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First HiRISE Image of Mars: …
title First HiRISE Image of Mars: Topographic Model from Photoclinometry
Description http://www.nasa.gov/mro [ http://www.nasa.gov/mro ] or http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu [ http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu ]. For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov [ http://www.nasa.gov ]. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/USGS, This is a topographic map of part of the area covered by the first image of Mars obtained by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The image was processed at the U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, by a technique called photoclinometry (or, more descriptively, "shape-from-shading"). This method allows elevations to be reconstructed from a single image by noting how surfaces sloping toward the sun appear brighter than areas that slope away from it. This image is almost ideal for such interpretation because the low sun angle reveals even subtle slopes with dramatic contrast, and variations in the brightness of surface materials (which could be confused with slopes) are minimal. At left is the region of the image that was analyzed, tinted to approximate the visual appearance of the Martian surface. This region is a square 20.4 kilometers (12.7 miles) wide (8,192 pixels by 8,192 pixels at a scale of 2.49 meters or 8.17 feet per pixel). At right is a color-coded topographic contour map of the same area. The total range of elevations is 1.6 kilometers (1 mile), with low areas shown in purple and high areas in red. Contours mark each 20-meter (66-foot) change in elevation. Photoclinometry gives relative rather than absolute heights, but the overall height and shape of features in this map, such as the ridge Ogygis Rupes in the center, agree reasonably well with results from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, an instrument with high absolute accuracy but relatively low spatial resolution. The real value of mapping by photoclinometry, however, is that it reveals the details of the smallest topographic features resolved by the image. In this example, the image was resampled by a factor of 2 before processing, so the topographic map has a scale of 5 meters (16 feet) per pixel and resolves features as small as 15 meters (49 feet). Computer-generated three-dimensional close-ups of the surface provide one way to visualize these small but important clues to Martian geologic history. This illustration shows a subset of AEB_000001_0000_Red, which was taken by the HiRISE camera on March 24, 2006. The image is oriented such that north is 7 degrees to the left of up. The range to the target was 2,493 kilometers (1,549 miles). At this distance the image scale is 2.49 meters (8.17 feet) per pixel, so objects as small as 7.5 meters (24.6 feet) are resolved. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 07:33 and the scene is illuminated from the upper right with a solar incidence angle of 78.1 degrees, thus the sun was about 11.9 degrees above the horizon. At an Ls of 29 degrees (with Ls an indicator of Mars' position in its orbit around the sun), the season on Mars is southern autumn. Images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and additional information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are available online at:
Phyllosilicate and Olivine a …
PIA09933
Sol (our sun)
CRISM
Title Phyllosilicate and Olivine around a Fracture in Nili Fossae
Original Caption Released with Image The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) took this observation of part of the Nili Fossae region at the western margin of the Isidis impact basin at 3:07 (UTC) on December 12, 2006, near 21.9 degrees north latitude, 78.2 degrees east longitude. The image was taken in 544 colors covering 0.36-3.92 micrometers, and shows features as small as 18 meters (60 feet) across. The image is about 11 kilometers (7 miles) wide at its narrowest point. The Isidis basin resulted from a gigantic impact on the surface of Mars early in the planet's history. The image of the Isidis basin at the top left is the colored elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) overlain on a digital image mosaic from the Viking mission. Reds represent higher elevations, and blue lower elevations. The western rim of the Isidis basin has numerous, concentric troughs (or "fossae") which may have formed during faulting associated with the impact event. Since then, the Nili Fossae region has since been heavily eroded, and is one of the most mineralogically diverse spots on Mars. This CRISM image targets one of region's smaller fractures. The image is shown overlain on the Viking digital image mosaic at lower left. The lower right CRISM image was constructed from three visible wavelengths (0.71, 0.60 and 0.53 microns in the red, green and blue image planes, respectively) and is close to what the human eye would see. The blue on the right of the image is an artifact from light scattering in the atmosphere. The upper right image was constructed from three infrared channels (2.38, 1.80 and 1.15 microns in the red, green and blue image planes, respectively) to highlight the mineralogy of the area. The bright green areas are rich in "phyllosilicates," a category of minerals including clays. The purple material along the walls of the fracture likely contains small amounts of the iron- and magnesium-rich mineral pyroxene. The yellow-brown material contains the iron- and magnesium-rich mineral olivine. Olivine and pyroxene are minerals associated with igneous activity. Overlaying CRISM data with images from the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera shows that the phyllosilicates are in small, eroded outcrops of rock. The olivine is most abundant in sand dunes on the surface. The use of these two instruments together reveals more about the history of the region: Olivine sands covered the area shown in the image after the interaction of water and rock formed the phyllosilicates and after the fracture formed. The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) is one of six science instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Led by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the CRISM team includes expertise from universities, government agencies and small businesses in the United States and abroad.
Procedure for Finding New Im …
PIA09021
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
Title Procedure for Finding New Impact Sites on Mars Using the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
Original Caption Released with Image ), the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) science operations team considered it possible to find more such impact sites using the MOC red wide angle camera. The most recent, freshest craters would be expected to be quite small, ranging from a few meters across to maybe a few hundred meters or so, at most, in diameter (100 meters is about 109 yards, compare that with a 100 yard U.S.-style football field). Something less than 100 meters across would not show up easily in a 240 meters per pixel red wide angle image. But the 6 January 2006 image showed that it could, because these small impacts, if they occur in an area thickly mantled with dust, will create a much larger "blast zone" around them. Thus, the MOC science operations team set out to image a few of the dustiest regions on Mars -- Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia -- with the red wide angle camera. The same camera had, in May and early June 1999, already imaged most of the planet at about 240 meters per pixel scale. By repeating areas already imaged in May/June 1999 during the January/March 2006 timeframe, we would be able to identify more dark spots. And, so, that is what we did. The Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia regions were re-imaged using the MOC red wide angle camera during January through March 2006. The data covered about 21,506,000 square kilometers (~8.3 million square miles, ~1/3 the surface area of Mars and more than twice the area of the United States). As each picture was received on Earth, we compared it with the images acquired during May/June 1999. Over the entire area surveyed, we found 39 dark spots that were present in early 2006 but not visible in May/June 1999. The 39 dark spots, then, were the candidate impact sites. Each one of these became a target for the MOC narrow angle camera, which would be used to take an image of about 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) per pixel of each site. The targets were entered into the MOC database. Then, as the predicted MGS ground track came near each site, the MOC team targeted an image by working with the spacecraft engineers at Lockheed Martin Astronautics (Denver, Colorado) and the Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, Pasadena, California) to point the spacecraft and camera at each site using the Roll Only Targeted Observation (ROTO) maneuver. Of the 39 dark spots, 20 turned out to be fresh impact sites, and 19 of them were not. The other 19 included mistaken identifications (one was a transient, large dust devil shadow, several were craters that had been present in earlier images but had changed in brightness owing to dust removal), new dark wind streaks, and new dark slope streaks created by avalanching dust on steep slopes. Some of the 20 new impact sites received further attention, as the spacecraft and MOC were used to obtain cPROTO (compensated Pitch and Roll Targeted Observations) views that have a spatial resolution of 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) in the downtrack dimension and 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) in the cross, Having realized that a new dark spot on Mars, seen in a red wide angle camera image acquired on 6 January 2006, might be an indication of a recent meteor impact site (see PIA09020 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09020 ] or MOC2-1611 [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2006/12/06/craters/site1/index.html ], track direction. The cPROTO views, where obtained, have a higher resolution and better signal-to-noise ratio than the original ROTO images. Finally, while our approach of comparing MOC red wide angle camera images obtained in May/June 1999 with those obtained in January/March 2006 constrains the 20 craters all to having formed during the May 1999 to March 2006 time interval, we found in all cases that there were already other images that had been received on Earth that helped constrain the time of the impact more tightly. In some cases, the date of the impact could be pinned down to within a month or two, in other cases the interval covered several years. Data from the MGS MOC, Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) [ http://themis.asu.edu/ ], and Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) [ http://berlinadmin.dlr.de/Missions/express/indexeng.shtml ], were all employed in the search. Shown on this page (above) are pictures that illustrate our work to find new impact craters: Figure A: This picture shows one of the new impact sites identified by the MOC team. Located in northern Arabia Terra near 29.3°N, 333.2°W, the actual crater is quite small, only 11.2 ± 3.0 meters in diameter. This is a sub-frame of MOC image S16-01105, acquired using a ROTO maneuver on 12 March 2006. Figures B and C: These pictures are MOC red wide angle camera images, obtained at a scale of about 240 meters per pixel, of portions of Arabia Terra. Figure B is M01-01610 and was acquired during the MOC Geodesy Campaign (see PIA02022 and PIA02023, or MOC2-127) on 14 May 1999. Figure C, MOC S14-02741, was obtained on 26 January 2006 as part of the campaign to find new impact craters. By comparing the two images, one from 1999 and one from 2006, we were able to identify all new dark spots that formed during that interval. In this case, the new dark spot seen in the 2006 image, S14-02741, is inside the white circle. The same location is also indicated by a circle in the May 1999 image, but no dark spot is present there. In both cases, the white circle is about 12 km (7.5 mi) across. Figure D: This map of Mars, showing the location of all the MOC red wide angle camera images acquired for the search for new craters during January through March 2006. These images cover most of Amazonis, Tharsis, and Arabia Terra. The base map is a product that combines the May/June 1999 MOC red wide angle data (plus later data for the south polar region) and laser altimeter data from MGS. Figure E: This picture shows portions of two red wide angle camera context images that more tightly constrain when the new crater shown here (above, top, left) formed. The first picture, R05-00427, was acquired on 5 May 2003 and shows no dark spot at the site of the impact. The second picture, S05-01885, shows that the dark spot was present on 29 April 2005. Thus, these two images tell us that the impact occurred sometime between those dates: 5 May 2003 and 29 April 2005. The Mars Global Surveyor mission is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif., built and operates the Mars Orbiter Camera. For more information about images from the Mars Orbiter Camera, see http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html [ http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html ].
Procedure for Finding New Im …
PIA09021
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
Title Procedure for Finding New Impact Sites on Mars Using the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
Original Caption Released with Image ), the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) science operations team considered it possible to find more such impact sites using the MOC red wide angle camera. The most recent, freshest craters would be expected to be quite small, ranging from a few meters across to maybe a few hundred meters or so, at most, in diameter (100 meters is about 109 yards, compare that with a 100 yard U.S.-style football field). Something less than 100 meters across would not show up easily in a 240 meters per pixel red wide angle image. But the 6 January 2006 image showed that it could, because these small impacts, if they occur in an area thickly mantled with dust, will create a much larger "blast zone" around them. Thus, the MOC science operations team set out to image a few of the dustiest regions on Mars -- Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia -- with the red wide angle camera. The same camera had, in May and early June 1999, already imaged most of the planet at about 240 meters per pixel scale. By repeating areas already imaged in May/June 1999 during the January/March 2006 timeframe, we would be able to identify more dark spots. And, so, that is what we did. The Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia regions were re-imaged using the MOC red wide angle camera during January through March 2006. The data covered about 21,506,000 square kilometers (~8.3 million square miles, ~1/3 the surface area of Mars and more than twice the area of the United States). As each picture was received on Earth, we compared it with the images acquired during May/June 1999. Over the entire area surveyed, we found 39 dark spots that were present in early 2006 but not visible in May/June 1999. The 39 dark spots, then, were the candidate impact sites. Each one of these became a target for the MOC narrow angle camera, which would be used to take an image of about 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) per pixel of each site. The targets were entered into the MOC database. Then, as the predicted MGS ground track came near each site, the MOC team targeted an image by working with the spacecraft engineers at Lockheed Martin Astronautics (Denver, Colorado) and the Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, Pasadena, California) to point the spacecraft and camera at each site using the Roll Only Targeted Observation (ROTO) maneuver. Of the 39 dark spots, 20 turned out to be fresh impact sites, and 19 of them were not. The other 19 included mistaken identifications (one was a transient, large dust devil shadow, several were craters that had been present in earlier images but had changed in brightness owing to dust removal), new dark wind streaks, and new dark slope streaks created by avalanching dust on steep slopes. Some of the 20 new impact sites received further attention, as the spacecraft and MOC were used to obtain cPROTO (compensated Pitch and Roll Targeted Observations) views that have a spatial resolution of 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) in the downtrack dimension and 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) in the cross, Having realized that a new dark spot on Mars, seen in a red wide angle camera image acquired on 6 January 2006, might be an indication of a recent meteor impact site (see PIA09020 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09020 ] or MOC2-1611 [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2006/12/06/craters/site1/index.html ], track direction. The cPROTO views, where obtained, have a higher resolution and better signal-to-noise ratio than the original ROTO images. Finally, while our approach of comparing MOC red wide angle camera images obtained in May/June 1999 with those obtained in January/March 2006 constrains the 20 craters all to having formed during the May 1999 to March 2006 time interval, we found in all cases that there were already other images that had been received on Earth that helped constrain the time of the impact more tightly. In some cases, the date of the impact could be pinned down to within a month or two, in other cases the interval covered several years. Data from the MGS MOC, Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) [ http://themis.asu.edu/ ], and Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) [ http://berlinadmin.dlr.de/Missions/express/indexeng.shtml ], were all employed in the search. Shown on this page (above) are pictures that illustrate our work to find new impact craters: Figure A: This picture shows one of the new impact sites identified by the MOC team. Located in northern Arabia Terra near 29.3°N, 333.2°W, the actual crater is quite small, only 11.2 ± 3.0 meters in diameter. This is a sub-frame of MOC image S16-01105, acquired using a ROTO maneuver on 12 March 2006. Figures B and C: These pictures are MOC red wide angle camera images, obtained at a scale of about 240 meters per pixel, of portions of Arabia Terra. Figure B is M01-01610 and was acquired during the MOC Geodesy Campaign (see PIA02022 and PIA02023, or MOC2-127) on 14 May 1999. Figure C, MOC S14-02741, was obtained on 26 January 2006 as part of the campaign to find new impact craters. By comparing the two images, one from 1999 and one from 2006, we were able to identify all new dark spots that formed during that interval. In this case, the new dark spot seen in the 2006 image, S14-02741, is inside the white circle. The same location is also indicated by a circle in the May 1999 image, but no dark spot is present there. In both cases, the white circle is about 12 km (7.5 mi) across. Figure D: This map of Mars, showing the location of all the MOC red wide angle camera images acquired for the search for new craters during January through March 2006. These images cover most of Amazonis, Tharsis, and Arabia Terra. The base map is a product that combines the May/June 1999 MOC red wide angle data (plus later data for the south polar region) and laser altimeter data from MGS. Figure E: This picture shows portions of two red wide angle camera context images that more tightly constrain when the new crater shown here (above, top, left) formed. The first picture, R05-00427, was acquired on 5 May 2003 and shows no dark spot at the site of the impact. The second picture, S05-01885, shows that the dark spot was present on 29 April 2005. Thus, these two images tell us that the impact occurred sometime between those dates: 5 May 2003 and 29 April 2005. The Mars Global Surveyor mission is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif., built and operates the Mars Orbiter Camera. For more information about images from the Mars Orbiter Camera, see http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html [ http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html ].
Procedure for Finding New Im …
PIA09021
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
Title Procedure for Finding New Impact Sites on Mars Using the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
Original Caption Released with Image ), the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) science operations team considered it possible to find more such impact sites using the MOC red wide angle camera. The most recent, freshest craters would be expected to be quite small, ranging from a few meters across to maybe a few hundred meters or so, at most, in diameter (100 meters is about 109 yards, compare that with a 100 yard U.S.-style football field). Something less than 100 meters across would not show up easily in a 240 meters per pixel red wide angle image. But the 6 January 2006 image showed that it could, because these small impacts, if they occur in an area thickly mantled with dust, will create a much larger "blast zone" around them. Thus, the MOC science operations team set out to image a few of the dustiest regions on Mars -- Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia -- with the red wide angle camera. The same camera had, in May and early June 1999, already imaged most of the planet at about 240 meters per pixel scale. By repeating areas already imaged in May/June 1999 during the January/March 2006 timeframe, we would be able to identify more dark spots. And, so, that is what we did. The Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia regions were re-imaged using the MOC red wide angle camera during January through March 2006. The data covered about 21,506,000 square kilometers (~8.3 million square miles, ~1/3 the surface area of Mars and more than twice the area of the United States). As each picture was received on Earth, we compared it with the images acquired during May/June 1999. Over the entire area surveyed, we found 39 dark spots that were present in early 2006 but not visible in May/June 1999. The 39 dark spots, then, were the candidate impact sites. Each one of these became a target for the MOC narrow angle camera, which would be used to take an image of about 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) per pixel of each site. The targets were entered into the MOC database. Then, as the predicted MGS ground track came near each site, the MOC team targeted an image by working with the spacecraft engineers at Lockheed Martin Astronautics (Denver, Colorado) and the Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, Pasadena, California) to point the spacecraft and camera at each site using the Roll Only Targeted Observation (ROTO) maneuver. Of the 39 dark spots, 20 turned out to be fresh impact sites, and 19 of them were not. The other 19 included mistaken identifications (one was a transient, large dust devil shadow, several were craters that had been present in earlier images but had changed in brightness owing to dust removal), new dark wind streaks, and new dark slope streaks created by avalanching dust on steep slopes. Some of the 20 new impact sites received further attention, as the spacecraft and MOC were used to obtain cPROTO (compensated Pitch and Roll Targeted Observations) views that have a spatial resolution of 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) in the downtrack dimension and 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) in the cross, Having realized that a new dark spot on Mars, seen in a red wide angle camera image acquired on 6 January 2006, might be an indication of a recent meteor impact site (see PIA09020 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09020 ] or MOC2-1611 [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2006/12/06/craters/site1/index.html ], track direction. The cPROTO views, where obtained, have a higher resolution and better signal-to-noise ratio than the original ROTO images. Finally, while our approach of comparing MOC red wide angle camera images obtained in May/June 1999 with those obtained in January/March 2006 constrains the 20 craters all to having formed during the May 1999 to March 2006 time interval, we found in all cases that there were already other images that had been received on Earth that helped constrain the time of the impact more tightly. In some cases, the date of the impact could be pinned down to within a month or two, in other cases the interval covered several years. Data from the MGS MOC, Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) [ http://themis.asu.edu/ ], and Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) [ http://berlinadmin.dlr.de/Missions/express/indexeng.shtml ], were all employed in the search. Shown on this page (above) are pictures that illustrate our work to find new impact craters: Figure A: This picture shows one of the new impact sites identified by the MOC team. Located in northern Arabia Terra near 29.3°N, 333.2°W, the actual crater is quite small, only 11.2 ± 3.0 meters in diameter. This is a sub-frame of MOC image S16-01105, acquired using a ROTO maneuver on 12 March 2006. Figures B and C: These pictures are MOC red wide angle camera images, obtained at a scale of about 240 meters per pixel, of portions of Arabia Terra. Figure B is M01-01610 and was acquired during the MOC Geodesy Campaign (see PIA02022 and PIA02023, or MOC2-127) on 14 May 1999. Figure C, MOC S14-02741, was obtained on 26 January 2006 as part of the campaign to find new impact craters. By comparing the two images, one from 1999 and one from 2006, we were able to identify all new dark spots that formed during that interval. In this case, the new dark spot seen in the 2006 image, S14-02741, is inside the white circle. The same location is also indicated by a circle in the May 1999 image, but no dark spot is present there. In both cases, the white circle is about 12 km (7.5 mi) across. Figure D: This map of Mars, showing the location of all the MOC red wide angle camera images acquired for the search for new craters during January through March 2006. These images cover most of Amazonis, Tharsis, and Arabia Terra. The base map is a product that combines the May/June 1999 MOC red wide angle data (plus later data for the south polar region) and laser altimeter data from MGS. Figure E: This picture shows portions of two red wide angle camera context images that more tightly constrain when the new crater shown here (above, top, left) formed. The first picture, R05-00427, was acquired on 5 May 2003 and shows no dark spot at the site of the impact. The second picture, S05-01885, shows that the dark spot was present on 29 April 2005. Thus, these two images tell us that the impact occurred sometime between those dates: 5 May 2003 and 29 April 2005. The Mars Global Surveyor mission is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif., built and operates the Mars Orbiter Camera. For more information about images from the Mars Orbiter Camera, see http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html [ http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html ].
Procedure for Finding New Im …
PIA09021
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
Title Procedure for Finding New Impact Sites on Mars Using the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
Original Caption Released with Image ), the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) science operations team considered it possible to find more such impact sites using the MOC red wide angle camera. The most recent, freshest craters would be expected to be quite small, ranging from a few meters across to maybe a few hundred meters or so, at most, in diameter (100 meters is about 109 yards, compare that with a 100 yard U.S.-style football field). Something less than 100 meters across would not show up easily in a 240 meters per pixel red wide angle image. But the 6 January 2006 image showed that it could, because these small impacts, if they occur in an area thickly mantled with dust, will create a much larger "blast zone" around them. Thus, the MOC science operations team set out to image a few of the dustiest regions on Mars -- Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia -- with the red wide angle camera. The same camera had, in May and early June 1999, already imaged most of the planet at about 240 meters per pixel scale. By repeating areas already imaged in May/June 1999 during the January/March 2006 timeframe, we would be able to identify more dark spots. And, so, that is what we did. The Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia regions were re-imaged using the MOC red wide angle camera during January through March 2006. The data covered about 21,506,000 square kilometers (~8.3 million square miles, ~1/3 the surface area of Mars and more than twice the area of the United States). As each picture was received on Earth, we compared it with the images acquired during May/June 1999. Over the entire area surveyed, we found 39 dark spots that were present in early 2006 but not visible in May/June 1999. The 39 dark spots, then, were the candidate impact sites. Each one of these became a target for the MOC narrow angle camera, which would be used to take an image of about 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) per pixel of each site. The targets were entered into the MOC database. Then, as the predicted MGS ground track came near each site, the MOC team targeted an image by working with the spacecraft engineers at Lockheed Martin Astronautics (Denver, Colorado) and the Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, Pasadena, California) to point the spacecraft and camera at each site using the Roll Only Targeted Observation (ROTO) maneuver. Of the 39 dark spots, 20 turned out to be fresh impact sites, and 19 of them were not. The other 19 included mistaken identifications (one was a transient, large dust devil shadow, several were craters that had been present in earlier images but had changed in brightness owing to dust removal), new dark wind streaks, and new dark slope streaks created by avalanching dust on steep slopes. Some of the 20 new impact sites received further attention, as the spacecraft and MOC were used to obtain cPROTO (compensated Pitch and Roll Targeted Observations) views that have a spatial resolution of 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) in the downtrack dimension and 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) in the cross, Having realized that a new dark spot on Mars, seen in a red wide angle camera image acquired on 6 January 2006, might be an indication of a recent meteor impact site (see PIA09020 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09020 ] or MOC2-1611 [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2006/12/06/craters/site1/index.html ], track direction. The cPROTO views, where obtained, have a higher resolution and better signal-to-noise ratio than the original ROTO images. Finally, while our approach of comparing MOC red wide angle camera images obtained in May/June 1999 with those obtained in January/March 2006 constrains the 20 craters all to having formed during the May 1999 to March 2006 time interval, we found in all cases that there were already other images that had been received on Earth that helped constrain the time of the impact more tightly. In some cases, the date of the impact could be pinned down to within a month or two, in other cases the interval covered several years. Data from the MGS MOC, Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) [ http://themis.asu.edu/ ], and Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) [ http://berlinadmin.dlr.de/Missions/express/indexeng.shtml ], were all employed in the search. Shown on this page (above) are pictures that illustrate our work to find new impact craters: Figure A: This picture shows one of the new impact sites identified by the MOC team. Located in northern Arabia Terra near 29.3°N, 333.2°W, the actual crater is quite small, only 11.2 ± 3.0 meters in diameter. This is a sub-frame of MOC image S16-01105, acquired using a ROTO maneuver on 12 March 2006. Figures B and C: These pictures are MOC red wide angle camera images, obtained at a scale of about 240 meters per pixel, of portions of Arabia Terra. Figure B is M01-01610 and was acquired during the MOC Geodesy Campaign (see PIA02022 and PIA02023, or MOC2-127) on 14 May 1999. Figure C, MOC S14-02741, was obtained on 26 January 2006 as part of the campaign to find new impact craters. By comparing the two images, one from 1999 and one from 2006, we were able to identify all new dark spots that formed during that interval. In this case, the new dark spot seen in the 2006 image, S14-02741, is inside the white circle. The same location is also indicated by a circle in the May 1999 image, but no dark spot is present there. In both cases, the white circle is about 12 km (7.5 mi) across. Figure D: This map of Mars, showing the location of all the MOC red wide angle camera images acquired for the search for new craters during January through March 2006. These images cover most of Amazonis, Tharsis, and Arabia Terra. The base map is a product that combines the May/June 1999 MOC red wide angle data (plus later data for the south polar region) and laser altimeter data from MGS. Figure E: This picture shows portions of two red wide angle camera context images that more tightly constrain when the new crater shown here (above, top, left) formed. The first picture, R05-00427, was acquired on 5 May 2003 and shows no dark spot at the site of the impact. The second picture, S05-01885, shows that the dark spot was present on 29 April 2005. Thus, these two images tell us that the impact occurred sometime between those dates: 5 May 2003 and 29 April 2005. The Mars Global Surveyor mission is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif., built and operates the Mars Orbiter Camera. For more information about images from the Mars Orbiter Camera, see http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html [ http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html ].
Procedure for Finding New Im …
PIA09021
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
Title Procedure for Finding New Impact Sites on Mars Using the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
Original Caption Released with Image ), the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) science operations team considered it possible to find more such impact sites using the MOC red wide angle camera. The most recent, freshest craters would be expected to be quite small, ranging from a few meters across to maybe a few hundred meters or so, at most, in diameter (100 meters is about 109 yards, compare that with a 100 yard U.S.-style football field). Something less than 100 meters across would not show up easily in a 240 meters per pixel red wide angle image. But the 6 January 2006 image showed that it could, because these small impacts, if they occur in an area thickly mantled with dust, will create a much larger "blast zone" around them. Thus, the MOC science operations team set out to image a few of the dustiest regions on Mars -- Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia -- with the red wide angle camera. The same camera had, in May and early June 1999, already imaged most of the planet at about 240 meters per pixel scale. By repeating areas already imaged in May/June 1999 during the January/March 2006 timeframe, we would be able to identify more dark spots. And, so, that is what we did. The Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia regions were re-imaged using the MOC red wide angle camera during January through March 2006. The data covered about 21,506,000 square kilometers (~8.3 million square miles, ~1/3 the surface area of Mars and more than twice the area of the United States). As each picture was received on Earth, we compared it with the images acquired during May/June 1999. Over the entire area surveyed, we found 39 dark spots that were present in early 2006 but not visible in May/June 1999. The 39 dark spots, then, were the candidate impact sites. Each one of these became a target for the MOC narrow angle camera, which would be used to take an image of about 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) per pixel of each site. The targets were entered into the MOC database. Then, as the predicted MGS ground track came near each site, the MOC team targeted an image by working with the spacecraft engineers at Lockheed Martin Astronautics (Denver, Colorado) and the Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, Pasadena, California) to point the spacecraft and camera at each site using the Roll Only Targeted Observation (ROTO) maneuver. Of the 39 dark spots, 20 turned out to be fresh impact sites, and 19 of them were not. The other 19 included mistaken identifications (one was a transient, large dust devil shadow, several were craters that had been present in earlier images but had changed in brightness owing to dust removal), new dark wind streaks, and new dark slope streaks created by avalanching dust on steep slopes. Some of the 20 new impact sites received further attention, as the spacecraft and MOC were used to obtain cPROTO (compensated Pitch and Roll Targeted Observations) views that have a spatial resolution of 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) in the downtrack dimension and 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) in the cross, Having realized that a new dark spot on Mars, seen in a red wide angle camera image acquired on 6 January 2006, might be an indication of a recent meteor impact site (see PIA09020 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09020 ] or MOC2-1611 [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2006/12/06/craters/site1/index.html ], track direction. The cPROTO views, where obtained, have a higher resolution and better signal-to-noise ratio than the original ROTO images. Finally, while our approach of comparing MOC red wide angle camera images obtained in May/June 1999 with those obtained in January/March 2006 constrains the 20 craters all to having formed during the May 1999 to March 2006 time interval, we found in all cases that there were already other images that had been received on Earth that helped constrain the time of the impact more tightly. In some cases, the date of the impact could be pinned down to within a month or two, in other cases the interval covered several years. Data from the MGS MOC, Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) [ http://themis.asu.edu/ ], and Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) [ http://berlinadmin.dlr.de/Missions/express/indexeng.shtml ], were all employed in the search. Shown on this page (above) are pictures that illustrate our work to find new impact craters: Figure A: This picture shows one of the new impact sites identified by the MOC team. Located in northern Arabia Terra near 29.3°N, 333.2°W, the actual crater is quite small, only 11.2 ± 3.0 meters in diameter. This is a sub-frame of MOC image S16-01105, acquired using a ROTO maneuver on 12 March 2006. Figures B and C: These pictures are MOC red wide angle camera images, obtained at a scale of about 240 meters per pixel, of portions of Arabia Terra. Figure B is M01-01610 and was acquired during the MOC Geodesy Campaign (see PIA02022 and PIA02023, or MOC2-127) on 14 May 1999. Figure C, MOC S14-02741, was obtained on 26 January 2006 as part of the campaign to find new impact craters. By comparing the two images, one from 1999 and one from 2006, we were able to identify all new dark spots that formed during that interval. In this case, the new dark spot seen in the 2006 image, S14-02741, is inside the white circle. The same location is also indicated by a circle in the May 1999 image, but no dark spot is present there. In both cases, the white circle is about 12 km (7.5 mi) across. Figure D: This map of Mars, showing the location of all the MOC red wide angle camera images acquired for the search for new craters during January through March 2006. These images cover most of Amazonis, Tharsis, and Arabia Terra. The base map is a product that combines the May/June 1999 MOC red wide angle data (plus later data for the south polar region) and laser altimeter data from MGS. Figure E: This picture shows portions of two red wide angle camera context images that more tightly constrain when the new crater shown here (above, top, left) formed. The first picture, R05-00427, was acquired on 5 May 2003 and shows no dark spot at the site of the impact. The second picture, S05-01885, shows that the dark spot was present on 29 April 2005. Thus, these two images tell us that the impact occurred sometime between those dates: 5 May 2003 and 29 April 2005. The Mars Global Surveyor mission is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif., built and operates the Mars Orbiter Camera. For more information about images from the Mars Orbiter Camera, see http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html [ http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html ].
Procedure for Finding New Im …
PIA09021
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
Title Procedure for Finding New Impact Sites on Mars Using the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
Original Caption Released with Image ), the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) science operations team considered it possible to find more such impact sites using the MOC red wide angle camera. The most recent, freshest craters would be expected to be quite small, ranging from a few meters across to maybe a few hundred meters or so, at most, in diameter (100 meters is about 109 yards, compare that with a 100 yard U.S.-style football field). Something less than 100 meters across would not show up easily in a 240 meters per pixel red wide angle image. But the 6 January 2006 image showed that it could, because these small impacts, if they occur in an area thickly mantled with dust, will create a much larger "blast zone" around them. Thus, the MOC science operations team set out to image a few of the dustiest regions on Mars -- Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia -- with the red wide angle camera. The same camera had, in May and early June 1999, already imaged most of the planet at about 240 meters per pixel scale. By repeating areas already imaged in May/June 1999 during the January/March 2006 timeframe, we would be able to identify more dark spots. And, so, that is what we did. The Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia regions were re-imaged using the MOC red wide angle camera during January through March 2006. The data covered about 21,506,000 square kilometers (~8.3 million square miles, ~1/3 the surface area of Mars and more than twice the area of the United States). As each picture was received on Earth, we compared it with the images acquired during May/June 1999. Over the entire area surveyed, we found 39 dark spots that were present in early 2006 but not visible in May/June 1999. The 39 dark spots, then, were the candidate impact sites. Each one of these became a target for the MOC narrow angle camera, which would be used to take an image of about 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) per pixel of each site. The targets were entered into the MOC database. Then, as the predicted MGS ground track came near each site, the MOC team targeted an image by working with the spacecraft engineers at Lockheed Martin Astronautics (Denver, Colorado) and the Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, Pasadena, California) to point the spacecraft and camera at each site using the Roll Only Targeted Observation (ROTO) maneuver. Of the 39 dark spots, 20 turned out to be fresh impact sites, and 19 of them were not. The other 19 included mistaken identifications (one was a transient, large dust devil shadow, several were craters that had been present in earlier images but had changed in brightness owing to dust removal), new dark wind streaks, and new dark slope streaks created by avalanching dust on steep slopes. Some of the 20 new impact sites received further attention, as the spacecraft and MOC were used to obtain cPROTO (compensated Pitch and Roll Targeted Observations) views that have a spatial resolution of 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) in the downtrack dimension and 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) in the cross, Having realized that a new dark spot on Mars, seen in a red wide angle camera image acquired on 6 January 2006, might be an indication of a recent meteor impact site (see PIA09020 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09020 ] or MOC2-1611 [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2006/12/06/craters/site1/index.html ], track direction. The cPROTO views, where obtained, have a higher resolution and better signal-to-noise ratio than the original ROTO images. Finally, while our approach of comparing MOC red wide angle camera images obtained in May/June 1999 with those obtained in January/March 2006 constrains the 20 craters all to having formed during the May 1999 to March 2006 time interval, we found in all cases that there were already other images that had been received on Earth that helped constrain the time of the impact more tightly. In some cases, the date of the impact could be pinned down to within a month or two, in other cases the interval covered several years. Data from the MGS MOC, Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) [ http://themis.asu.edu/ ], and Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) [ http://berlinadmin.dlr.de/Missions/express/indexeng.shtml ], were all employed in the search. Shown on this page (above) are pictures that illustrate our work to find new impact craters: Figure A: This picture shows one of the new impact sites identified by the MOC team. Located in northern Arabia Terra near 29.3°N, 333.2°W, the actual crater is quite small, only 11.2 ± 3.0 meters in diameter. This is a sub-frame of MOC image S16-01105, acquired using a ROTO maneuver on 12 March 2006. Figures B and C: These pictures are MOC red wide angle camera images, obtained at a scale of about 240 meters per pixel, of portions of Arabia Terra. Figure B is M01-01610 and was acquired during the MOC Geodesy Campaign (see PIA02022 and PIA02023, or MOC2-127) on 14 May 1999. Figure C, MOC S14-02741, was obtained on 26 January 2006 as part of the campaign to find new impact craters. By comparing the two images, one from 1999 and one from 2006, we were able to identify all new dark spots that formed during that interval. In this case, the new dark spot seen in the 2006 image, S14-02741, is inside the white circle. The same location is also indicated by a circle in the May 1999 image, but no dark spot is present there. In both cases, the white circle is about 12 km (7.5 mi) across. Figure D: This map of Mars, showing the location of all the MOC red wide angle camera images acquired for the search for new craters during January through March 2006. These images cover most of Amazonis, Tharsis, and Arabia Terra. The base map is a product that combines the May/June 1999 MOC red wide angle data (plus later data for the south polar region) and laser altimeter data from MGS. Figure E: This picture shows portions of two red wide angle camera context images that more tightly constrain when the new crater shown here (above, top, left) formed. The first picture, R05-00427, was acquired on 5 May 2003 and shows no dark spot at the site of the impact. The second picture, S05-01885, shows that the dark spot was present on 29 April 2005. Thus, these two images tell us that the impact occurred sometime between those dates: 5 May 2003 and 29 April 2005. The Mars Global Surveyor mission is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif., built and operates the Mars Orbiter Camera. For more information about images from the Mars Orbiter Camera, see http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html [ http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html ].
Procedure for Finding New Im …
PIA09021
Sol (our sun)
Mars Orbiter Camera
Title Procedure for Finding New Impact Sites on Mars Using the Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
Original Caption Released with Image ), the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) science operations team considered it possible to find more such impact sites using the MOC red wide angle camera. The most recent, freshest craters would be expected to be quite small, ranging from a few meters across to maybe a few hundred meters or so, at most, in diameter (100 meters is about 109 yards, compare that with a 100 yard U.S.-style football field). Something less than 100 meters across would not show up easily in a 240 meters per pixel red wide angle image. But the 6 January 2006 image showed that it could, because these small impacts, if they occur in an area thickly mantled with dust, will create a much larger "blast zone" around them. Thus, the MOC science operations team set out to image a few of the dustiest regions on Mars -- Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia -- with the red wide angle camera. The same camera had, in May and early June 1999, already imaged most of the planet at about 240 meters per pixel scale. By repeating areas already imaged in May/June 1999 during the January/March 2006 timeframe, we would be able to identify more dark spots. And, so, that is what we did. The Tharsis, Amazonis, and Arabia regions were re-imaged using the MOC red wide angle camera during January through March 2006. The data covered about 21,506,000 square kilometers (~8.3 million square miles, ~1/3 the surface area of Mars and more than twice the area of the United States). As each picture was received on Earth, we compared it with the images acquired during May/June 1999. Over the entire area surveyed, we found 39 dark spots that were present in early 2006 but not visible in May/June 1999. The 39 dark spots, then, were the candidate impact sites. Each one of these became a target for the MOC narrow angle camera, which would be used to take an image of about 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) per pixel of each site. The targets were entered into the MOC database. Then, as the predicted MGS ground track came near each site, the MOC team targeted an image by working with the spacecraft engineers at Lockheed Martin Astronautics (Denver, Colorado) and the Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, Pasadena, California) to point the spacecraft and camera at each site using the Roll Only Targeted Observation (ROTO) maneuver. Of the 39 dark spots, 20 turned out to be fresh impact sites, and 19 of them were not. The other 19 included mistaken identifications (one was a transient, large dust devil shadow, several were craters that had been present in earlier images but had changed in brightness owing to dust removal), new dark wind streaks, and new dark slope streaks created by avalanching dust on steep slopes. Some of the 20 new impact sites received further attention, as the spacecraft and MOC were used to obtain cPROTO (compensated Pitch and Roll Targeted Observations) views that have a spatial resolution of 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) in the downtrack dimension and 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) in the cross, Having realized that a new dark spot on Mars, seen in a red wide angle camera image acquired on 6 January 2006, might be an indication of a recent meteor impact site (see PIA09020 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09020 ] or MOC2-1611 [ http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2006/12/06/craters/site1/index.html ], track direction. The cPROTO views, where obtained, have a higher resolution and better signal-to-noise ratio than the original ROTO images. Finally, while our approach of comparing MOC red wide angle camera images obtained in May/June 1999 with those obtained in January/March 2006 constrains the 20 craters all to having formed during the May 1999 to March 2006 time interval, we found in all cases that there were already other images that had been received on Earth that helped constrain the time of the impact more tightly. In some cases, the date of the impact could be pinned down to within a month or two, in other cases the interval covered several years. Data from the MGS MOC, Mars Odyssey Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) [ http://themis.asu.edu/ ], and Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) [ http://berlinadmin.dlr.de/Missions/express/indexeng.shtml ], were all employed in the search. Shown on this page (above) are pictures that illustrate our work to find new impact craters: Figure A: This picture shows one of the new impact sites identified by the MOC team. Located in northern Arabia Terra near 29.3°N, 333.2°W, the actual crater is quite small, only 11.2 ± 3.0 meters in diameter. This is a sub-frame of MOC image S16-01105, acquired using a ROTO maneuver on 12 March 2006. Figures B and C: These pictures are MOC red wide angle camera images, obtained at a scale of about 240 meters per pixel, of portions of Arabia Terra. Figure B is M01-01610 and was acquired during the MOC Geodesy Campaign (see PIA02022 and PIA02023, or MOC2-127) on 14 May 1999. Figure C, MOC S14-02741, was obtained on 26 January 2006 as part of the campaign to find new impact craters. By comparing the two images, one from 1999 and one from 2006, we were able to identify all new dark spots that formed during that interval. In this case, the new dark spot seen in the 2006 image, S14-02741, is inside the white circle. The same location is also indicated by a circle in the May 1999 image, but no dark spot is present there. In both cases, the white circle is about 12 km (7.5 mi) across. Figure D: This map of Mars, showing the location of all the MOC red wide angle camera images acquired for the search for new craters during January through March 2006. These images cover most of Amazonis, Tharsis, and Arabia Terra. The base map is a product that combines the May/June 1999 MOC red wide angle data (plus later data for the south polar region) and laser altimeter data from MGS. Figure E: This picture shows portions of two red wide angle camera context images that more tightly constrain when the new crater shown here (above, top, left) formed. The first picture, R05-00427, was acquired on 5 May 2003 and shows no dark spot at the site of the impact. The second picture, S05-01885, shows that the dark spot was present on 29 April 2005. Thus, these two images tell us that the impact occurred sometime between those dates: 5 May 2003 and 29 April 2005. The Mars Global Surveyor mission is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, Calif., built and operates the Mars Orbiter Camera. For more information about images from the Mars Orbiter Camera, see http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html [ http://www.msss.com/mgs/moc/index.html ].
First HiRISE Image of Mars: …
PIA08053
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
Title First HiRISE Image of Mars: Topographic Model from Photoclinometry
Original Caption Released with Image , which was taken by the HiRISE camera on March 24, 2006. The image is oriented such that north is 7 degrees to the left of up. The range to the target was 2,493 kilometers (1,549 miles). At this distance the image scale is 2.49 meters (8.17 feet) per pixel, so objects as small as 7.5 meters (24.6 feet) are resolved. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 07:33 and the scene is illuminated from the upper right with a solar incidence angle of 78.1 degrees, thus the sun was about 11.9 degrees above the horizon. At an Ls of 29 degrees (with Ls an indicator of Mars' position in its orbit around the sun), the season on Mars is southern autumn. Images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and additional information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mro [ http://www.nasa.gov/mro ] or http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu [ http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu ]. For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov [ http://www.nasa.gov ]. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona., Annotated Topographic Map This is a topographic map of part of the area covered by the first image of Mars obtained by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The image was processed at the U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, by a technique called photoclinometry (or, more descriptively, "shape-from-shading"). This method allows elevations to be reconstructed from a single image by noting how surfaces sloping toward the sun appear brighter than areas that slope away from it. This image is almost ideal for such interpretation because the low sun angle reveals even subtle slopes with dramatic contrast, and variations in the brightness of surface materials (which could be confused with slopes) are minimal. At left is the region of the image that was analyzed, tinted to approximate the visual appearance of the Martian surface. This region is a square 20.4 kilometers (12.7 miles) wide (8,192 pixels by 8,192 pixels at a scale of 2.49 meters or 8.17 feet per pixel). At right is a color-coded topographic contour map of the same area. The total range of elevations is 1.6 kilometers (1 mile), with low areas shown in purple and high areas in red. Contours mark each 20-meter (66-foot) change in elevation. Photoclinometry gives relative rather than absolute heights, but the overall height and shape of features in this map, such as the ridge Ogygis Rupes in the center, agree reasonably well with results from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, an instrument with high absolute accuracy but relatively low spatial resolution. The real value of mapping by photoclinometry, however, is that it reveals the details of the smallest topographic features resolved by the image. In this example, the image was resampled by a factor of 2 before processing, so the topographic map has a scale of 5 meters (16 feet) per pixel and resolves features as small as 15 meters (49 feet). Computer-generated three-dimensional close-ups of the surface provide one way to visualize these small but important clues to Martian geologic history. This illustration shows a subset of PIA08014 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08014 ]
First HiRISE Image of Mars: …
PIA08053
Sol (our sun)
HiRISE
Title First HiRISE Image of Mars: Topographic Model from Photoclinometry
Original Caption Released with Image , which was taken by the HiRISE camera on March 24, 2006. The image is oriented such that north is 7 degrees to the left of up. The range to the target was 2,493 kilometers (1,549 miles). At this distance the image scale is 2.49 meters (8.17 feet) per pixel, so objects as small as 7.5 meters (24.6 feet) are resolved. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 07:33 and the scene is illuminated from the upper right with a solar incidence angle of 78.1 degrees, thus the sun was about 11.9 degrees above the horizon. At an Ls of 29 degrees (with Ls an indicator of Mars' position in its orbit around the sun), the season on Mars is southern autumn. Images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and additional information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mro [ http://www.nasa.gov/mro ] or http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu [ http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu ]. For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov [ http://www.nasa.gov ]. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona., Annotated Topographic Map This is a topographic map of part of the area covered by the first image of Mars obtained by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The image was processed at the U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, by a technique called photoclinometry (or, more descriptively, "shape-from-shading"). This method allows elevations to be reconstructed from a single image by noting how surfaces sloping toward the sun appear brighter than areas that slope away from it. This image is almost ideal for such interpretation because the low sun angle reveals even subtle slopes with dramatic contrast, and variations in the brightness of surface materials (which could be confused with slopes) are minimal. At left is the region of the image that was analyzed, tinted to approximate the visual appearance of the Martian surface. This region is a square 20.4 kilometers (12.7 miles) wide (8,192 pixels by 8,192 pixels at a scale of 2.49 meters or 8.17 feet per pixel). At right is a color-coded topographic contour map of the same area. The total range of elevations is 1.6 kilometers (1 mile), with low areas shown in purple and high areas in red. Contours mark each 20-meter (66-foot) change in elevation. Photoclinometry gives relative rather than absolute heights, but the overall height and shape of features in this map, such as the ridge Ogygis Rupes in the center, agree reasonably well with results from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, an instrument with high absolute accuracy but relatively low spatial resolution. The real value of mapping by photoclinometry, however, is that it reveals the details of the smallest topographic features resolved by the image. In this example, the image was resampled by a factor of 2 before processing, so the topographic map has a scale of 5 meters (16 feet) per pixel and resolves features as small as 15 meters (49 feet). Computer-generated three-dimensional close-ups of the surface provide one way to visualize these small but important clues to Martian geologic history. This illustration shows a subset of PIA08014 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08014 ]
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