"Earth and Moon as Seen from Mars"

[RAWbin]

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/214811main_EarthMoon-516.jpg

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera would make a great backyard telescope for viewing Mars, and we can also use it at Mars to view other planets. This is an image of Earth and the moon, acquired on October 3, 2007, by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/mro20080303earth.html

I better not be the only nerd around here who thinks thats pretty sweet. :fawk:

[SjCiViCHB]

That looks hella dope.

[ryans]

weird when you think we live on a rock spinning around.

[PNG]

That is one sweet Earth...

[greg]

Wraong!!!!!

[GlenB]

Now there is something you don't see everyday.

[RAWbin]

:hi:

[RAWbin]

I also love the Mars sunset picture:

http://wanderingspace.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/mars-sunset-husbandh.jpg

(posting it as a link because the picture is kind of big) =]

[SjCiViCHB]

thats mars? looks like the desert sand dunes.

[DiaVolo]

some more mars photos......


http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/06/martian_skies.html

[GlenB]

It looks almost inhabitable. The "high" temp can be done.

I wonder though.... why don't they explorer Venus? I mean, we've been able to see Mars's surface for a long time, but we can't see Venus. They have 2 rovers running around Mars plus a lander. So 3 probes are actually sitting on the planet's surface, and then 3 more are orbiting it snapping pics. With all that tax money driving around on MArs, taking more pics and samples... they couldn't spare one to touch down on a planet that we can't already see the surface of?

[Jay]

I can see my house from there.

[PNG]

It looks almost inhabitable. The "high" temp can be done.

I wonder though.... why don't they explorer Venus? I mean, we've been able to see Mars's surface for a long time, but we can't see Venus. They have 2 rovers running around Mars plus a lander. So 3 probes are actually sitting on the planet's surface, and then 3 more are orbiting it snapping pics. With all that tax money driving around on MArs, taking more pics and samples... they couldn't spare one to touch down on a planet that we can't already see the surface of?

Venus (as the Russians discovered) is uninteresting for a number of reasons... Surface temperature above the melting point of lead, 30 bar "air" pressure, and acidic rain make a probe's useful lifetime measured in minutes rather than months, and it's hard to do any meaningful surface geology.

[DiaVolo]

plus with such a thick atmosphere and heat any images a rover snaps would look all wavy and distorted. like when you can see the heat waves coming off the ground on a hot day.