Mars Probe Sees Other Mars Probe on Mars

[Shrek]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/07/25/mars_curiosity_rover_seen_in_picture_taken_by_spacecraft.html

Incredible! The camera that took this shot was HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), one of my favorite detectors in space. It’s on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling Mars since March 2006. The camera has a pretty good telescope on it and can resolve objects on the surface less than 1 meter across.

The Curiosity rover is about 3 meters long, so it’s easily visible in HiRISE images. Its wheels are 50 centimeters across and a little less than that wide, so the tracks are visible as well. The rockets used in the last moments before the rover landed on the surface blew the dust and surface material around, so that blast pattern (which looks blue in this color-enhanced shot) is easily seen in the image, too. I annotated it to make this all clear:

[lastlib]

1. Fantastic! And just think, the NSA has the same thing for Earth/USA!

[awoke_in_2003]

2. NSA probably has better. nt

[pokerfan]

3. Yeah, it's not like we sent a Keyhole satellite to Mars

Keyhole satellites are essentially Hubble telescopes trained on the Earth. In fact, in 2011 the CIA offered NASA two Hubble-sized (2.5 m diameter) space telescopes they had laying around that they never got around to flying. By comparison, HIRISE has a 0.5 m diameter telescope, quite large for deep space, but nothing compared to a Keyhole.

[awoke_in_2003]

4. And if they were willing to give up Keyholes...

that means they have much better ones now.

[pokerfan]

5. Exactly (nt)