Wow, that IS good quality... thanks for the heads-up.

Off out to buy some peanuts now. I forgot four times yestetrday!!!

I'm already eating right now!
Good you're there Stu, I felt was left alone for over two hours (Tman's there too now) on UMSF
GO PHOENIX and don't forget the Cacahuètes this time

oDoug - I'm working on the times given on dmuller's realtime simulation page for spacecraft event time and earth received time:

EDL interface (s/c time): 23:31
touchdown(s/c time): 23:38
EDL (Earth time): 23:46
touchdown (Earth time): 23:53

Phoenix is perceiving those events, so there IS an observer[1]. So, will you really not be thinking about anything different at 23:31? Confess! ;p

[1] (semi-seriously) -- what counts as an observer?

Anything and everybody (every human, particle, planet ...) is an observer. So for Phoenix the landing happens at 23:38. So does it for Mars or any Martians watching. For the Sun the landing is perceived as happening at 23:52. Earth 23:53 etc. No piece of information can travel faster than light (not sure about the story of gravity 'information' and gravity waves, since that forms the space-time itself). So that's what relativity says.

Of course, once it happened on Mars, it will irreversably get to be perceived on Earth (unless the Universe ends in the meantime), so on a philospohical 'sphere' you can follow SCET or ERT. Or be like me, I follow both, so I can watch it twice!

Daniel

My head hurts...

How would you explain it, Doctor?

Ah. Got it now. Thanks!

I always leaned toward ERT times when it comes to things like these. Even though I acknowledged the fact that from the spacecraft point of view events happen in SCET, it is us who are observers in this case and, for us, saying the actual event took place some time before is simply philosophical and not particularly useful. We simply cannot know whether Phoenix landed safely until that information propagates to us so for all practical purposes, it doesn't even happen by then in our frame of reference.

Just as saying if the sun stopped shining right now (from its point of view), the actual event wouldn't happen for us for another 8 minutes and there is no way for us to know it will stop shining in the next 8 minutes.

2353..is that GMT?

yes, 25 May 23:53 GMT is the Earth-Received landing time

I do NOT mind the sun stopping right now but, please, do NOT stop the Internet

I'm no scientist, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if the Sun DID go out it might have some repercussions for net access Climber, like, oh, I don't know, THE WORLD ENDING?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I know what you mean tho... I'm looking at my PC right now thinking "Don't you DARE pull anything stupid on me today..."

Suddenly, I'm thinking of cosmic ray hits playing tag, you're it! with your DRAM memory bits

What the matter? THe action is on MARS today

That's awesome quality! Two questions:

1) Which NASA TV channel is that?
2) Is there a simple way to save this (or other wmv LIVE) stream to HD directly while watching? I want to have this saved for future viewing!

Thought doug was going to lock all topics and only have 1 active for the landin ?

1) I think it's the public channel at all time.
2) Good question...

Yep, once NASA TV starts broadcasting...

If all goes well, this will be:
1) First time since Dec 25, 1978 that three spacecraft have operated on the surface of other planets.

2) First time since Jan 14, 2005 that three spacecraft have operated on the surface of other worlds.

3) First time ever that three spacecraft have operated on the surface of the same other planet.

Anyone else having problems with the 1,200k NASA feed. Yesterday it played fine but now the video keeps freezing.

I have swapped to the 500k feed and thats playing perfectly

I'm using the 500k feed as well, the 1.2M feed seems to switch down to lower bitrates constantly, causing skips and delays.

I watched the briefing here, and the quality was very good. Excellent on full screen...

the 1200 is good for me

I tried doing a search for this question but did not have the patience to go through all the pages in the thread results. Isn't the area Phoenix will land once the site of a possible ocean?

If there was an ocean on Mars, its bed is alomst the entire northern hemisphere. Phoenix is landing on its bed. There may have been a couple of kilometers depth at the point it lands.

Unrelated note: Phoenix landing site comes into view for the final time before entry at 23:27:30 UTC SCET (23:42:52 ERT). At this point the cruise stage has already been discarded and the spacecraft has turned to entry attitude.

The site is completely covered with the ejector blanket of a nearby creator. It’s the reason why there are so few rocks on the landing site. So there is no chance of coming anywhere close to the level of the theoretical sea bed.

Everyone is now invited to join the EDL discussion

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=5157