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Mars 360: 1.2 billion pixel panorama of Mars — Sol 3060 (360video 8K)

1.2 billion pixel panorama of Mars by Curiosity rover at Sol 3060 (March 152021)

🎬 360VR video 8K: 🔎 360VR photo 85K: http://bit.ly/sol3060

NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Source images credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS Stitching and retouching: Andrew Bodrov / 360pano.eu.

Music in video Song: Gates Of Orion Artist: Dreamstate Logic (http://www.dreamstatelogic.com​)

#Mars360​ #Video360​ #360VR​ #Mars​ #Sol3060​ #Gigapixel


ICON and NASA bring lunar infrastructure closer with world’s first 3D printed rocket pad

Texas-based construction company ICON has delivered what it hails as the “world’s first” 3D printed lunar launch and landing pad to NASA, bringing its goal of creating an off-world construction system for the moon a step closer.

Working with a team of students from 10 colleges and universities across the US, ICON used its proprietary technology to 3D print a reusable landing pad using materials found on the moon. The partners recently conducted a static fire test of the rocket pad with a rocket motor at Camp Swift, a Texas Military Department location just outside of Austin.

“This is the first milestone on the journey to making off-world construction a reality, which will allow humanity to stay – not just visit the stars,” said Michael McDaniel, Head of Design at ICON.

Perseverance dropped Mars Helicopter Ingenuity’s debris shield and started deployment sequence

https://youtube.com/watch?v=mSXH_3hnr6M

On March 212021 NASA’s Perseverance Rover send images of Mars Helicopter Ingenuity deployment started from Debris Shield Dropping. For the first flight, the helicopter will take off a few feet from the ground, hover in the air for about 20 to 30 seconds, and land. That will be a major milestone: the very first powered flight in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars. After that, the team will attempt additional experimental flights of incrementally farther distance and greater altitude. After the helicopter completes its technology demonstration, Perseverance will continue its scientific mission. Ingenuity hitched a ride on the Perseverance rover’s belly, covered by a shield to protect it during the descent and landing. Once at a suitable spot on Mars, the shield covering beneath the rover will drop. Then, the team will release the helicopter in several steps to get it safely onto the surface.

Credit: nasa.gov, NASA/JPL-Caltech, NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Source for NASA’s Mars Helicopter Ingenuity page: https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/

#mars #helicopter #ingenuity

Tiny Gravitational-Wave Detector Could Search Anywhere in the Sky

One of the biggest challenges will be to create superpositions of diamonds that can remain stable over distances of a meter. More than four years ago researchers at Stanford University managed to separate a superposition consisting of 10000 atoms by about half a meter—the current record. “But we’re talking about doing it with diamonds that would have a billion or 10 billion atoms, and that is way more difficult,” Mazumdar says.

Many of the other technologies needed for the device—high vacuums, ultralow temperatures, precisely controlled magnetic fields—have all been achieved separately by various groups. But bringing them together will not be easy. “Just because you can juggle and ride a bike doesn’t mean you can do both at once,” Morley says.

If the device is ever built, it could transform gravitational-wave astronomy. The world’s current gravitational-wave detectors are all firmly anchored to the ground. “The only orientation LIGO can have is due to Earth’s rotation,” Bose says. A small detector such as MIMAC, on the other hand, could be pointed at any direction in the sky. And any physics lab in the world could house it. “The challenge is to get one of them working,” Bose says. “If one of them works, it would be very easy to make several more.”