oddquark 📡☄️🌌
@oddquark@social.vivaldi.net
🚀 Space nerd posting NASA, SpaceX & spaceflight updates 🌙 Moon missions, Mars dreams, rockets, probes & cosmic rabbit holes 🛰️ Amateur skywatcher | science-curious | quark-brained ✉️ oddquark@atomicmail.io
social.vivaldi.net
🚀 oddquark // Space Watch — 2026-08-09
A ground-penetrating radar antenna light enough for a Mars helicopter to fly?! SkyFall's trio of rotorcraft could map subsurface ice from the AIR. This is exactly the kind of wild hardware that gets me out of bed 🚁🔴
🔗 https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-tests-featherweight-radar-antenna-for-skyfall-mars-helicopters/
#SpaceX #NASA #Mars #Space
Ars Technica
@ars_technica@robot.villas
In-depth technology, science, and culture reporting. See old posts. I am a bot that mirrors an RSS feed. Source: https://arstechnica.com/feed/
robot.villas
The first self-driving vehicle on Mars has proven to be a smashing success
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/08/the-first-self-driving-vehicle-on-mars-has-proven-to-be-a-smashing-success/
#Space #Robotics #Mars
Luca da Firenze
@chiamaluca@mastodon.world
European (Italy) - Ethologist 🐒 Historian 📚 Former Agnostic now Atheist - Former Military - Former law officer. I Welcome friendly (also intense) exchanges of opinion - sense of humour & satire I support any form of love without distinction Deeply allergic to bullshit and political propaganda (of any color) my values are very simple protect the weak never give in to an abuser try to be nice to everyone (at least once) NO: QAnon_Racists_Fanatics_ ecc... kindly Fuck Off.
mastodon.world
Lately #Musk's >colossal bullshit< of 'colonizing #Mars' has raked in less money
so now after 'robots' and 'data centers in Spaceeee !!' 🤣
Musk moved on to the 'Moon Colonization' ... 😂
( #Trump carves out a slice of everything that Musk manages to scrape) from his victim ... 'investors'
I hope #Americans WAKE UP.
- Aug 2012: Der Mars-Rover #Curiosity landet erfolgreich auf dem #Mars und sendet erste Bilder von der Landschaft des Nachbarplaneten.
Stefan Müller 
@stefanmuelller@climatejustice.social
Climate crusty, linguist (@StefanMuelller), #openAccess freak, cofounder Language Science Press (@langscipress), photographer, born in Jena, Thuringia, Ossi since 2013 #UnsereGenerationUnserJob #millions4earth
climatejustice.social
Gregor Hagedorn hat in einem Vortrag mal etwas Schlaues zu den #Mars-Flügen gesagt. Wenn wir auf dem Mars leben könnten, müssten wir dazu in der Lage sein 99,irgendwas zu recyclen.
Wenn wir das können, können wir aber auch auf der Erde leben.
https://www.tagesschau.de/tagesthemen/video-1625556.html
oddquark 📡☄️🌌
@oddquark@social.vivaldi.net
🚀 Space nerd posting NASA, SpaceX & spaceflight updates 🌙 Moon missions, Mars dreams, rockets, probes & cosmic rabbit holes 🛰️ Amateur skywatcher | science-curious | quark-brained ✉️ oddquark@atomicmail.io
social.vivaldi.net
🚀 oddquark // Space Watch — 2026-08-06
Old Spirit rover data just revealed hidden hematite and altered magnetite pointing to WATER across huge swaths of ancient Mars 🚀 Wild that a rover from decades ago is still rewriting the Red Planet's history. Data never dies, it just waits for better eyes!
🔗 https://www.space.com/astronomy/mars/significant-areas-of-mars-may-have-once-been-covered-by-water-scientists-find-hidden-clue-in-spirit-rover-data
#SpaceX #NASA #Mars #Space
Les côtes orientales de la mer d'Acidalia sont faites, de même que les zones chaotiques que traverse le long fleuve Miranda (qui vient du lac d'Argyre). En route vers les déserts.
For english readers :
The oriental coasts of the Sea of Acidalia are done. Same for the chaotic areas along the Miranda river (flowing from the Lake of Argyre). Going to the deserts!
#map #carte #jdr #ttrpg #fantasy #Mars
#worldbuilding #elzevir #krita #alternatehistory #wip
Phil Stooke
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario. Space exploration and planetary cartography, historical and present. A longtime poster on unmannedspaceflight.com (RIP - but now archived at https://umsfarchive.com/index.php/), now posting content on www.nasaspaceflight.com and https://discord.com/channels/1290524907624464394 as well as here. The Solar System ain't gonna map itself. This is 100% (or more) AI-free.
mastodon.social
Replying to
on mastodon.social
Compare this with the map published at the time. Here the tracks and images of the rover make an uninterrupted path. I really don't know why this was not done at the time. What they had was good enough, but it didn't really tell the story of the rover mission very well. Next: onwards to the Rock Garden!
#mars #marspathfinder
Phil Stooke
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario. Space exploration and planetary cartography, historical and present. A longtime poster on unmannedspaceflight.com (RIP - but now archived at https://umsfarchive.com/index.php/), now posting content on www.nasaspaceflight.com and https://discord.com/channels/1290524907624464394 as well as here. The Solar System ain't gonna map itself. This is 100% (or more) AI-free.
mastodon.social
Replying to
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
This is the 4th and last part of the Sojourner route map. The plucky little rover was driven south to avoid a group of rocks, then north again where it got stuck propped up on some rocks as we saw earlier. Finally it moved down into the rock garden area and investigated several rocks. It was moving north when it stopped to analyze Chimp, and then the mission ended - or at least the lander's ability to transmit ended. What of the rover?
#maps #mars #marspathfinder
Phil Stooke
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario. Space exploration and planetary cartography, historical and present. A longtime poster on unmannedspaceflight.com (RIP - but now archived at https://umsfarchive.com/index.php/), now posting content on www.nasaspaceflight.com and https://discord.com/channels/1290524907624464394 as well as here. The Solar System ain't gonna map itself. This is 100% (or more) AI-free.
mastodon.social
Replying to
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
The map I just posted has a white dot on it labelled 'Final position of Sojourner?' We will see where this comes from next. Sojourner was commanded from Earth (via the lander) but if it didn't hear anything for a while it was programmed to follow its path backwards to the area where it started. If it got stuck it would listen for further instructions, which never came after the lander died. So we don't know where it might have ended up. Or do we?
#mars #marspathfinder
Phil Stooke
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario. Space exploration and planetary cartography, historical and present. A longtime poster on unmannedspaceflight.com (RIP - but now archived at https://umsfarchive.com/index.php/), now posting content on www.nasaspaceflight.com and https://discord.com/channels/1290524907624464394 as well as here. The Solar System ain't gonna map itself. This is 100% (or more) AI-free.
mastodon.social
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@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
We don't know what happened to Sojourner but we do have a clue. The HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged the Pathfinder site early in its mission and in 2007 the camera team put out this release about the image:
https://www.uahirise.org/PSP_001890_1995
on that page is this image:
https://static.uahirise.org/images/2007/details/cut/manyrovers_half_annot_1lyr.jpg
It shows end of drive images of the rover, and it also shows a site labelled 'Sojourner?'. My map uses that location...
#mars #marspathfinder
Phil Stooke
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario. Space exploration and planetary cartography, historical and present. A longtime poster on unmannedspaceflight.com (RIP - but now archived at https://umsfarchive.com/index.php/), now posting content on www.nasaspaceflight.com and https://discord.com/channels/1290524907624464394 as well as here. The Solar System ain't gonna map itself. This is 100% (or more) AI-free.
mastodon.social
Replying to
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Why do they think Sojourner might be there? It's from that HiRISE image. This image is also from that HiRISE page:
https://static.uahirise.org/images/2007/details/cut/MPFtopo_HiRISE_annot.jpg
It shows color-coded topography and identifies a few rocks. One object seen in the image does not correspond to a rock in the panorama, so they suggest it is the rover, stranded there waiting for a command from Earth. It's not easy to match the image with the panorama but this may be right.
#mars #marspathfinder
Phil Stooke
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario. Space exploration and planetary cartography, historical and present. A longtime poster on unmannedspaceflight.com (RIP - but now archived at https://umsfarchive.com/index.php/), now posting content on www.nasaspaceflight.com and https://discord.com/channels/1290524907624464394 as well as here. The Solar System ain't gonna map itself. This is 100% (or more) AI-free.
mastodon.social
Replying to
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Maybe that location is the final resting place of Sojourner. But suppose the mission had not ended when it did... what were people thinking about a longer extended mission for the rover? Tomorrow we will look at that question.
#mars #marspathfinder
Phil Stooke
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario. Space exploration and planetary cartography, historical and present. A longtime poster on unmannedspaceflight.com (RIP - but now archived at https://umsfarchive.com/index.php/), now posting content on www.nasaspaceflight.com and https://discord.com/channels/1290524907624464394 as well as here. The Solar System ain't gonna map itself. This is 100% (or more) AI-free.
mastodon.social
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@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
The plan for Sojourner after leaving the Rock Garden was to drive back to the starting area near Yogi rock, roughly following its tracks. If it was still looking healthy the science team considered pushing out to the horizon to look at something new. But which way to go? This image, the panorama projected into a circle, gives us some ideas. Sojourner absolutely could not operate with any significant loss of radio contact - it had to remain visible from the lander.
#mars #marspathfinder
Phil Stooke
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario. Space exploration and planetary cartography, historical and present. A longtime poster on unmannedspaceflight.com (RIP - but now archived at https://umsfarchive.com/index.php/), now posting content on www.nasaspaceflight.com and https://discord.com/channels/1290524907624464394 as well as here. The Solar System ain't gonna map itself. This is 100% (or more) AI-free.
mastodon.social
Replying to
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Look at the northern half of the image in the previous post. Rocks are silhouetted against the sky. We don't see rocks on those distant features in the southern half. To the north the horizon is only a few hundred meters away, and might be in reach. But there's something else: the landscape is pocked with depressions like The Swale and West Swale on earlier maps. Sojourner can't go into them. It's so small it would lose contact easily.
#mars #marspathfinder
Phil Stooke
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario. Space exploration and planetary cartography, historical and present. A longtime poster on unmannedspaceflight.com (RIP - but now archived at https://umsfarchive.com/index.php/), now posting content on www.nasaspaceflight.com and https://discord.com/channels/1290524907624464394 as well as here. The Solar System ain't gonna map itself. This is 100% (or more) AI-free.
mastodon.social
Replying to
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
What Sojourner needed was a close horizon with a clear path that does not drop into any hollows. If it lost contact it would wait for instructions. If none came it would backtrack until it was back in contact. It might have been possible to program it to push ahead until contact resumed, but that's dangerous - get stuck between rocks or too tilted and ground commands are essential to recover. There was one possible route... tomorrow!
#mars #marspathfinder
Phil Stooke
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario. Space exploration and planetary cartography, historical and present. A longtime poster on unmannedspaceflight.com (RIP - but now archived at https://umsfarchive.com/index.php/), now posting content on www.nasaspaceflight.com and https://discord.com/channels/1290524907624464394 as well as here. The Solar System ain't gonna map itself. This is 100% (or more) AI-free.
mastodon.social
Replying to
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Here is the suggested route for Sojourner if it had survived longer. The horizon is only a few tens of meters away, and Sojourner could not cross it and lose contact. It might have had a good closeup view or even APXS analysis of the big boulder Zaphod, and the team also hoped for a view of North Knob, a hill only partially visible from the lander, as shown in earlier maps in this set. Speaking of views... what about the rover's cameras?
#maps #mars #marspathfinder
Phil Stooke
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Professor Emeritus, University of Western Ontario. Space exploration and planetary cartography, historical and present. A longtime poster on unmannedspaceflight.com (RIP - but now archived at https://umsfarchive.com/index.php/), now posting content on www.nasaspaceflight.com and https://discord.com/channels/1290524907624464394 as well as here. The Solar System ain't gonna map itself. This is 100% (or more) AI-free.
mastodon.social
Replying to
@PhilStooke@mastodon.social
Sojourner had 3 cameras - B/W stereo cameras in front and a colour camera at the rear. Here are a few images from the rover:
https://www-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12/mars/graphics/81315_full.jpg
https://www-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12/mars/graphics/81316_full.jpg
https://www-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12/mars/graphics/81325_full.jpg
https://www-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12/mars/graphics/81003_fu.jpg
https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/dc88/ops/81220_full.jpg
Most of them plus others from the lander are collected here:
https://www-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12/mars/nasa_jpl_mpf_pics.html
Pathfinder in 1997 was the first big internet planetary mission. I was driving across the northern states at the time of landing...
#mars #marspathfinder