The Utah monolith is back. This time next to a California Division of Highways Reference Monument for Asunction. Hmmmmm. Is NGS behind this, or just geodetically minded weirdos (which would include most of us here).
Aliens don't accept California Division of Highways control, create pin cushion.
reference monument
They wanted a backsight that was visible for a long distance?
Eccentric.
Still L O V I N G this...
It's not a monolith.?ÿ
A monolith is made out of one piece of something. This was constructed out of multiple pieces.?ÿ
?ÿ
It's not a monolith.?ÿ
A monolith is made out of one piece of something. This was constructed out of multiple pieces.?ÿ
?ÿ
and it's not lithic (stone), which some people might forgive, but you are right about the mono part.
?ÿ
They're baaaack....
?ÿ
@r-s-mayer, I've always thought with all of the continents of earth being discovered and the surveying already encumbered(enhanced?) with historical oddities, that a new planet is just what's needed to "do it right from the beginning!"
@beartow Wow, I saw that on TV as a little kid. Scared the heck out of me.
@protracted?ÿ Already got my ticket on Musks's suicide rocket to Mars.?ÿ It's my only shot of recording an original survey.?ÿ ????
It will be a long time before there is a Mars GNSS, so take your total station.?ÿ
There is a martian coordinate system already.?ÿ The longitude origin is probably not precisely monumented, though - just it's a particular crater.?ÿ From Wikipedia:
Mars's equator is defined by its rotation, but the location of its Prime Meridian was specified, as was Earth's (at Greenwich), by choice of an arbitrary point; M??dler and Beer selected a line for their first maps of Mars in 1830. After the spacecraft Mariner 9 provided extensive imagery of Mars in 1972, a small crater (later called Airy-0), located in the Sinus Meridiani ("Middle Bay" or "Meridian Bay"), was chosen by Merton Davies of the Rand Corporation for the definition of 0.0?ø longitude to coincide with the original selection.
Melita is probably already developing plane projections for Mars.?ÿ
Elevation is defined by atmospheric pressure and they have an areoid (geoid equivalent).?ÿ That can't be very precise, so I would think there eventually will need to be a master bench mark and a gravimetric geoid equivalent.?ÿ Of course, with no water running around, that's less important than on earth.
You can work out azimuths from Polaris or perhaps another star (axis tilt is different) after making a bunch of observations, but time hacks will be hard to come by so maybe no solars right away.
The big question is if settlement and mining take hold, what sort of cadastral divisions will be used.?ÿ Metes and bounds with crater rims for walls, or MLSS (in kilometer increments)?
You can work out azimuths from Polaris or perhaps another star (axis tilt is different)
A nice discussion explaining that Mars doesn't have an easily visible and close to north or south pole star. Polaris is far off due to the different axis tilt.
https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/mars-north-south-star
Sorry guys, we're probably gonna lose out when it comes to a physical cadastre on Mars; at least for the foreseeable future.?ÿ ?ÿNASA maintains a database for something called "terrain relative navigation".?ÿ The rovers now on the martian surface "learn" positions of distant prominent physical features and use their observations to determine their position in conjunction with their movement vectors.?ÿ Sort of like "mapping while you drive".?ÿ Between that and the surface imagery already available our digital explorers keep pretty good track of where they are located on our great red sister planet.
@paden-cash If we are going to do work on Mars, the "extra long range" antenna advertised on this page would probably come in handy.
We've seen pictures in Utah, California, and Romania.?ÿ Now there are reports of similar objects in the Netherlands, Isle of Wight, and a rumor of one outside Joshua Tree in California.
The novelty is starting to wear off for me, but I wonder if anyone is advertising "get your own," like the pet rock, for those who go for fads.