Left NavCam animation (heavily processed to reveal the activity)

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/j. Roger

Full size animation and source LINK

    • SpecialSetOfSieves@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      I don’t know about you, Paul, but I find it amusing to think that we have more missions studying the weather and atmosphere than we do the surface, and that was true even when Zhurong and InSight were still going strong. Obviously it’s easier to orbit than to land, but between the USA, Europe and Asia I count six active missions, and I’m not even including the Chinese orbiter, which doesn’t do weather studies per se AFAIK.

      I don’t envy the public outreach folks at NASA or ESA, when I find invariably find people IRL doing double takes and stopping me with “Wait, Mars has an atmosphere??” LOL I guess the video of Curiosity and Percy parachuting down to the surface doesn’t cut through, although people will then tell me about how dangerous the wind is going to be for the Mark Watneys of the future 😁

      • paulhammond5155@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        I’ve also met a large number of folk who have no idea of the science activities on or orbiting Mars. I used to believe that much of that was associated with the dumbing down of science in recent times. But now I believe that it’s more likely it’s a result of folk not reading newspapers any more. Most folk get their “news” from social media on their phone :(