Huge, deep hole found on Mars...

[Platypus]

SEE YOU AT THE PARTY RICHTER!

 

[dudeman007]

This is Sparta?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmOH5f1J1Uc

 

[panipoori]

Someone should goatse that pic

 

[TheVrolok]

Pretty neat.

 

[Unheard]

Bet it's just a spot on the lens :-D

 

[sandorski]

Some prankster probably just used a holepunch on a sheet of paper and put it in front of the lens. He's the guy sitting in a cubicle at NASA who constantly chuckles to himself making all his co-workers weirded out. Now we know why he's chuckling.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
god! that first thing that came to my mind:

Behold...the Great Stone Face of Mars. The only known entrance to the Martian reservation.
What about the Great Stone Ass of Mars?
Well, yeah, but it's way over the other side of the planet.

a to anyone how remembers where this is from!

futurama - Where the bugalo roam
dont remember off my head what season its from., im guessing 3

 

[KDOG]

I'm just waiting for all the corny photochopped pics to come out with it...

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: panipoori
Someone should goatse that pic

all the ram in the world couldn't provide the capcity for the rendering required....

 

[dennilfloss]

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: panipoori
Someone should goatse that pic

all the ram in the world couldn't provide the capcity for the rendering required....

Someone at Ars Technica already did.

 

[Fritzo]

We need to mix the Paris Hilton is Loose headline with this one some how.

 

[error162]

Incoming message from the big giant head!!!! Paris Hiltons cavity search photos leaked to press. News at 11:00.

 

[BUTCH1]

How about the "Inca city"+
pics, hmmmm....

 

[wahoyaho]

how come they just find this out now?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo

I thought they were getting rid of that method (reverse peltier effect) and implementing something else nuclear related. I had read about this quite a while ago and forget the details.

In any case, that method works well IMO, probably won't provide tons of power, but still a good amount for them to work with.

I wonder how their efficiency is on that now... I remember that they were working on bringing the efficiency as high as possible. I want to know how much plutonium they're going to use and how much heat that will develop.

The only other nuclear project I can think of was Prometheus, which (dammit all) was cancelled. It was supposed to yield fission-powered spacecraft. Probes could have equipment whose power consumption could be in the kilowatts range, not watts. To give you an idea of power levels in current spacecraft, Cassini, the largest probe launched to this date, has a power output of about 700 watts from 3 radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Its high gain antenna has an output of 20 watts.
Prometheus was to allow probes to have genuine fission reactors to operate very powerful instruments. I would have loved to see a fission-powered probe visit Jupiter's moon Europa. The large amount of power could have allowed for deep scans of the moon, to look for the theorized ocean beneath its icy crust.

Concerning the RTGs on Cassini:
"The Power and Pyrotechnics Subsystem provides regulated 30 Volts DC electrical power to the spacecraft. The power is derived from three Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs), each of which use heat from the radioactive decay of 10.9 kg of plutonium dioxide to generate 300 Watts of electrical power at launch, reducing to around 210 Watts at the end of the nominal, eleven-year mission."
Source

Originally posted by: wahoyaho
how come they just find this out now?

Because before Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived, they didn't have a camera in orbit with 30cm/pixel resolution.

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: Anubis

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
god! that first thing that came to my mind:

Behold...the Great Stone Face of Mars. The only known entrance to the Martian reservation.
What about the Great Stone Ass of Mars?
Well, yeah, but it's way over the other side of the planet.

a to anyone how remembers where this is from!

futurama - Where the bugalo roam
dont remember off my head what season its from., im guessing 3

yup. season 3. you gotta admit it was appropiate though, no?