{"id":10642,"date":"2012-02-07T15:08:55","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T15:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2012\/02\/07\/a-penny-for-your-thoughts-abou\/"},"modified":"2012-02-07T15:08:55","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T15:08:55","slug":"a-penny-for-your-thoughts-abou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/07\/a-penny-for-your-thoughts-abou\/","title":{"rendered":"A Penny for your Thoughts (about Mars Exploration)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This August, Mars Science Robot Curiosity will land on the surface of the Angry Red Planet equipped with a Penny to tell how big things are.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/472\/files\/2012\/04\/i-dce0e2472d2ad4016cb4980485eb1def-curious20120207-43.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/472\/files\/2012\/04\/i-02ce13641dc1ee1363b753ec397b816a-curious20120207-43-thumb-500x375-72434.jpg?w=604\" alt=\"i-02ce13641dc1ee1363b753ec397b816a-curious20120207-43-thumb-500x375-72434.jpg\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The camera at the end of the robotic arm on NASA&#8217;s Mars rover Curiosity has its own calibration target, a smartphone-size plaque that looks like an eye chart supplemented with color chips and an attached penny.<\/p>\n<p>When Curiosity lands on Mars in August, researchers will use this calibration target to test performance of the rover&#8217;s Mars Hand Lens Imager, or MAHLI. MAHLI&#8217;s close-up inspections of Martian rocks and soil will show details so tiny, the calibration target includes reference lines finer than a human hair. This camera is not limited to close-ups, though. It can focus on any target from about a finger&#8217;s-width away to the horizon. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/news\/news.cfm?release=2012-033&#038;cid=release_2012-033\">Full press release<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This August, Mars Science Robot Curiosity will land on the surface of the Angry Red Planet equipped with a Penny to tell how big things are. The camera at the end of the robotic arm on NASA&#8217;s Mars rover Curiosity has its own calibration target, a smartphone-size plaque that looks like an eye chart supplemented &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/07\/a-penny-for-your-thoughts-abou\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Penny for your Thoughts (about Mars Exploration)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[191,3170],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-2LE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10642"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}