
@Vic #5:
Images: Spirit’s panorama list.
Images: Opportunity’s panorama list.
Pick a year at the top and ctrl-f to find ‘true’.
Jason:
RTGs (used on Curiosity) aren’t nuclear-powered in the same sense as “nuclear fission”. They actually use thermal energy from the emission of alpha particles from Pu-238 (in most cases), and a thermocouple to convert that to electricity.
Try again: I really liked this, Curiosity’s Descent. Although I now notice it shows up anyway as one of the thumbnails once the video above (which is some weird editing, IMO) ends.
Wow. Just, wow.
Thanks for the link, thunk!
I’ve heard about nuclear lighthouses and probes, but those documentaries never explained exactly how those smaller sources worked.