Lincoln Penny on Mars

enochian · Oct 18, 2012

The Mars rover Curiosity, carried a 1909 VDB Lincoln cent hundreds of millions of miles to become the first coin to land on Mars. The penny is part of a camera calibration target that technicians use to adjust Curiosity's cameras. The photo above was taken on the 34th Martian day (or sol) of its exploration mission (also known as September 9, 2012 in this world). The coin left the Earth as an uncirculated red specimen but now has a coating of Martian dust on it. According to the press release, "The specific coin, provided by MAHLI's (Mars Hand Lens Imager) principal investigator, Ken Edgett, is a 1909 "VDB" penny. That was the first year Lincoln pennies were minted and the centennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. The VDB refers to the initials of the coin's designer, Victor D. Brenner, which are on the reverse side. Brenner based the coin's low-relief portrait of Lincoln on a photograph taken Feb. 9, 1864, by Anthony Berger in the Washington, D.C.
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http://coins.about.com/b/2012/10/13/lincoln-penny-on-mars.htm?nl=1

[h=3]Lincoln Penny on Mars in Camera's Calibration Target[/h]The penny in this image is part of a camera calibration target on NASA's Mars rover Curiosity. The Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the rover took this and other images of the MAHLI calibration target during the 34th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity's work on Mars (Sept. 9, 2012).

The image was acquired with MAHLI at a distance of 5 centimeters (2 inches). MAHLI can acquire images of even higher resolution and can be positioned as close as 2.5 centimeters (about 1 inch); however, as this is the first checkout of the robotic arm, it was decided not to attempt to place the MAHLI at its closest focus distance during this test. The image shows that the calibration target has a coating of Martian dust on it. This is unsurprising â€” the target was facing directly toward the plume of dust stirred up by the sky crane's descent engines during the final phase of the 6 August 2012 landing.

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 on Mars.

The specific coin, provided by MAHLI's principal investigator, Ken Edgett, is a 1909 "VDB" penny. That was the first year Lincoln pennies were minted and the centennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth. The VDB refers to the initials of the coin's designer, Victor D. Brenner, which are on the reverse side. Brenner based the coin's low-relief portrait of Lincoln on a photograph taken Feb. 9, 1864, by Anthony Berger in the Washington, D.C. studio of Mathew Brady.

The calibration target for the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) instrument also includes a "Joe the Martian" character, color references, a metric bar graphic, and a stair-step pattern for depth calibration. The MAHLI adjustable-focus, color camera at the end of Curiosity's robotic arm can be used for taking extreme close-ups of rocks and soil on Mars, as well as images from greater distances.

The Joe the Martian character appeared regularly in a children's science periodical, "Red Planet Connection," when Edgett directed the Mars outreach program at Arizona State University, Tempe, in the 1990s. Joe was created earlier, as part of Edgett's schoolwork when he was 9 years old and NASA's Mars Viking missions, launched in 1975, were inspiring him to dream of becoming a Mars researcher.
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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/pia16131.html

pretty cool does this mean theres one les vdb out there or did they bring it home

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Hobo · Oct 18, 2012

Your thread makes at least 8.

www.cointalk.com/t200348

www.cointalk.com/t215924

www.cointalk.com/t211377

www.cointalk.com/t214474

www.cointalk.com/t200675

www.cointalk.com/t200347

www.cointalk.com/t211193

Ripley · Oct 18, 2012

Cool beans, 1 less 1909 VDB to worry about. :hail:

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Lincoln Penny on Mars

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