Scientists have invited the public to trawl high-resolution images for
signs of NASA's Mars Polar Lander, which went silent on arrival at
Mars in 1999. Finding the wreckage might explain why the mission
failed.

"If we can find the Mars Polar Lander and be convinced we understand
what we're looking at, it might provide some clues as to what went
wrong," says Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona in Tucson, US.
"There could be lessons there that are applicable to future landers."

More at http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13884-volunteers-asked-to-search-for-dead-spacecraft-on-mars.html
or http://tinyurl.com/5sxqb2 if it wraps...

nickw7coc@gmail.com  wrote:

> Scientists have invited the public to trawl high-resolution images for
> signs of NASA's Mars Polar Lander
> 
> More at http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13884-volunteers-asked-to-
> search-for-dead-spacecraft-on-mars.html
> or http://tinyurl.com/5sxqb2 if it wraps...

Without some agreed grid reference, it's a bit of a waste of time. For
example, one poster says:
"in PSP_005470_1035_RGB.NOMAP.browse.jpg at pixels 133x4544 there is
something weird looking."

But I can't see anything at those pixel coordinates on that image that
looks vaguely interesting, which suggests I'm not looking at the same
thing that the poster is looking at.

-- 
Pd

In uk.sci.astronomy message <1d6c35db-e053-4939-bce1-c7f27b2f6bdb@34g200
0hsf.googlegroups.com>, Mon, 12 May 2008 14:17:33, "nickw7coc@gmail.com"
 posted:
>Scientists have invited the public to trawl high-resolution images for
>signs of NASA's Mars Polar Lander, which went silent on arrival at
>Mars in 1999. Finding the wreckage might explain why the mission
>failed.

On a vaguely related subject : Phoenix is, for users of IE, Safari, and
Firefox, scheduled to land on Mars at about 2008-05-25 23:53 UTC ERT.
But for users of Opera 9.27, it appears to be landing 5 hours earlier,
according to the countdown at <http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix
/main/index.html>.  Let us hope they tested Phoenix better than they
tested their Web site.

-- 
 (c) John Stockton, nr London UK.   ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk     IE7 FF2 Op9 Sf3
 news:comp.lang.javascript FAQ <URL:http://www.jibbering.com/faq/index.html>.
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 <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> TP/BP/Delphi/jscr/&c, FAQ items, links.

On May 13, 6:20 pm, Dr J R Stockton  wrote:

> On a vaguely related subject : Phoenix is, for users of IE, Safari, and
> Firefox, scheduled to land on Mars at about 2008-05-25 23:53 UTC ERT.
> But for users of Opera 9.27, it appears to be landing 5 hours earlier,
> according to the countdown at <http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix
> /main/index.html>.  Let us hope they tested Phoenix better than they
> tested their Web site.

I've looked into it more deeply.

Script in the page includes
  MissionTimer("May 25, 2008 19:36:00 EDT", "phoenix");
and in the included file
  <http://www.nasa.gov/js/195153main_countdownclock.js>
I see
  var launch = new Date(inputDate);

Now ISO/IEC 16262, the JavaScript standard, does not define what date
strings are acceptable to new Date; and tests show that Opera ignores
the EDT.  My local time is 5 hours ahead of EDT, hence the difference.

--
  (c) John Stockton, near London, UK.  Posting with Google.
 Mail: J.R.""""""""@physics.org or (better) via Home Page at
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