Mars 360-degree panoramic view from Curiosity

Curiosity should totally become the first extraterrestrial Street View car on mars.google.com!

Can someone explain how/why a $2.6 billion piece of equipment appears to have cameras that can't match a $100 digital camera? I know it takes a long time for data to travel from there to here, but I am sure a lot of people wouldn't mind waiting for 1080p, full-color video footage of the red planet. Instead, we get these 1-megapixel, black-and-white shots that need to be stitched together to create a half decent panorama image. Sorry, there is probably a good technical reason for this, but I am just ignorant of it and I would appreciate an explanation.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this piece of metal traveled 350 million miles through space and then landed on Mars.

Well it doesn't look like path planning is going to be an issue for the first couple of Km :-)

Very cool! Does anyone else think the interactivity adds nothing and just makes looking at a big image more difficult?

Why is it all black-and-white? Is it because color cameras are too heavy/expensive to take or because color photography is for some reason impossible under those conditions?

I am surprised by how many good sized pebbles are on the top surfaces of curiosity. I guess I expect dust, but those are pretty big. Kicked up during the landing?

Descent of the Phoenix <a href="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080530.html" rel="nofollow">http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080530.html</a><p>Curiosity Drops In <a href="http://www.uahirise.org/images/2012/details/cut/ESP_028256_9022-1.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.uahirise.org/images/2012/details/cut/ESP_028256_9...</a><p>from: <a href="http://www.uahirise.org/releases/msl-descent.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.uahirise.org/releases/msl-descent.php</a><p>A Wheel on Mars <a href="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120807.html" rel="nofollow">http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120807.html</a><p>landing site: <a href="http://www.uahirise.org/images/2012/details/cut/landing_site_annotated.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.uahirise.org/images/2012/details/cut/landing_site...</a><p>Curiosity Before Mars: Seven Minutes of Terror (video 5:08) <a href="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120731.html" rel="nofollow">http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120731.html</a>

Here are some more pictures (including color) <a href="http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/targetFamily/Mars" rel="nofollow">http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/targetFamily/Mars</a><p>I wonder what the sky of mars looks like. Can we see earth?

There it is then, going around and taking pictures. A bit lonely out there though, I must say.<p>Space programs are always, by nature, unbelievable stunts. There are so many things that can go wrong and then they don't, and you end up landing a tonne of sensitive equipment safely on another planet and there it is then, sending vacation pictures to Earth.<p>If they can do that, what could we do or what could I do that I don't?

Also I think choice of the low-res camera is related to it being better shielded against the space radiation <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135044871000380X" rel="nofollow">http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1350448710...</a><p>Its still somehow unbelievable that I'm actually seeing photos from another planet almost realtime.

Intellectually stimulating, but after the first few pictures... well, there's nothing to see there, just sand and rocks. The most visually interesting thing on this panorama image is the rover itself, so I don't mind the relatively low quality. Now I'm waiting for some non-visual data. Curiosity has a lot of sensors besides the cameras.

The Cosmos magazines Mars issue on the iPad has a Mars panorama which utilizes gyroscope.<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy3r8k8hX-8" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy3r8k8hX-8</a><p>Sadly its not the panorama Curiosity took but the one from the previous Mars rover.<p>Sill its pretty awesome.

Can someone explain what represents the marking on Curiosity next to NASA logo (middle part, white circle). It is present all over the robot.

Any thoughts on why the top area has been blacked out from view? Protecting devices? limitations of the equipment?

Anyone know what the circular symbols (similar to the BMW logo) all over the rover mean?

Why is it all just barren desert? :D<p>Too bad it's not enough for a complete 360 panoramic :(

Full screen is tight. After a few minutes of looking around at the landscape, I find my self more interested in cool 360 view <i>of</i> curiosity not <i>from</i>.

amazing...

A quick take on the project.<p>Software Architect: "Hello sir! As you know, it has taken millions to billions of dollars and years of time to develop your project. We are ready to launch! As you know, it will take a year to actually deploy it in production, during which point a bug or misconfiguration of the software during the transfer, installation, or activation stages would cause it to fail. If a failure happens, we will need millions of dollars and lots of time to rebuild the project, as well as to figure out what went wrong and to try again. However, if we do succeed in installing the project as we hope, we expect will be able to run for ten years without updates. If you do need an update or if an error is encountered or the hardware deteriorates (such as because of a memory error, hard-drive crash, etc.), then parts of the application never work again. Also, as a reminder, the user will have to wait many hours after submitting input before receiving acknowledgement from the system, and many days to receive even partial results."<p>Customer: "Thank you for your report. It sounds great. I have one suggestion. Lets make sure that when ask the system for an image, we use the .BMP format to increase the file size. This way, we can please the media with numbers about how much raw data we have obtained."<p>Software Architect: "This will take additional time and millions of dollars and not be much of a benefit."<p>Customer: "Ok, fine let's skip that."