Venus

February 16, 2004 6:10 PM

Reprocessed images from the Soviet exploration of Venus.
posted by homunculus (9 comments total)

I saw these via a link in a comment on Slashdot, and they're very impressive. I didn't know the Soviets managed to land anything that survived (albeit briefly) on that hellhole. This is a nice image site too. particularly the one manipulated to have the correct perspective.
posted by keswick at 6:40 PM on February 16, 2004

Excellent post. Thanks.
posted by ajr at 7:04 PM on February 16, 2004

Venus Express
posted by homunculus at 7:34 PM on February 16, 2004

Very very cool. With all the well deserved the red planet hooplah recently, it's very nice to see pics from this even more difficult (in terms of landing and functionality) effort.
posted by moonbird at 8:22 PM on February 16, 2004

Reprocessing the original data using modern software is a great idea - if you can get the original data. I'm surprised he managed to get his hands on the numbers. Excellent post indeed!
posted by thijsk at 12:34 AM on February 17, 2004

This is further support for the argument that you should generally store as much raw (=non-lossy) data as possible because future processing power is likely to afford what seems miraculous now. It's not even possible to predict what might be useful then - I seem to recall a few cases where what seemed like unimportant measurements came in handy for people trying to establish baselines or find evidence for past astronomical events.
posted by adamsc at 12:59 AM on February 17, 2004

Very nice -- thanks.
posted by languagehat at 8:10 AM on February 17, 2004

Nice. I remember reading about the Soviet landers when I was a kid, but was never able to get copies of their photos.
posted by Mars Saxman at 9:41 AM on February 17, 2004

great post (as usual), homunculus.
posted by vacapinta at 11:25 PM on February 17, 2004