First TV Image of Mars (Hand Colored)

[gatagato]

Target Name: Mars
Mission: Mariner 64
Spacecraft: Mariner 4
Product Size: 15761 x 9328 pixels (width x height)
Produced By: JPL
Full-Res TIFF: PIA14033.tif (441.1 MB)
Full-Res JPEG: PIA14033.jpg (18.49 MB)

A "real-time data translator" machine converted a Mariner 4 digital image data into numbers printed on strips of paper. Too anxious to wait for the official processed image, employees from the Telecommunications Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, attached these strips side by side to a display panel and hand colored the numbers like a paint-by-numbers picture. The completed image was framed and presented to JPL director, William H. Pickering. Mariner 4 was launched on November 28, 1964 and journeyed for 228 days to the Red Planet, providing the first close-range images of Mars.

The spacecraft carried a television camera and six other science instruments to study the Martian atmosphere and surface. The 22 photographs taken by Mariner revealed the existence of lunar type craters upon a desert-like surface. After completing its mission, Mariner 4 continued past Mars to the far side of the Sun. On December 20, 1967, all operations of the spacecraft were ended.

For more information about this story see http://directedplay.com/first_tv_image_of_mars.html


This image represents the first view of another planet from a vantage point in space. It was taken on July 15th, 1965, when Mariner 4 flew by only 6,118 miles from the surface of Mars. Before this image the most sophisticated, high res image of Mars was this image by Percival Lowell from the late 1800's (see below).


The rectangles represent the location of the 22 images that were taken. The orange rectangle is this image. They are skewed because the camera is pointed from space at the ground at an angle, not straight down.
After the failure of Mariner 3 (whose camera shroud had jammed), NASA scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory anxiously awaited the signals from Mariner 4's cameras during the final approach to Mars. There had been some anomalous errors pointing towards the tape recorder (seen below),

and they had a right to be nervous as the tape recorder on Mariner 4 was a spare not originally intended for use, but because of the previous failure on Mariner 3, it was used. So Mr. Grumm, who oversaw the tape recorder, and his crew decided to prove if it was working one way or the other.

After the flyby of the planet it would take several hours for computers to process a real image. So while they were waiting, the engineers thought of different ways of taking the 1’s and 0’s from the actual data and create an image. After a few variations, it seemed most efficient to print out the digits and color over them based upon how bright each pixel was. So Mr. Grumm went to a local art store and asked for a set of chalk with different shades of gray. The art store replied that they “did not sell chalk” (as that was apparently too low for them, only convenience stores sold “chalk”), but they did have colored pastels. Richard did not want to spend a lot of time arguing with them, so he bought the pastels (actual pastels seen below),

had the 1’s and 0’s printed out on ticker tape about 3in wide, and his team colored them by their brightness level (color key seen below).

Side by side comparison of drawn image and actual image (JPL/Caltech)

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/image...ture_1982.html
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14033
http://directedplay.com/first_tv_image_of_mars.html

[Arkoquisa]

very dank

[NEVERBACKZ]

[Wolf]

A real color by numbers

[curious observer]

Now google earth has a mars mode wherein if we had colonies on Mars you could see the vehicles driving around and buildings in similar detail to the Earth's

[PoetsOfTheFall]

Great