On July 4th 1997 many people were celebrating North America’s independence with family and friends, but the scientists and engineers at NASA were far more interested in what was happening outside of the planet Earth. On that day, NASA’s Pathfinder Mission had just begun when its rover “Sojourner” landed on the surface of Mars. The purpose of the mission was to “characterize the rocks and soils in a landing area over hundreds of square meters on Mars, which [would provide] a calibration point or ‘ground truth’ for orbital remote-sensing observations” (Golombek et al.). Later that day the rover relayed the first images of mars’ surface back to NASA. The first images were described to show “a complex surface of ridges and troughs covered by rocks that have been transported and modified by fluvial, aeolian, and impact processes” (Smith et al.). Asides from the initial layout of the terrain the rover also identified four types of soil and three different types of rock (Smith et al.). The astronomy picture of the day I chose contains an image of one of the most discussed rocks from the Pathfinder Mission.
The image is credited to T. Parker of Jet Propulsion Laboratories. The picture I chose is not actually the original image of the object pictured, in fact the picture I chose is a super-resolution digitally enhanced version of the original version. It was digitally enhanced so that scientists and astronomers could study how the object was created, as well as its surface. The object that is pictured is a large boulder on the surface of Mars that we have named “Yogi”. The original image was taken on sol 3 (July 6th 1997) by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) near the Pathfinder landing site, even though it is the APOD for March 9th 1998. A “sol” is the unit we use to identify a solar day on the planet Mars. We use this because days on Mars (24h 37m 22.663s) are 3% longer than those on Earth (23h 56m 04.0905s) according to Michael Allison and Robert Schmunk. The object pictured is classified as a boulder. According to Dictionary.com, a boulder is defined as “a smooth rounded mass of rock that has a diameter greater than 25cm and that has been shaped by erosion and transported by ice or water from its original position”. The relevant history of this picture is that it is one of the key objects found on our most influential mars landing. The scientific process concerning “Yogi” involves the use of direct imaging to take pictures of Mars and its terrain. The image, at the time, brought the concept of super-resolution to scientific imaging as the APOD of March 9th 1998 is made from combining several images taken during the mission. Due to the clarity of the edited picture, scientists were able to observe Yogi’s smooth surface. The main scientific discovery made from the image is that the boulder’s smooth surface suggests that it has interacted with water in its past, thus implying that the planet was hotter and had more water in its atmosphere in the past.
There is not much unknown about Yogi itself, but rather the planet of Mars itself. NASA and JPL are planning on launching another rover to Mars in the summer of 2020 in hopes of it landing on the red planet in early 2021. The main purpose of the 2020 mission is to search for microbial life on the planet, as well as delving deeper into past conditions of Mars. I chose this image for a multitude of reasons. The first being that it was the APOD on my date of birth (3/9/1998). The second reason I chose this picture was because I am interested in the ideas of other places in the solar system being able to sustain life. The final reason I chose this image is because it utilizes new-age technological means to help scientists reach a conclusion. I am always fascinated in the types of technology scientists use in their field, and I thought it was interesting that they were using advanced techniques close to 20 years ago. I am interested to see what the 2020 mission brings in regards to life on planets other than Earth.
Images – https://mars.nasa.gov/MPF/ops/sol6.html