Mars rover's "6 minutes of hell" 'R over

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

Surely you mean we have color photos of the other solar planets, but not from them?

It depends on your definition of "from".

[only_human]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

Surely you mean we have color photos of the other solar planets, but not from them? AFAIK, no recent probe has landed on one with a good enough camera.

Photos of exo-planets would be awesome, but that seems a bit far-fetched to me (where far is of course many light years ).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Worlds_Mission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_...asolar_planets

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

Surely you mean we have color photos of the other solar planets, but not from them? AFAIK, no recent probe has landed on one with a good enough camera.

Venus: View 1 & 2
Titan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hu...e_color_sr.jpg
Mars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ma...rama_large.jpg , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ph...RoboticArm.png, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:So...rte_spirit.jpg , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Op...tera_Eagle.jpg

Except for Venus, each is from a different spacecraft. I did not bother to post another Viking image.

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

Venus: View 1 & 2
Titan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hu...e_color_sr.jpg
Mars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ma...rama_large.jpg , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ph...RoboticArm.png, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:So...rte_spirit.jpg , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Op...tera_Eagle.jpg

Except for Venus, each is from a different spacecraft. I did not bother to post another Viking image.

Neat! In particular, I had thought Huygens had been destroyed on impact.

[ET_]

Are there Martian photos taken during the Martian night?

Luigi

[xilman]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

Neat! In particular, I had thought Huygens had been destroyed on impact.

A complete(?) set of images from the Soviet Venera program can be found at http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm

If Titan is to be included as a planet for these purposes and if you also require contact between the probe and the "planet", I'll throw in the Moon and Halley's comet --- Giotto went right inside the comet.

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by xilman

No.

An alpha particle is a nucleus.

And a fairly stable one at that.
c.f. Helium

David

[Brain]

Adam Steltzner: "Will land on Mars for Food"...

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

So the nucleus of one atom becomes 2 nuclei. They may not be close to the same size, but it still happens.
It is just a specially named type of fission (a splitting of something into two parts.)

No, because although it is possible for fission - especially ternary fission, producing more than 2 product nuclei - to produce daughter nuclei of significantly disparate size, the physical mechanisms behind alpha decay and fission are very different:

Alpha Decay:

Alpha decay is by far the most common form of cluster decay where the parent atom ejects a defined daughter collection of nucleons, leaving another defined product behind (in nuclear fission, a number of different pairs of daughters of approximately equal size are formed). Alpha decay is the most likely cluster decay because of the combined extremely high binding energy and relatively small mass of the helium-4 product nucleus (the alpha particle).

Alpha decay, like other cluster decays, is fundamentally a quantum tunneling process. Unlike beta decay, alpha decay is governed by the interplay between the nuclear force and the electromagnetic force.

Fission:

Fission as encountered in the modern world is usually a deliberately-produced manmade nuclear reaction induced by a neutron. It is less commonly encountered as a natural form of spontaneous radioactive decay (not requiring a neutron), occurring especially in very high-mass-number isotopes. The unpredictable composition of the products (which vary in a broad probabilistic and somewhat chaotic manner) distinguishes fission from purely quantum-tunnelling processes such as proton emission, alpha decay and cluster decay, which give the same products each time.

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Latest news from Mars is not good:

NASA Calls It A Mission As Curiosity Rover Fills Up Whole 2-Gigabyte Memory Card

[Batalov]

Originally Posted by Brain

Adam Steltzner: "Will land on Mars for Food"...

One of the Russian early standup comedians came up with a joke (about 30 years ago, maybe) that cannot be quite translated. It went like this: "The scientists are debating whether there is life on Mars* or should we leave it for a rainy day".
________________
*The same phrase also means "eat the Mars' lifeforms":
"Есть ли жизнь на марсе - или оставить её на чёрный день?"

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Latest news from Mars is not good:

NASA Calls It A Mission As Curiosity Rover Fills Up Whole 2-Gigabyte Memory Card

It'd be a real shame to leave the glitch in that link.

NASA Calls It A Mission As Curiosity Rover Fills Up Whole 2-Gigabyte Memory Card