With all the hoopla over the landing of Perseverance on Mars, some people have forgotten that the rover Curiosity is still chugging away in Gale Crater on Mars. It landed there August 6, 2012. Many of you on these boards, but not all, know that it has a special target for scaling the color of its images. The process is called camera calibration. This color target is a grid of assorted colors etc. One of the items in this grid is actually a Lincoln VDB cent. It's rather heavily cleaned, and is not a particularly good calibration target, but clearly there was a coin geek at JPL or amongst the geologists who helped design the rover. From NASA's website it states, "The penny is a nod to geologists' tradition of placing a coin or other object of known scale as a size reference in close-up photographs of rocks, and it gives the public a familiar object for perceiving size easily when it will be viewed by MAHLI (a camera) on Mars". Here's a link to the article: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia15285.html Here's a picture of the VDB. Curiosity has been sending back stunning images of Gale Crater. It is climbing up Mt. Sharp, the central peak in the crater. The peak is roughly 15,000 feet high. Here are two recent pictures. The first is a selfie of Curiosity next to a formation called Mont Mercou. The second image is a panorama looking at Mont Mercou. I have uploaded it in its full HD format. If you are interested, drag it and drop it to your computer and blow it up to its full size of 8192 x 2021 pixels. The detail is amazing. FWIW, in the image you'll notice what appears to be a mountain range in the far left and right background. That is actually the crater wall of Gale Crater. Clearly the VDB and its calibration compatriots are doing a great job. Post a picture of a VDB of yours.
This is the most recent VDB of mine. Found in a roll from the bank a couple weeks go. Pretty cool to think that he could've been minted right before or after the one who is now exploring Mars.
Very cool thread, Sky. I knew Curiosity was still chugging along, however I had no earthly idea an old Lincoln cent was on board. Very, very cool. Here is mine. A Martian bit a giant chunk out of the rim. That's my story and I am sticking to it......
Thanks, Sy! I promise I won't hijack your thread this time. That image from within the crater is fantastic.
I'm a little flummoxed, i could have sworn i had a 1909 wheat in here, somewhere. What i lack in quality (where do i begin), i make up for in quantity. I'll give ya two.
