Probe spies landers on Red Planet (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

New images have been released of past and present US landing craft on the surface of Mars taken by Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) probe.

The Spirit rover, which touched down in 2004, as well as both Viking landers, sent to explore the Red Planet in the 1970s, can be seen in the new images.

Besides providing new portraits of the robot emissaries, the images offer new information on the surrounding terrain.
***
They also aim to identify several "lost" landers; Britain's Beagle 2, Nasa's Mars Polar Lander, and the Soviet craft Mars 2, Mars 3 and Mars 6.
***
The images from Hi-Rise are so sharp, scientists think they will be able to identify individual rocks that appear in famous photographs by the Viking landers. These include "Ankylosaurus," a rough rock about a metre (3ft) long near Viking Lander 2, and the larger rock nicknamed "Big Joe" near Viking Lander 1.






***
more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6211870.stm

[FogerRox]

1. because of a high degree of coolness, KNR

[freethought]

2. Wow! The Viking landers too!

Those landers have been sitting up on Mars since the late seventies. Too bad we can't get Spirit or Opportunity to visit one of the Viking landers. Would be interesting to see what 20+ years on Mars have done to the lander.

[soothsayer]

3. Too bad we put all the landers in the same area instead of exploring

the whole planet, lol

[Ready4Change]

4. That's the only place the Martians have authorized us to land.

They are worried if we land elsewhere we may damage their mag-lev rails, poison their canals or trample around in their lush gardens.

[Salviati]

5. I was at a colloquium with a scientist who had an instrument on one of the

latest landers, and he said that determining a landing site is a real struggle between the scientists and the project managers. The most interesting sites to study are often also the most dangerous and unsafe places to land...

[JimDandy]

6. What a geographical diversity, though, in that one region! The first picture

looks like a recent (relatively) lava flow area, the second has large impact craters and the third looks like it had some serious wave action (or maybe wind?) going on. But the hundreds of little holes in the third picture are the most striking feature. Any geologists out there who'd know how each of these features really were created?