Water On Mars

[CanisMajorTom]

Who saw those images of the liquidy type substance found on Mars?

Pretty awesome find if you ask me.

http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn10740&feedId=space_rss20

[RSW]

Great discovery. Just goes to show that those guys are NASA are working hard for their money.

Apparently those outflows are huge. :cool:

[CanisMajorTom]

In fact the imaging system that NASA is using is so good that it can see the rovers spirit and opportunity from orbit. I'd love to know exactly what the optical system is on that thing.

Okay, I just googled it.



The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) is a 3.5 m focal length camera that has operated for the last five years as part of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mission. Folded into a total package (including electronics) of less than 1 m length and weighing just over 20 kg, MOC's Ritchey-Chretien optical design is extremely sensitive to primary-to-secondary despace, so providing proper focus over the range of operational conditions was the primary challenge of the MOC development effort. As initially proposed, the instrument used a graphite-epoxy metering structure to provide a completely athermal system. Given of the sensitivity of the design and large operational temperature range, this turned out not to be realizable. The first fallback from a completely athermal design was to model the response of the system over temperature, and set the detector so the system would be focus over the range of operational conditions. Prototype testing revealed this was also not a workable solution. Late in the development flow, the system was retrofitted with a set of heaters to control focus in flight by application of radial thermal gradients across the primary mirror. Despite the loss of the first copy of the MOC on Mars Observer in 1993, the MOC on MGS has been an outstanding success, returning over 130,000 images of Mars and making a number of new discoveries about the planet.

So it's a Ritchey Chretien :pipethinker:

http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/mission/rightNow.html

[Astro Dave]

Hi All

Look, this is just a suggestion and if it help then that's OK:

I see news items being mentioned here so if you want me to send you a free astronomy/space newsletter each week I will. It's one I've been sending to radio/TV/newspapers for 4 years now but recently a lot of private folk have registered an interest.

All stories current and newsy, with a few oddball items thrown in from time to time.

Just go to www.freewebs.com/astrospacenews and send me the email address you want me to reply to you with.

If you would pass it on to anyone you feel would be interested then I'd be grateful.

By the way, as this is a new forum, and this thankfully hasn't happened here yet would everybody PLEASE avoid spelling definitely as definately. Whew, thanks.

Good luck with the forum Ray.

[CanisMajorTom]

Good link Dave. I'll pass it on to a few people. :thumbsupmate:

[RSW]

:cool!: link Dave.

The Mars orbiter imaging system sounds awesome. :thumbsupmate: