Search Results for: "curiosity rover"

Curiosity Rover Captures Two Solar Eclipses on Mars

Photographers have captured many awe-inspiring photos of solar eclipses in recent years. But Earth isn't the only planet photos are being shot from: NASA's Curiosity rover has captured some beautiful solar eclipse photos over the past few weeks from the surface of Mars.

Video: NASA Gives a Tour of the Cameras on the Mars Curiosity Rover

The Curiosity Rover has been trekking the surface of Mars since late last year, and so far, there has been no shortage of great imagery.

But what gear is behind those intriguing images we see so frequently? NASA JPL has put together a short video on the camera equipment on board the Curiosity rover.

Nine Month Time-Lapse of Photos Taken on Mars by the Curiosity Rover

NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover has sent down a constant stream of images from the Red Planet. Ever since it landed on August 8th, 2012, it's spent every spare moment snapping selfies, panoramas and surveillance footage, and sending it back home from between 33.9 and 250 million miles away (depending on the relative positions of Mars and Earth).

The majority of Curiosity's photos that get picked up by the press are taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager and Mastcam, but Curiosity is actually taking pictures each and every day. Equipped with Front Avoidance Hazard Cameras or "Hazcams," the rover has been snapping black-and-white images ever since it landed, and one YouTuber has decided to stitch all of those images into a time-lapse.

Curiosity Rover Beams Down Stunning Self-Portrait Panorama from Mars

When the Mars Rover Opportunity was nearing its 9th year in the Martian sun, we shared a beautiful panoramic landscape shot of the red planet taken by the aging rover. It makes sense then that Curiosity would eventually send down a panorama of its own. But just like you would expect from a younger generation of rover, it couldn't help but make the pano a selfie.

The Curiosity Rover’s Descent into Mars as an Amazing HD Video

When NASA's Curiosity rover performed its "seven minutes of terror" landing on Mars a couple weeks ago, the Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) camera had the task of capturing 1600x1200 (~1.9 megapixel) photographs at a rate of 5 frames per second. The camera began snapping away from when the heatshield separated to a few seconds after the rover touched down. The amazing high-definition video above was created with these photographs, showing what it's like to fall onto the surface of the red planet.

Why the Mars Curiosity Rover’s Cameras Are Lame by Today’s Standards

Ever since NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars and started beaming back photographs earlier this week, people have been wondering, "why are the photos so bad?" The criticism seems merited: consumers these days are snapping great high-res photographs using phones that cost just hundreds of dollars, yet NASA can't choose a camera with more than 2-megapixels of resolution for their $2.5 billion mission?

In an interview with dpreview, project manager Mike Ravine of Malin Space Science Systems -- the company that provided three of the rover's main cameras -- explains that there were a couple main reasons behind the "lame" cameras: data transfer and fixed specifications.

First Color Photo of Mars by the Curiosity Rover

After shooting black-and-white landscape photos for a day, everyone's favorite Martian robot photographer is now dabbling in color photography. NASA's Curiosity rover beamed back its first color photo today, showing the rim of its new crater home.

How NASA’s Curiosity Rover Will Shoot Photos of Mars

NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars this morning with much fanfare here on Earth. The photo above is one of the first photographs snapped by the rover and beamed back to Earth. Captured through a fisheye wide-angle lens, the landscape photo hows a gravel field in the foreground and the rim of the Gale Crater (the rover's new home) in the distance.

NASA Curiosity Postcard

The Inside Story Behind Curiosity’s Time-Blended Mars Panorama

Earlier this week, NASA shared an incredible time-blended composite panorama its team captured with Curiosity's navigation camera. PetaPixel spoke with Doug Ellison from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in southern California, the man who planned, captured, and processed the photos to make the "postcard."

Ex-NASA Engineer Builds Glitter Fart Camera Trap for Package Thieves

Wildlife photographers sometimes set up camera traps to capture images of elusive animals. Former NASA engineer Mark Rober recently spent months creating a glitter-bomb fart-spray camera trap to capture images of elusive package thieves. As the 11-minute video above shows, the results were glorious.

This is What a Sunset on Mars Looks Like in Color

This NASA photo roughly shows what a sunset on Mars would look like to our eyes if we were standing there to witness it. The agency released this true color image after earlier sharing a black-and-white version that was captured by the Curiosity rover in the middle of April 2015.

Little Planet Photos That Feature Rocket Launches, Air Shows, and Mars

Estonian photographer Andrew Bodrov of 360Pano has been shooting panoramic photographs for over a decade in countries around the world. His work even spans planets: last year he released an interactive panorama created using photos shot on Mars.

One of his interesting side projects is his Little Planets series, which features stereographic projections created using some pretty interesting source panoramas.

10 Fantastic Instagram Users You Should Follow Right Now

While some people still regard Instagram as a hipster gimmick bound to eventually wear out its welcome, most people have come around and found it to be much more than just another spoke in the social media wheel. Instagram is perhaps the most simplistic of the social media applications but much like Twitter, it has used that to its advantage rather than let it become a hindrance.

Even though it’s often used for sharing your current meal or that cute face your cat always makes, sometimes it gets used to its full potential as a device for unconventional humor or revolutionary marketing. And then sometimes it’s taken even beyond that and used to showcase unique visions and exquisite works by some of today’s greatest artists. These are some of those artists.

A White-Balanced Panoramic Photo of a Martian Mountain, Courtesy of Curiosity

The latest panorama sent down by NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover is unique in more ways than one. Not only is it a panorama taken on another planet (still blows our minds), it's also been subjected to some post production. The photo -- a piece of which is seen above -- has actually had its white balance modified by NASA to make it look more like it was taken on Earth.

There Are Giant Camera Resolution Test Charts Scattered Across the US

When people test cameras and lenses for resolution, they commonly use special resolution test charts that are filled with black bars of varying lengths and thicknesses. They're kind of like eye charts, except for cameras instead of eyeballs, and with lines instead of letters.

Well, did you know that in dozens of locations around the United States, there are gigantic resolution test charts on the ground?