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Mars of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Arizona and Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Martian Meteorite
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Martian Meteorite |
| description |
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has found an iron meteorite, the first meteorite of any type ever identified on another planet. The pitted, basketball-size object is mostly made of iron and nickel according to readings from spectrometers on the rover. Only a small fraction of the meteorites fallen on Earth are similarly metal-rich. Others are rockier. As an example, the meteorite that blasted the famous Meteor Crater in Arizona is similar in composition. "This is a huge surprise, though maybe it shouldn't have been," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science instruments on Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. The meteorite, dubbed "Heat Shield Rock," sits near debris of Opportunity's heat shield on the surface of Meridiani Planum, a cratered flatland that has been Opportunity's home since the robot landed on Mars nearly one year ago. "I never thought we would get to use our instruments on a rock from someplace other than Mars," Squyres said. "Think about where an iron meteorite comes from: a destroyed planet or planetesimal that was big enough to differentiate into a metallic core and a rocky mantle." Rover-team scientists are wondering whether some rocks that Opportunity has seen atop the ground surface are rocky meteorites. "Mars should be hit by a lot more rocky meteorites than iron meteorites," Squyres said. "We've been seeing lots of cobbles out on the plains, and this raises the possibility that some of them may in fact be meteorites. We may be investigating some of those in coming weeks. The key is not what we'll learn about meteorites -- we have lots of meteorites on Earth -- but what the meteorites can tell us about Meridiani Planum." The numbers of exposed meteorites could be an indication of whether the plain is gradually eroding away or being built up. NASA Chief Scientist Dr. Jim Garvin said, "Exploring meteorites is a vital part of NASA's scientific agenda, and discovering whether there are storehouses of them on Mars opens new research possibilities, including further incentives for robotic and then human-based sample-return missions. Mars continues to provide unexpected science 'gold,' and our rovers have proven the value of mobile exploration with this latest finding." Initial observation of Heat Shield Rock from a distance with Opportunity's miniature thermal emission spectrometer suggested a metallic composition and raised speculation last week that it was a meteorite. The rover drove close enough to use its Moessbauer and alpha particle X-ray spectrometers, confirming the meteorite identification over the weekend. Opportunity and Spirit successfully completed their primary three-month missions on Mars in April 2004. NASA has extended their missions twice because the rovers have remained in good condition to continue exploring Mars longer than anticipated. They have found geological evidence of past wet environmental conditions that might have, been hospitable to life. Opportunity has driven a total of 2.10 kilometers (1.30 miles). Minor mottling from dust has appeared in images from the rover's rear hazard-identification camera since Opportunity entered the area of its heat-shield debris, said Jim Erickson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., rover project manager. The rover team plans to begin driving Opportunity south toward a circular feature called "Vostok" within about a week. Spirit has driven a total of 4.05 kilometers (2.52 miles). It has been making slow progress uphill toward a ridge on "Husband Hill" inside Gusev Crater. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Pathfinder Panorama
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Pathfinder Panorama |
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This is a more recent 'geometrically improved, color enhanced' version of the 360-degree 'Gallery Pan', the first contiguous, uniform panorama taken by the Imager for Mars (IMP) over the course of Sols 8, 9, and 10. Different regions were imaged at different times over the three Martian days to acquire consistent lighting and shadow conditions for all areas of the panorama. In this version of the panorama, much of the discontinuity that was due to parallax has been corrected, particularly along thelower tiers of the mosaic containing the Lander features. Distortiondue to a 2.5 degree tilt in the IMP camera mast has been removed. The IMP is a stereo imaging system that, in its fully deployed configuration, stands 1.8 meters above the Martian surface, and has a resolution of two millimeters at a range of two meters. The IMP has color capability provided by 24 selectable filters -- twelve filters per 'eye'. Its red, green, and blue filters were used to take this panorama. The three color images were first digitally balanced according to the transmittance capabilities of a specific high-definition TV device at JPL, and then enhanced via changes to saturation and intensity while retaining the hue. A threshold was applied to avoid changes to the sky. An MTF filter was applied to sharpen feature edges. At left is a Lander petal and a metallic mast which is a portion of the low-gain antenna. On the horizon the double 'Twin Peaks' are visible, about 1-2 kilometers away. The rock 'Couch' is the dark, curved rock at right of Twin Peaks. Another Lander petal is at left-center, showing the fully deployed forward ramp at far left, and rear ramp at right, which rover Sojourner used to descend to the surface of Mars on July 5. Immediately to the left of the rear ramp is the rock 'Barnacle Bill', which scientistsfound be andesitic, possibly indicating that it is a volcanic rock (a true andesite) or a physical mixture of particles. Just beyond Barnacle Bill, rover tracks lead to Sojourner, shown using its Alpha ProtonX-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument to study the large rock 'Yogi'. Yogi, low in quartz content, appears to be more primitive than Barnacle Bill, and appears more like the common basalts found on Earth. The tracks and circular pattern in the soil leading up to Yogi werepart of Sojourner's soil mechanics experiments, in which varying amounts of pressure were applied to the wheels in order to determine physical properties of the soil. During its traverse to Yogi the roverstirred the soil and exposed material from several centimeters indepth. During one of the turns to deploy Sojourner's Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer, the wheels dug particularly deeply and exposed white material. Spectra of this white material show it is virtually identical to the rock 'Scooby Doo', and such white material may underlie much of the site. Deflated airbags are visible at the perimeter of all three Lander petals. Mars Pathfinder was the second in NASA's Discovery, program of low-costspacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet PropulsionLaboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfindermission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is anoperating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).The IMP was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and PlanetaryLaboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Takes Its First Look |
| date |
03.24.2006 |
| description |
This view shows a full-resolution portion of the first image of Mars taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The spacecraft, launched Aug. 12, 2005, began orbiting Mars on March 10, 2006. The image is of an area in Mars' mid-latitude southern highlands. HiRISE took this first test image from orbit on March 24, 2006, from an altitude of 2,489 kilometers (1,547 miles), achieving a resolution of 2.49 meters (98 inches) per pixel, or picture element. The smallest objects of discernable shape are about three pixels across. An image acquired at this latitude during the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's main science phase, beginning in fall 2006, would be taken from an altitude of about 280 kilometers (174 miles) and have a resolution of 28 centimeters (11 inches) per pixel. This view covers an area about 4.5 by 2.1 kilometers (1.6 by 1.3 miles), a subset of the broader image. The quality of this test image is spectacular, with no hint to the eye of any smear or blurring. A high signal-to-noise ratio reveals fine details even in the shadows. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona |
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Victoria Crater' at Meridian
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Victoria Crater' at Meridiani Planum |
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10.06.2006 |
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This image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows "Victoria crater," an impact crater at Meridiani Planum, near the equator of Mars. The crater is approximately 800 meters (half a mile) in diameter. It has a distinctive scalloped shape to its rim, caused by erosion and downhill movement of crater wall material. Layered sedimentary rocks are exposed along the inner wall of the crater, and boulders that have fallen from the crater wall are visible on the crater floor. The floor of the crater is occupied by a striking field of sand dunes. Since January 2004, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has been operating at Meridiani Planum. Five days before this image was taken, Opportunity arrived at the rim of Victoria crater, after a drive of more than 9 kilometers (over 5 miles). The rover can be seen in this image, at roughly the "ten o'clock" position along the rim of the crater. This view is a portion of an image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on Oct. 3, 2006. The complete image is centered at minus7.8 degrees latitude, 279.5 degrees East longitude. The range to the target site was 297 kilometers (185.6 miles). At this distance the image scale is 29.7 centimeters (12 inches) per pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects about 89 centimeters (35 inches) across are resolved. The image shown here has been map-projected to 25 centimeters (10 inches) per pixel and north is up. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 3:30 PM and the scene is illuminated from the west with a solar incidence angle of 59.7 degrees, thus the sun was about 30.3 degrees above the horizon. At a solar longitude of 113.6 degrees, the season on Mars is northern summer. This is an enhanced-color view generated from images acquired by the HiRISE camera using its red filter and blue-green filter. Images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and additional information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are available online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mroor http://HiRISE.lpl.arizona.edu. For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: 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 & Technologies Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/UA |
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Gullies with Characteristics
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Gullies with Characteristics of Water-Carved Channels |
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False-color image of gully channels in a crater in the southern highlands of Mars, taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The gullies emanating from the rocky cliffs near the crater's rim (upper left) show meandering and braided patterns typical of water-carved channels. North is approximately up and illumination is from the left, scale, 26 centimeters per pixel. A link to the full HiRISE image that includes this view is online at http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_003583_1425 Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona |
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Close-Up of Sol 24 Sunset
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Close-Up of Sol 24 Sunset |
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This is a close-up of the sunset on Sol 24 as seen by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder. The red sky in the background and the blue around the Sun are approximately as they would appear to the human eye. The color of the Sun itself is not correct -- the Sun was overexposed in each of the 3 color images that were used to make this picture. The true color of the Sun itself may be near white or slightly bluish. Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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High-Resolution MOC Image of
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High-Resolution MOC Image of Phobos |
| date |
08.19.1998 |
| description |
This image of Phobos, the inner and larger of the two moons of Mars, was taken by the Mars Global Surveyor on August 19, 1998. This image shows a close-up of the largest crater on Phobos, Stickney, 10 kilometers (6 miles) in diameter. Individual boulders are visible on the near rim of the crater, and are presumed to be ejecta blocks from the impact that formed Stickney. Some of these boulders are enormous - more than 50 meters (160 feet) across. Also crossing at and near the rim of Stickney are shallow, elongated depressions called grooves. This crater is nearly half the size of Phobos and these grooves may be fractures caused by its formation. Phobos was observed by both the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) and Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES). This image is one of the highest resolution images (4 meters or 13 feet per picture element or pixel) ever obtained of the Martian satellite. Malin Space Science Systems, Inc. and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Thermal Emission Spectrometer is operated by Arizona State University and was built by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. *Image Credit*: Erich Karkoschka (University of Arizona Lunar & Planetary Lab) and NASA |
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Newly Deployed Sojourner Rov
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Newly Deployed Sojourner Rover |
| description |
This 8-image mosaic was acquired during the late afternoon (near 5pm LST, note the long shadows) on Sol 2 as part of the predeploy "insurance panorama" and shows the newly deployed rover sitting on the Martian surface. This color image was generated from images acquired at 530,600, and 750 nm. The insurance panorama was designed as "insurance" against camera failure upon deployment. Had the camera failed, the losslessly-compressed, multispectral insurance panorama would have been the main source of image data from the IMP. However, the camera deployment was successful, leaving the insurance panorama to be downlinked to Earth several weeks later. Ironically enough, the insurance panorama contains some of the best quality image data because of the lossless data compression and relatively dust-free state of the camera and associated lander/rover hardware on Sol 2. Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The IMP was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal investigator. *Image Credit*: NASA |
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Odyssey over Mars' South Pol
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Odyssey over Mars' South Pole |
| description |
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above Mars' south pole in this artist's concept illustration. The spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since October 24, 2001. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Odyssey mission for the NASA Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, operate the science instruments. The gamma-ray spectrometer was provided by the University of Arizona in collaboration with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and Institute for Space Research, which provided the high-energy neutron detector, and the Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico, which provided the neutron spectrometer. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. *Image Credit*: NASA/JPL |
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Gullies in Sirenum Terra, Ma
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| title |
Gullies in Sirenum Terra, Mars |
| date |
10.03.2006 |
| description |
This enhanced-color view shows gullies in an unnamed crater in the Terra Sirenum region of Mars. It is a sub-image from a larger view imaged by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Oct. 3, 2006. This scene is about 254 meters (about 830 feet) wide. The upper and left regions of this scene are in shadow, yet color variations are still apparent. The high signal to noise ratio of the HiRISE camera allows for colors to be distinguished in shadows. This allows dark features to be identified as true albedo features versus topographical features. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona |
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360 Degree Panorama Mars Pat
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| Title |
360 Degree Panorama Mars Pathfinder Landing Site |
| Full Description |
This is the first contiguous, uniform 360-degree color panorama taken by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) over the course of sols 8, 9, and 10 (Martian days). Different regions were imaged at different times over the three Martian days to acquire consistent lighting and shadow conditions for all areas of the panorama. At left is a lander petal and a metallic mast which is a portion of the low-gain antenna. On the horizon the double "Twin Peaks" are visible, about 1-2 kilometers away. The rock "Couch" is the dark, curved rock at right of Twin Peaks. Another lander petal is at left-center, showing the fully deployed forward ramp at far left, and rear ramp at right, which rover Sojourner used to descend to the surface of Mars on July 5. Immediately to the left of the rear ramp is the rock Barnacle Bill, which scientists found to be andesitic, possibly indicating that it is a volcanic rock (a true andesite) or a physical mixture of particles. Just beyond Barnacle Bill, rover tracks lead to Sojourner, shown using its Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument to study the large rock Yogi. Yogi, low in quartz content, appears to be more primitive than Barnacle Bill, and appeared more like the common basalts found on Earth. The tracks and circular pattern in the soil leading up to Yogi were part of Sojourner's soil mechanics experiments, in which varying amounts of pressure were applied to the wheels in order to determine physical properties of the soil. During its traverse to Yogi the rover stirred the soil and exposed material from several centimeters in depth. During one of the turns to deploy Sojourner's Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer, the wheels dug particularly deeply and exposed white material. Spectra of this white material show it is virtually identical to the rock Scooby Doo, and such white material may underlie much of the site. Deflated airbags are visible at the perimeter of all three lander petals. The IMP is a stereo imaging system with color capability provided by 24 selectable filters, twelve filters per "eye." Its red, green, and blue filters were used to take this image. The IMP, in its fully deployed configuration, stands 1.8 meters above the Martian surface, and has a resolution of two millimeters at a range of two meters. Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator. |
| Date |
07/18/1997 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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Evidence for Recent Liquid W
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| Title |
Evidence for Recent Liquid Water on Mars |
| Full Description |
Newton Crater is a large basin formed by an asteroid impact that probably occurred more than 3 billion years ago. It is approximately 287 kilometers (178 miles) across. The picture shown here (top) highlights the north wall of a specific, smaller crater located in the southwestern quarter of Newton Crater (above). The crater of interest was also formed by an impact, it is about 7 km (4.4 mi) across, which is about 7 times bigger than the famous Meteor Crater in northern Arizona in North America. The north wall of the small crater has many narrow gullies eroded into it. These are hypothesized to have been formed by flowing water and debris flows. Debris transported with the water created lobed and finger-like deposits at the base of the crater wall where it intersects the floor (bottom center top image). Many of the finger-like deposits have small channels indicating that a liquid, most likely water, flowed in these areas. Hundreds of individual water and debris flow events might have occurred to create the scene shown here. Each outburst of water from higher up on the crater slopes would have constituted a competition between evaporation, freezing, and gravity. The individual deposits at the ends of channels in this MOC image mosaic were used to get a rough estimate of the minimum amount of water that might be involved in each flow event. This is done first by assuming that the deposits are like debris flows on Earth. In a debris flow, no less than about 10% (and no more than 30%) of their volume is water. Second, the volume of an apron deposit is estimated by measuring the area covered in the MOC image and multiplying it by a conservative estimate of thickness, 2 meters (6.5 feet). For a flow containing only 10% water, these estimates conservatively suggest that about 2.5 million liters (660,000 gallons) of water are involved in each event, this is enough to fill about 7 community-sized swimming pools or enough to supply 20 people with their water needs for a year. The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) high resolution view is located near 41.1S, 159.8W and is a mosaic of three different pictures acquired between January and May 2000. The MOC scene is illuminated from the left, north is up. |
| Date |
06/22/2000 |
| NASA Center |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
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Martian terrain & airbags -
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| Title |
Martian terrain & airbags - 3D |
| Description |
Portions of the lander's deflated airbags and a petal are at the lower area of this image, taken in stereo by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) on Sol 3. 3D glasses are necessary to identify surface detail. This image is part of a 3D "monster" panorama of the area surrounding the landing site. Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator. *Click below to see the left and right views individually.*[figure removed for brevity, see original site] Left [figure removed for brevity, see original site] Right |
| Date |
07.11.1997 |
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Martian terrain - 3D
| Title |
Martian terrain - 3D |
| Description |
An area of rocky terrain near the landing site of the Sagan Memorial Station can be seen in this image, taken in stereo by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) on Sol 3. 3D glasses are necessary to identify surface detail. This image is part of a 3D "monster" panorama of the area surrounding the landing site. Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator. *Click below to see the left and right views individually.*[figure removed for brevity, see original site] Left [figure removed for brevity, see original site] Right |
| Date |
07.11.1997 |
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MOC Image of Phobos with TES
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| Title |
MOC Image of Phobos with TES Temperature Overlay |
| Description |
This image of Phobos, the inner and larger of the two moons of Mars, was taken by the Mars Global Surveyor on August 19, 1998. The Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) measured the brightness of thermal radiation at the same time the camera acquired this image. By analyzing the brightness, TES scientists could deduce the various fractions of the surface exposed to the Sun and their temperatures. This preliminary analysis shows that the surface temperature, dependent on slope and particle size, varies from a high of +25o F (-4o C) on the most illuminated slopes to -170o F (-112o C) in shadows. This large difference, and the fact that such differences can be found in close proximity, adds support to the notion that the surface of Phobos is covered by very small particles. Malin Space Science Systems, Inc. and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Thermal Emission Spectrometer is operated by Arizona State University and was built by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. |
| Date |
08.19.1998 |
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ASI/MET - 3D
| Title |
ASI/MET - 3D |
| Description |
The Atmospheric Structure Instrument/Meteorology Package (ASI/MET) is the mast and windsocks at the center of this color image, taken in stereo by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) on Sol 3. The instrument appears in two different sections due to image parallax. The ASI/MET is an engineering subsytem that acquired atmospheric data during Pathfinder's descent, and will continue to get more data through the entire landed mission. The windsocks are seen pointing almost completely up, representing little wind movement at the three locations of the windsocks. A rock at left holds a shadow of the ASI/MET, indicating the sun's position is at the rear right. Portions of a lander petal and deflated airbag are visible, in addition to several rocks of varying sizes in the distance. Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator. *Click below to see the left and right views individually.*[figure removed for brevity, see original site] Left [figure removed for brevity, see original site] Right |
| Date |
07.11.1997 |
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Odyssey over Mars' South Pol
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| Title |
Odyssey over Mars' South Pole |
| Description |
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above Mars' south pole in this artist's concept illustration. The spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since October 24, 2001. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Odyssey mission for the NASA Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, operate the science instruments. The gamma-ray spectrometer was provided by the University of Arizona in collaboration with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and Institute for Space Research, which provided the high-energy neutron detector, and the Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico, which provided the neutron spectrometer. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
10.28.2003 |
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Odyssey over Mars' South Pol
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| Title |
Odyssey over Mars' South Pole in 3-D |
| Description |
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above Mars' south pole in this artist's concept illustration. This red-blue anaglyph artwork can be viewed in 3-D on your computer monitor or in color print form by wearing red-blue (cyan) 3-D glasses. The spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since October 24, 2001. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Odyssey mission for the NASA Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, operate the science instruments. The gamma-ray spectrometer was provided by the University of Arizona in collaboration with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and Institute for Space Research, which provided the high-energy neutron detector, and the Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico, which provided the neutron spectrometer. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
10.28.2003 |
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Odyssey over Martian Sunrise
| Title |
Odyssey over Martian Sunrise |
| Description |
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above a portion of the planet that is rotating into the sunlight in this artist's concept illustration. The spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since October 24, 2001. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Odyssey mission for the NASA Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, operate the science instruments. The gamma-ray spectrometer was provided by the University of Arizona in collaboration with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and Institute for Space Research, which provided the high-energy neutron detector, and the Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico, which provided the neutron spectrometer. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
10.28.2003 |
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Odyssey over Martian Sunrise
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| Title |
Odyssey over Martian Sunrise, 3-D |
| Description |
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft passes above a portion of the planet that is rotating into the sunlight in this artist's concept illustration. This red-blue anaglyph artwork can be viewed in 3-D on your computer monitor or in color print form by wearing red-blue (cyan) 3-D glasses. The spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since October 24, 2001. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Mars Odyssey mission for the NASA Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, operate the science instruments. The gamma-ray spectrometer was provided by the University of Arizona in collaboration with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and Institute for Space Research, which provided the high-energy neutron detector, and the Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico, which provided the neutron spectrometer. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. |
| Date |
10.28.2003 |
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Phobos
| Title |
Phobos |
| Description |
Mars' innermost natural satellite, Phobos, is seen from the planet's surface in this Pathfinder image taken at night on Sol 56. This picture was acquired by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) camera. Using IMP images of Phobos and its companion moon Deimos, the spectral characteristics of the satellites and properties of the Martian atmosphere are determined. Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The IMP was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator. |
| Date |
11.03.1997 |
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Deflated Airbags and Yogi
| Title |
Deflated Airbags and Yogi |
| Description |
The left portion of this image, taken by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) on Sol 3, shows the large rock nicknamed "Yogi." Portions of a petal and deflated airbag are in the foreground. Yogi has been an object of study for rover Sojourner's Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument. The APXS will help Pathfinder scientists learn more about the chemical composition of that rock. Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is an operating division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator. |
| Date |
07.15.1997 |
|
Deimos
| Title |
Deimos |
| Description |
Mars' outermost natural satellite, Deimos, is seen from the planet's surface in this Pathfinder image taken at night on Sol 4. This picture was acquired by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) camera. Using IMP images of Deimos and its companion moon Phobos, the spectral characteristics of the satellites and properties of the Martian atmosphere are determined. Mars Pathfinder is the second in NASA's Discovery program of low-cost spacecraft with highly focused science goals. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, developed and manages the Mars Pathfinder mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The IMP was developed by the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory under contract to JPL. Peter Smith is the Principal Investigator. |
| Date |
11.03.1997 |
|
High-Resolution MOC Image of
…
| Title |
High-Resolution MOC Image of Phobos |
| Description |
This image of Phobos, the inner and larger of the two moons of Mars, was taken by the Mars Global Surveyor on August 19, 1998. This image shows a close-up of the largest crater on Phobos, Stickney, 10 kilometers (6 miles) in diameter. Individual boulders are visible on the near rim of the crater, and are presumed to be ejecta blocks from the impact that formed Stickney. Some of these boulders are enormous - more than 50 meters (160 feet) across. Also crossing at and near the rim of Stickney are shallow, elongated depressions called grooves. This crater is nearly half the size of Phobos and these grooves may be fractures caused by its formation. Phobos was observed by both the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) and Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES). This image is one of the highest resolution images (4 meters or 13 feet per picture element or pixel) ever obtained of the Martian satellite. Malin Space Science Systems, Inc. and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Thermal Emission Spectrometer is operated by Arizona State University and was built by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. |
| Date |
08.19.1998 |
|
High-Resolution MOC Image of
…
| Title |
High-Resolution MOC Image of Phobos with Graphics Overlay |
| Description |
This image of Phobos, the inner and larger of the two moons of Mars, was taken by the Mars Global Surveyor on August 19, 1998. The white boxes indicate the location of the subframes or close-ups: that on the left is C and that on the right is D. Each box is 1.92 kilometers (1.19 miles) square. The image shows several new features of this lumpy moon -- features that are associated with the prominent crater seen in the upper left quarter of the image. This is the largest crater on Phobos, Stickney, 10 kilometers (6 miles) in diameter. Individual boulders are visible on the near rim of the crater (D), and are presumed to be ejecta blocks from the impact that formed Stickney. Some of these boulders are enormous - more than 50 meters (160 feet) across. Also crossing at and near the rim of Stickney are shallow, elongated depressions called grooves. This crater is nearly half the size of Phobos and these grooves may be fractures caused by its formation. The far wall of the crater shows lighter and darker streaks going down the slopes (C). Phobos was observed by both the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) and Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES). This image is one of the highest resolution images (4 meters or 13 feet per picture element or pixel) ever obtained of the Martian satellite. Malin Space Science Systems, Inc. and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Thermal Emission Spectrometer is operated by Arizona State University and was built by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. |
| Date |
08.19.1998 |
|
High-Resolution MOC Image of
…
| Title |
High-Resolution MOC Image of Phobos' Face |
| Description |
This image of Phobos, the inner and larger of the two moons of Mars, was taken by the Mars Global Surveyor on August 19, 1998. The minimum distance between the spacecraft and Phobos was 1,080 kilometers (671 miles). Phobos was observed by both the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) and Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES). This image is one of the highest resolution images (4 meters or 13 feet per picture element or pixel) ever obtained of the Martian satellite. The image shows several new features of this lumpy moon -- features that are associated with the prominent crater seen in the upper left quarter of the image. This is the largest crater on Phobos, Stickney, 10 kilometers (6 miles) in diameter. Individual boulders are visible on the near rim of the crater (D), and are presumed to be ejecta blocks from the impact that formed Stickney. Some of these boulders are enormous - more than 50 meters (160 feet) across. Also crossing at and near the rim of Stickney are shallow, elongated depressions called grooves. This crater is nearly half the size of Phobos and these grooves may be fractures caused by its formation. The far wall of the crater shows lighter and darker streaks going down the slopes (C). The presence of material of different brightness on the far crater slopes and in some of the grooves shows that the satellite is heterogeneous (that is, it is made of a mixture of different types of materials). The motion of debris down slopes is guided by gravity, which is only about 1/1000th that of the Earth -- e.g., a 68-kilogram (150- pound) person would weigh only about 57 grams (2 ounces) on Phobos. Previous images from the Viking spacecraft in the 1970's were not of sufficient resolution to show the effectiveness of gravity on Phobos in moving material down slopes. Malin Space Science Systems, Inc. and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Thermal Emission Spectrometer is operated by Arizona State University and was built by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. |
| Date |
08.19.1998 |
|
High-Resolution MOC Image of
…
| Title |
High-Resolution MOC Image of Phobos' Stickney Crater |
| Description |
This image of Phobos, the inner and larger of the two moons of Mars, was taken by the Mars Global Surveyor on August 19, 1998. This image is a close-up of the far wall of the Stickney crater, 10 kilometers (6 miles) in diameter, that is the largest crater on Phobos. This image shows lighter and darker streaks going down the slopes (C). The presence of material of different brightness on the far crater slopes and in some of the grooves shows that the satellite is heterogeneous (that is, it is made of a mixture of different types of materials). The motion of debris down slopes is guided by gravity, which is only about 1/1000th that of the Earth -- e.g., a 68-kilogram (150-pound) person would weigh only about 57 grams (2 ounces) on Phobos. Phobos was observed by both the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) and Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES). This image is one of the highest resolution images (4 meters or 13 feet per picture element or pixel) ever obtained of the Martian satellite. Malin Space Science Systems, Inc. and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Thermal Emission Spectrometer is operated by Arizona State University and was built by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. |
| Date |
08.19.1998 |
|
Hubble Observes Surface of T
…
| Title |
Hubble Observes Surface of Titan |
| Description |
Laboratory and managed by the Goddard Spaced Flight Center for NASA's Office of Space Science. This image and other images and data received from the Hubble Space Telescope are posted on the World Wide Web on the Space Telescope Science Institute home page at URL http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/, Scientists for the first time have made images of the surface of Saturn's giant, haze-shrouded moon, Titan. They mapped light and dark features over the surface of the satellite during nearly a complete 16-day rotation. One prominent bright area they discovered is a surface feature 2,500 miles across, about the size of the continent of Australia. Titan, larger than Mercury and slightly smaller than Mars, is the only body in the solar system, other than Earth, that may have oceans and rainfall on its surface, albeit oceans and rain of ethane-methane rather than water. Scientists suspect that Titan's present environment -- although colder than minus 289 degrees Fahrenheit, so cold that water ice would be as hard as granite -- might be similar to that on Earth billions of years ago, before life began pumping oxygen into the atmosphere. Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and his team took the images with the Hubble Space Telescope during 14 observing runs between Oct. 4 - 18. Smith announced the team's first results last week at the 26th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences in Bethesda, Md. Co-investigators on the team are Mark Lemmon, a doctoral candidate with the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, John Caldwell of York University, Canada, Larry Sromovsky of the University of Wisconsin, and Michael Allison of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York City. Titan's atmosphere, about four times as dense as Earth's atmosphere, is primarily nitrogen laced with such poisonous substances as methane and ethane. This thick, orange, hydrocarbon haze was impenetrable to cameras aboard the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft that flew by the Saturn system in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The haze is formed as methane in the atmosphere is destroyed by sunlight. The hydrocarbons produced by this methane destruction form a smog similar to that found over large cities, but is much thicker. Smith's group used the Hubble Space Telescope's WideField/Planetary Camera 2 at near-infrared wavelengths (between .85 and 1.05 microns). Titan's haze is transparent enough in this wavelength range to allow mapping of surface features according to their reflectivity. Only Titan's polar regions could not be mapped this way, due to the telescope's viewing angle of the poles and the thick haze near the edge of the disk. Their image-resolution (that is, the smallest distance seen in detail) with the WFPC2 at the near-infrared wavelength is 360 miles. The 14 images processed and compiled into the Titan surface map were as "noise" free, or as free of signal interference, as the space telescope allows, Smith said. Titan makes one complete orbit around Saturn in 16 days, roughly the duration of the imaging project. Scientists have suspected that Titan's rotation also takes 16 days, so that the same hemisphere of Titan always faces Saturn, just as the same hemisphere of the Earth's moon, always faces the Earth. Recent observations by Lemmon and colleagues at the University of Arizona confirm this true. It's too soon to conclude much about what the dark and bright areas in the Hubble Space Telescope images are -- continents, oceans, impact craters or other features, Smith said. Scientists have long suspected that Titan's surface was covered with a global ehtane-methane ocean. The new images show that there is at least some solid surface. Smith's team made a total 50 images of Titan last month in their program, a project to search for small scale features in Titan's lower atmosphere and surface. They have yet to analyze images for information about Titan's clouds and winds. That analysis could help explain if the bright areas are major impact craters in the frozen water ice-and-rock or higher-altitude features. The images are important information for the Cassini mission, which is to launch a robotic spacecraft on a 7-year journey to Saturn in October 1997. About three weeks before Cassini's first flyby of Titan, the spacecraft is to release the European Space Agency's Huygens Probe to parachute to Titan's surface. Images like Smith's team has taken of Titan can be used to identify choice landing spots - - and help engineers and scientists understand how Titan's winds will blow the parachute through the satellite's atmosphere. UA scientists play major roles in the Cassini mission: Carolyn C. Porco, an associate professor at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, leads the 14-member Cassini Imaging Team. Jonathan I. Lunine, also an associate professor at the lab, is the only American selected by the European Space Agency to be on the three-member Huygens Probe interdisciplinary science team. Smith is a member of research professor Martin G. Tomasko's international team of scientists who will image the surface of Titan in visible light and in color with the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer, one of five instruments in the Huygens Probe's French, German, Italian and U.S. experiment payload. Senior research associate Lyn R. Doose is also on Tomasko's team. Lunine and LPL professor Donald M. Hunten are members of the science team for another U.S. instrument on that payload, the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer. Hunten was on the original Cassini mission science definition team back in 1983. PHOTO CAPTION: Four global projections of the HST Titan data, separated in longitude by 90 degrees. Upper left: hemisphere facing Saturn. Upper right: leading hemisphere (brightest region). Lower left: the hemisphere which never faces Saturn. Lower right: trailing hemisphere. Not that these assignments assume that the rotation is synchronous. The imaging team says its data strongly support this assumption -- a longer time baseline is needed for proof. The surface near the poles is never visible to an observer in Titan's equatorial plane because of the large optical path. The Wide Field/Planetary Camera 2 was developed by the Jet Propulsion |
| Date |
11.08.1994 |
|
First THEMIS Image of Mars
| title |
First THEMIS Image of Mars |
| Description |
This thermal infrared image was acquired by Mars Odyssey's thermal emission imaging system on October 30, 2001, as the spacecraft orbited Mars on its ninth revolution around the planet. The image was taken as part of the calibration and testing process of the camera system. This image shows the temperature of Mars in one of the 10 thermal infrared filters. The spacecraft was approximately 22,000 kilometers (about 13,600 miles) above the planet looking down toward the south pole of Mars when this image was acquired. It is late spring in the martian southern hemisphere. The extremely cold, circular feature shown in blue is the martian south polar carbon dioxide ice cap at a temperature of about -120 °C (-184 ° F). The cap is more than 900 kilometers (540 miles) in diameter at this time and will continue to shrink as summer progresses. Clouds of cooler air blowing off the cap can be seen in orange extending across the image to the left of the cap. The cold region in the lower right portion of the image shows the nighttime temperatures of Mars, demonstrating the "night-vision" capability of the camera system to observe Mars even when the surface is in darkness. The warmest regions occur near local noontime. The ring of mountains surrounding the 900-kilometer (540-mile) diameter impact basin Argyre can be seen in the early afternoon in the upper portion of the image. The thin blue crescent along the upper limb of the planet is the martian atmosphere. This image covers a length of over 6,500 kilometers (3,900 miles) spanning the planet from limb to limb, with a resolution of approximately 5.5 kilometers per pixel (3.4 miles per pixel), or picture elements, at the point directly beneath the spacecraft. The Odyssey's infrared camera is planned to have a resolution of 100 meters per pixel (about 300 feet per pixel) from its mapping orbit. JPL manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The thermal emission imaging system was developed at Arizona State University, Tempe with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing, Santa Barbara, Calif. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo., is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Image credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Arizona State University. |
|
First THEMIS Infrared and Vi
…
| title |
First THEMIS Infrared and Visible Images of Mars |
| Description |
This picture shows both a visible and a thermal infrared image taken by the thermal emission imaging system on NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft on November 2, 2001. The images were taken as part of the ongoing calibration and testing of the camera system as the spacecraft orbited Mars on its 13th revolution of the planet. The visible wavelength image, shown on the right in black and white, was obtained using one of the instrument's five visible filters. The spacecraft was approximately 22,000 kilometers (about 13,600 miles) above Mars looking down toward the south pole when this image was acquired. It is late spring in the martian southern hemisphere. The thermal infrared image, center, shows the temperature of the surface in color. The circular feature seen in blue is the extremely cold martian south polar carbon dioxide ice cap. The instrument has measured a temperature of minus 120 degrees Celsius (minus184 degrees Fahrenheit) on the south polar ice cap. The polar cap is more than 900 kilometers (540 miles) in diameter at this time. The visible image shows additional details along the edge of the ice cap, as well as atmospheric hazes near the cap. The view of the surface appears hazy due to dust that still remains in the martian atmosphere from the massive martian dust storms that have occurred over the past several months. The infrared image covers a length of over 6,500 kilometers (3,900 miles) spanning the planet from limb to limb, with a resolution of approximately 5.5 kilometers per picture element, or pixel, (3.4 miles per pixel) at the point directly beneath the spacecraft. The visible image has a resolution of approximately 1 kilometer per pixel (.6 miles per pixel) and covers an area roughly the size of the states of Arizona and New Mexico combined. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington D.C. The thermal-emission imaging system was developed at Arizona State University, Tempe, with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing, Santa Barbara, Calif. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Image credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Arizona State University. |
|
Acheron Fossae in Visible Li
…
| title |
Acheron Fossae in Visible Light |
| Description |
This visible-light image, taken by the thermal emission imaging system's camera on NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft, shows the highly fractured, faulted and deformed Acheron Fossae region of Mars. The scarps visible in this image are approximately one kilometer (3,300 feet) high, based on topography derived from the laser altimeter instrument on Mars Global Surveyor. Dark streaks only 50 meters (164 feet) across can be seen on some of the cliff faces. These streaks may be formed when the pervasive dust mantle covering this region gives way on steep slopes to create dust avalanches. The image also shows impact craters as small as 500 meters (1,640 feet) in diameter, as well as smooth and textured plains. Acheron Fossae is located 1,050 kilometers (650 miles) north of the large shield volcano Olympus Mons. This image covers an area about 18 by 9 kilometers (11 by 6 miles) centered at 37 degrees north, 131 degrees west. North is to the top of this image, which was acquired on February 19, 2002, at about 3:15 p.m. local Martian time. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The thermal emission imaging system was provided by Arizona State University, Tempe. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Photo Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Arizona State University |
|
First THEMIS Image of Mars
| title |
First THEMIS Image of Mars |
| Description |
This thermal infrared image was acquired by Mars Odyssey's thermal emission imaging system on October 30, 2001, as the spacecraft orbited Mars on its ninth revolution around the planet. The image was taken as part of the calibration and testing process of the camera system. This image shows the temperature of Mars in one of the 10 thermal infrared filters. The spacecraft was approximately 22,000 kilometers (about 13,600 miles) above the planet looking down toward the south pole of Mars when this image was acquired. It is late spring in the martian southern hemisphere. The extremely cold, circular feature shown in blue is the martian south polar carbon dioxide ice cap at a temperature of about -120 °C (-184 ° F). The cap is more than 900 kilometers (540 miles) in diameter at this time and will continue to shrink as summer progresses. Clouds of cooler air blowing off the cap can be seen in orange extending across the image to the left of the cap. The cold region in the lower right portion of the image shows the nighttime temperatures of Mars, demonstrating the "night-vision" capability of the camera system to observe Mars even when the surface is in darkness. The warmest regions occur near local noontime. The ring of mountains surrounding the 900-kilometer (540-mile) diameter impact basin Argyre can be seen in the early afternoon in the upper portion of the image. The thin blue crescent along the upper limb of the planet is the martian atmosphere. This image covers a length of over 6,500 kilometers (3,900 miles) spanning the planet from limb to limb, with a resolution of approximately 5.5 kilometers per pixel (3.4 miles per pixel), or picture elements, at the point directly beneath the spacecraft. The Odyssey's infrared camera is planned to have a resolution of 100 meters per pixel (about 300 feet per pixel) from its mapping orbit. JPL manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The thermal emission imaging system was developed at Arizona State University, Tempe with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing, Santa Barbara, Calif. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo., is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Image credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Arizona State University. |
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Full-Frame Reference for Tes
…
| title |
Full-Frame Reference for Test Photo of Moon |
| Description |
This pair of views shows how little of the full image frame was taken up by the Moon in test images taken Sept. 8, 2005, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The Mars-bound camera imaged Earth's Moon from a distance of about 10 million kilometers (6 million miles) away -- 26 times the distance between Earth and the Moon -- as part of an activity to test and calibrate the camera. The images are very significant because they show that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft and this camera can properly operate together to collect very high-resolution images of Mars. The target must move through the camera's telescope view in just the right direction and speed to acquire a proper image. The day's test images also demonstrate that the focus mechanism works properly with the telescope to produce sharp images. Out of the 20,000-pixel-by-6,000-pixel full frame, the Moon's diameter is about 340 pixels, if the full Moon could be seen. The illuminated crescent is about 60 pixels wide, and the resolution is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) per pixel. At Mars, the entire image region will be filled with high-resolution information. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched on Aug. 12, 2005, is on course to reach Mars on March 10, 2006. After gradually adjusting the shape of its orbit for half a year, it will begin its primary science phase in November 2006. From the mission's planned science orbit about 300 kilometers (186 miles) above the surface of Mars, the high resolution camera will be able to discern features as small as one meter or yard across. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, prime contractor for the project, built the spacecraft. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo., built the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment instrument for the University of Arizona, Tucson, to provide to the mission. The HiRISE Operations Center at the University of Arizona processes images from the camera. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona |
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New Mars Camera's First Imag
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| title |
New Mars Camera's First Image of Mars from Mapping Orbit |
| Description |
The high resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured its first image of Mars in the mapping orbit, demonstrating the full resolution capability, on Sept. 29, 2006. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) acquired this image at 8:16 AM (Pacific Time), and parts of the image became available to the HiRISE team at 1:30 PM. With the spacecraft at an altitude of 280 kilometers (174 miles), the image scale is 29.7 centimeters per pixel (about 12 inches per pixel). This sub-image covers a small portion of the floor of Ius Chasma, one branch of the giant Valles Marineris system of canyons. The image illustrates a variety of processes that have shaped the Martian surface. There are bedrock exposures of layered materials, which could be sedimentary rocks deposited in water or from the air. Some of the bedrock has been faulted and folded, perhaps the result of large-scale forces in the crust or from a giant landslide. The darker unit of material at right includes many rocks. The image resolves rocks as small as small as 90 centimeters (3 feet) in diameter. At bottom right are a few dunes or ridges of windblown sand. If a person was located on this part of Mars, he or she would just barely be visible in this image. Image TRA_000823_1720 was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on September 29, 2006. Shown here is a small portion of the full image. The full image is centered at minus 7.8 degrees latitude, 279.5 degrees East longitude. The image is oriented such that north is to the top. The range to the target site was 297 kilometers (185.6 miles). At this distance the image scale is 29.7 centimeters per pixel (with one-by-one binning) so objects about 89 centimeters (35 inches) across are resolved. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 3:30 PM and the scene is illuminated from the west with a solar incidence angle of 59.7 degrees, thus the sun was about 30.3 degrees above the horizon. At an LsubS of 113.6 degrees, the season on Mars is Northern Summer / Southern Winter. 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 ]. 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 Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA |
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2003 Rover
| title |
2003 Rover |
| Description |
This artist's rendering shows a view of NASA's Mars 2003 Rover as it sets off roam the surface of the red planet. The rover is scheduled for launch in June 2003 and will arrive in January 2004, shielded in its landing by an airbag shell. The airbag/lander structure, which has no scientific instruments of its own, is shown to the right in this image, behind the rover. The rover will carry five scientific instruments and rock abrading device. The Panoramic Camera and the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer are located on the large mast shown on the front of the rover. The camera will be supplied by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and the spectrometer will be supplied by Arizona State University in Tempe. The payload also includes magnetic targets, provided by the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, that will collect magnetic dust for further study by the science instruments. The Rock Abrasion Tool is located on a robotic arm that can be deployed to study rocks and soil.(In this view, the robotic arm is tucked under the front of the rover.) The tool, provided by Honeybee Robotics Ltd., New York, N.Y., will grind away the outer surfaces of rocks, which may be dusty and weathered, allowing the science instruments to determine the nature of rock interiors. The three instruments that will study the abraded rocks are a Mossbauer Spectrometer, provided by the Johannes Gutenberg- University Mainz, Germany, an Alpha-Proton X-ray Spectrometer provided by Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, also in Mainz, Germany, and a Microscopic Imager, supplied by JPL. The payload also includes magnetic targets, provided by the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, that will collect magnetic dust for further study by the science instruments. In a landing similar to that of the 1997 Mars Pathfinder spacecraft, a parachute will deploy to slow the spacecraft down and airbags will inflate to cushion the landing. Petals of the landing structure will unfold to release the rover, which will drive off to begin its exploration. JPL manages the Mars 2003 Rover for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY is the lead institution for the science payload. |
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Landscape West of Bosporos R
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| title |
Landscape West of Bosporos Rupes |
| Description |
This image was taken in the mid-latitudes of Mars' southern hemisphere near the giant Argyre impact basin. It is located just to the west of a prominent scarp known as Bosporos Rupes. The left side of the image shows cratered plains. Some of the craters are heavily mantled and indistinct, whereas others exhibit sharp rims and dramatic topography. The largest crater in this half of the image is about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) wide. Mounds and ridges, which may be remnants of an ice-rich deposit, are visible on its floor. Three sinuous valleys occupy the center of the image. Valleys such as these were first observed in data returned by the NASA Mariner 9 spacecraft, which reached Mars in 1971. The right side of the image shows part of an impact crater that is approximately 20 kilometers (12 miles) in diameter. The furrowed appearance of the crater's inner wall suggests that it has been extensively modified, perhaps by landslides and flowing water. Like other craters in the area, the floor of this crater has a rough and dissected texture that is often attributed to the loss of ice-rich material. Image AEB_000001_0050_Red was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on March 24, 2006. The image is centered at 40.64 degrees south latitude, 303.49 degrees east longitude. The image is oriented such that north is 7 degrees to the left of up. The range to the target was 2,044 kilometers (1,270 miles). At this distance the image scale is 2.04 meters (6.69 feet) per pixel, so objects as small as 6.1 meters (20 feet) are resolved. In total this image is 40.90 kilometers (25.41 miles) or 20,081 pixels wide and 11.22 kilometers (6.97 miles) or 5,523 pixels high. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 07:30 and the scene is illuminated from the upper right with a solar incidence angle of 81.4 degrees, thus the sun was about 8.6 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 ]. 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 |
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North Polar Layered Deposits
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| title |
North Polar Layered Deposits in Summer |
| Description |
The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this image during its first day of test imaging from the spacecraft's low-altitude mapping orbit, Sept. 29, 2006. This image of Mars' north polar layered deposits was taken during the summer season (solar longitude of 113.6 degrees), when carbon dioxide frost had evaporated from the surface. The bright spots seen here are most likely patches of water frost, but the location of the frost patches does not appear to controlled by topography. Layers are visible at the bottom of the image, mostly due to difference in slope between them. The variations in slope are probably caused by differences in the physical properties of the layers. Thinner layers that have previously been observed in these deposits are visible, and may represent annual deposition of water ice and dust that is thought to form the polar layered deposits. These deposits are thought to record global climate variations on Mars, similar to ice ages on Earth. HiRISE images such as this should allow Mars' climate record to be inferred and compared with climate changes on Earth. Image TRA_000825_2665 was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on September 29, 2006. Shown here is the full image, centered at 86.5 degree latitude, 172.0 degrees east longitude. The image is oriented such that north is to the top. The range to the target site was 298.9 kilometers (186.8 miles). At this distance the image scale is 59.8 centimeters (23.5 inches) per pixel (with two-by-two binning} so objects about 1.79 meters (70 inches) across are resolved. In total the original image was 12.2 kilometers 7.58 mile, 10024 pixels) wide and 6.1 kilometers (3.79 miles, 5000 pixels) long. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 3:30 PM and the scene is illuminated from the southwest with a solar incidence angle of 63.5 degrees, thus the sun was about 26.5 degrees above the horizon. 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 Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona. Credit: NASA/JPL/UA |
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Landscape Northeast of Halle
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Landscape Northeast of Halley Crater |
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. 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, This image shows a landscape west of Mars' Argyre impact basin and northeast of Halley Crater. The large but faint circular feature near the center of the image is an unnamed impact crater about 7.5 kilometers (4.7 miles) in diameter. It has been all but erased by geological (and probably ice-related) processes. In fact, the majority of impact craters in this image have been modified from their original shapes, some undoubtedly beyond recognition. Only a few small craters remain pristine. The most prevalent surface type in this image is rough, dissected terrain, which is characterized by a complex pattern of knobs, pits, ridges and valleys. In places the rough terrain has been covered by a younger material that appears flat, smooth and nearly featureless. The smooth material may have been emplaced as muddy or icy debris. It filled low-lying areas (most notably craters) and surrounded higher features, preserving islands of rough terrain. Wind-formed dunes have formed atop some of the smooth material, and diagonal streaks on the right side of the image may be due to the winds. Images such as this show the importance of water (liquid and/or ice), wind, and impacts in shaping the surface of Mars. Image AEB_000001_0100_Red was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on March 24, 2006. The image is centered at 47.14 degrees south latitude, 302.00 degrees east longitude. It is oriented such that north is 7 degrees to the left of up. The range to the target was 1,699 kilometers (1,056 miles). At this distance the image scale is 1.70 meter (5.58 feet) per pixel in the center portion of the image, so objects as small as 5.1 meter (16.7 feet) are resolved. In the side regions the pixels were binned 2x2 to a scale of 3.4 meters (11.2 feet) per pixel. The camera has a total of 10 red-bandpass CCD detectors, and in this image the first 4 CCDs on the left and the last 3 on the right were binned 2x2, while 3 in the middle returned data at full resolution. In total this image is 34.08 kilometers (21.18 miles) or 20,081 pixels wide and 8.50 kilometers (5.28 miles) or 5,164 pixels high. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 07:27 and the scene is illuminated from the upper right with a solar incidence angle of 84.5 degrees, thus the sun was about 5.5 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 ] |
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Perspective Views of HiRISE
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| title |
Perspective Views of HiRISE First Image |
| Description |
This perspective view generated from digital topography provides an overview of the Mars terrain covered in the first color image of Mars from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It has a field of view 55 degrees wide, and no vertical exaggeration. The overview illustrates how the ridge has deformed several valleys and impact craters. The image is a subset of the first HiRISE image from Mars [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08014 ], which was taken on March 24, 2006. 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 HiRISE 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 ]. 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 |
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Perspective Views of HiRISE
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| title |
Perspective Views of HiRISE First Image |
| Description |
This perspective view generated from digital topography provides an overview of a portion of the Mars terrain covered in the first color image of Mars from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It has a field of view 55 degrees wide, and no vertical exaggeration. The overview illustrates how the ridge has deformed several valleys and impact craters. The image is a subset of the first HiRISE image from Mars [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08014 ], which was taken on March 24, 2006. 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 HiRISE 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 ]. 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 |
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Perspective Views of HiRISE
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| title |
Perspective Views of HiRISE First Image |
| Description |
This perspective view generated from digital topography provides an overview of a portion of the Mars terrain covered in the first color image of Mars from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It has a field of view 55 degrees wide, and no vertical exaggeration. The overview illustrates how the ridge has deformed several valleys and impact craters. The image is a subset of the first HiRISE image from Mars [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08014 ], which was taken on March 24, 2006. 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 HiRISE 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 ]. 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 |
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Sample of the Argyre Impact
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Sample of the Argyre Impact Basin Rim |
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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, This image shows part of a low mountain belt that rings the Argyre impact basin in Mars' southern hemisphere. The mountains or hills seen here are located in the northwestern part of the Charitum Montes. Taken just minutes after the sun had risen over the horizon, only the sun-facing slopes are well illuminated and much of the scene is in shadow, but the camera has nevertheless captured many details of the surface that are only dimly illuminated. There are terrains that are both smooth and rough at this scale (2.94 meters or 9.65 feet per pixel). The rough terrain is littered with blocks roughly 10 meters (30 feet) across, and the smooth material has a uniform appearance broken by subtle, undulating ridges. The rough terrains usually occur at relatively high elevations, and smooth material occupies the lowest areas. In some locations it is evident that boulders from the rough terrain have tumbled downhill onto the smooth material. The smooth material is younger than the rough terrain, and some of it may have formed when water-rich or ice-rich debris flooded low-lying areas. In other areas the smooth material mantles the topography like deposits of airborne dust. Further upslope, the mountain flanks have a variety of rough textures. In places the terrain has been eroded into streamlined forms and striations, suggestive of glacial erosion. Gullies formed in one spot near bottom center. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this image is the dearth of fresh impact craters. The Argyre basin is thought to be billions of years old, but much more recent processes have greatly modified the surface. Image AEB_000001_0150_Red was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on March 24, 2006. The image is centered at 52.20 degrees south latitude, 300.75 degrees east longitude. It is oriented such that north is 7 degrees to the left of up. The range to the target was 1,470 kilometers (913 miles). With 2x2 pixel binning, the scale of the image is 2.94 meters (9.65 feet) per pixel, so objects as small as 8.82 meters (28.94 feet) are resolved. In total this image is 29.47 kilometers (18.31 miles) or 10,040 pixels wide and 76.44 kilometers (47.50 miles) or 26,011 pixels long. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 07:24 and the scene is illuminated from the upper right with a solar incidence angle of 87.1 degrees, thus the sun was about 2.9 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: |
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MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE JET PROPULSION LABORATORY CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011 http://www.jpl.nasa.gov [ http://www.jpl.nasa.gov ] PHOTO CAPTION PIA-00558 [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00558 ] Earth from Mars Odyssey April 23, 2001 The 2001 Mars Odyssey's thermal emission imaging system acquired these images of the Earth using its visible and infrared cameras as the spacecraft left the Earth. The visible light image shows the thin crescent viewed from Odyssey's perspective. The infrared image was acquired at exactly the same time, but shows the entire Earth using the infrared's "night-vision" capability. In visible light, the instrument sees only reflected sunlight and therefore sees nothing on the night side of the planet. In infrared light the camera observes the light emitted by all regions of the Earth. The coldest ground temperatures seen correspond to the nighttime regions of Antarctica, the warmest temperatures occur in Australia. The low temperature in Antarctica is minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit), the high temperature at night in Australia 9 degrees Celsius (48.2 degrees Fahrenheit). These temperatures agree remarkably well with observed temperatures of minus 63 degrees Celsius at Vostok Station in Antarctica, and 10 degrees Celsius in Australia. The images were taken at a distance of 3,563,735 kilometers (more than 2 million miles) on April 19, 2001 as the Odyssey spacecraft left Earth. Mars Odyssey carries three scientific instruments designed to tell us what the Martian surface is made of and about its radiation environment: a thermal-emission imaging system, a gamma ray spectrometer and a Martian radiation environment experiment. Odyssey will arrive at Mars on October 24, when it will fire its main engine and be captured into Mars' orbit. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Principal investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tuscon, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, will operate the science instruments. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, Colo., is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations will be conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The thermal emission imaging system was built by Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing, Santa Barbara, Calif. and is operated by Arizona State University. ##### Image credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Arizona State University |
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*Full Res(984 kB)**High View of Melas* Soaring high above Valles Marineris, the "Grand Canyon of Mars," viewers look down and catch a sight resembling parts of the desert West of the United States, but on a vastly greater scale. Here the canyon averages over a hundred miles wide, and its floor is heaped with rocks, sediments, and landslide debris. Within the canyon walls lie possibly hundreds of layers filling many pages of Mars' geologic record. This scene comes from "Flight Through Mariner Valley," an exciting video produced for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The video takes viewers on a simulated flight into Valles Marineris, where they explore its scenic wonders as their imaginary scout ship dives low over landslides and races through winding canyons. The video features high-resolution images from Arizona State University's Thermal Emission Imaging System multi-band camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey. The images, which show details as small as 300 meters (1,000 feet) across, were taken at infrared wavelengths during the Martian daytime. Scientists joined hundreds of individual frames from the camera into a giant mosaic, then colored the mosaic to approximate how Mars would appear to the human eye. To give the mosaic depth and height, moviemakers fitted it to a computerized topographic model for Valles Marineris. This was developed using hundreds of thousands of altitude measurements by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University |
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First HiRISE Image of Mars:
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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: |
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Melas Chasma, Day and Night
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Melas Chasma, Day and Night |
| Description |
This image is a mosaic of day and night infrared images of Melas Chasma taken by the camera system on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft. The daytime temperature images are shown in black and white, superimposed on the martian topography. A single nighttime temperature image is superimposed in color. The daytime temperatures range from approximately -35 degrees Celsius (-31 degrees Fahrenheit) in black to -5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) in white. Overlapping landslides and individual layers in the walls of Melas Chasma can be seen in this image. The landslides flowed over 100 kilometers (62 miles) across the floor of Melas Chasma, producing deposits with ridges and grooves of alternating warm and cold materials that can still be seen. The temperature differences in the daytime images are due primarily to lighting effects, where sunlit slopes are warm (bright) and shadowed slopes are cool (dark). The nighttime temperature differences are due to differences in the abundance of rocky materials that retain their heat at night and stay relatively warm (red). Fine grained dust and sand (blue) cools off more rapidly at night. These images were acquired using the thermal infrared imaging system infrared Band 9, centered at 12.6 micrometers. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science in Washington, D.C. Investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, operate the science instruments. Additional science partners are located at the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and at Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL. Image credit NASA/JPL/Arizona State University. |
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First HiRISE image of Mars
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First HiRISE image of Mars |
| Description |
. 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, The first image of Mars by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a story of geologic change in the eastern Bosporos Planum region. Old stream valleys cut into the flanks of a gently sloping mountain range in the center of the image. Layers of smooth-textured deposits have mantled the stream valleys and many impact craters. Wind and sublimation of water or carbon dioxide ice have partially eroded patches of the smooth-textured deposits, leaving behind areas of layered and hummocky terrain. A prominent ridge that extends from the top to the bottom of the image dominates the scene. This ridge formed above a thrust fault, a type of fault that occurs when the surface of a planet is compressed. On planetary surfaces, such fault-related ridges are termed "wrinkle ridges." They are commonly observed on Mars, as well as on Earth's moon and on Venus and Mercury. The wrinkle ridge imaged here is named Ogygis Rupes. This wrinkle ridge has deformed several valleys and impact craters. Throughout the scene, geologically young sand dunes are present within stream valleys and some impact craters. The area is also sprinkled with many small young impact craters, which are distinguished by sharp crater rims and bright or dark halos of ejected material. This image demonstrates how a single HiRISE image can capture a multitude of geologic processes. Image AEB_000001_0000_Red was taken by HiRISE on March 24, 2006. The image is centered at 33.65 degrees south latitude, 305.07 degrees east longitude. It 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. In total this image is 49.92 kilometers (31.02 miles) or 20,081 pixels wide and 23.66 kilometers (14.70 miles) or 9,523 pixels long. 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 degrees, thus the sun was 12 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 ] |
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Perspective Views of HiRISE
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| title |
Perspective Views of HiRISE First Image |
| Description |
This perspective view generated from digital topography provides an overview of a portion of the Mars terrain covered in the first color image of Mars from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It has a field of view 55 degrees wide, and no vertical exaggeration. The overview illustrates how the ridge has deformed several valleys and impact craters. The image is a subset of the first HiRISE image from Mars [ http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08014 ], which was taken on March 24, 2006. 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 HiRISE 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 ]. 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 |
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A Myriad of Geologic Process
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| title |
A Myriad of Geologic Processes in Terra Cimmeria |
| Description |
This scene in a region of Mars named Terra Cimmeria shows a variety of ancient and recent geologic processes. In the upper portion of the image, a twisting ridge of raised ground may outline the location of a subsurface thrust fault. This type of fault results in the compression and crumpling of a planet's surface. This crumpling of the planet's surface has squeezed two originally circular craters on the ridge into oval-shaped craters. Valleys are also present throughout the image, suggesting that water flowed across this area a long time ago. Many valleys and craters in the image are now filled by deposits of dust or debris. This debris mantle is common over the middle latitudes of Mars and is a geologically recent deposit. Image AEB_000002_0050_Red was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on March 25, 2006. The image is centered at 40.64 degrees south latitude, 144.39 degrees east longitude. It is oriented such that north is 7 degrees to the left of up. The range to the target was 2,038 kilometers (1,266 miles). At this distance the image scale is 2.04 meters (6.69 feet) per pixel, so objects as small as 6.1 meters (20 feet) are resolved. In total this image is 12.34 kilometers (7.67 miles) or 6,045 pixels wide and 34.68 kilometers (21.55 miles) or 17,003 pixels long. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 07:28 and the scene is illuminated from the upper right with a solar incidence angle of 82.0 degrees, thus the sun was about 8.0 degrees above the horizon. At an Ls of 30 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 ]. 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 |
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Twilight Imaging of Kepler C
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Twilight Imaging of Kepler Crater Floor |
| Description |
This image of the floor of Kepler crater in early morning twilight highlights the quality of images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera even under extremely minimal lighting conditions. At the time that this image was acquired, the sun had just barely risen over the horizon. This faint illumination reveals a terrain dotted by numerous exhumed impact craters. These impact craters once dominated the landscape of this region until they were buried under a blanket of soil. Subsequent wind action and perhaps sublimation of subsurface water and carbon-dioxide ice has etched pits and grooves into the blanket of soil, revealing the older impact craters below. These exhumed impact craters can be recognized as circular depressions or plateaus. Also present in this scene are multitudes of dunes that have formed as sand has blown across the terrain. Dunes have accumulated in depressions, such as the pits and grooves associated with the exhumed impact craters, as well as on the floors of some of the larger craters. Image AEB_000002_0100_Red was taken by HiRISE camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on March 25, 2006. The image is centered at 47.14 degrees south latitude, 142.90 degrees east longitude. It is oriented such that north is 7 degrees to the left of up. The range to the target was 1,694 kilometers (1,053 miles). Because the image was acquired by mixing the resolution levels of HiRISE detectors, the scale of the image is 6.76 meters (22.18 feet) per pixel, so objects as small as 27.04 meters (88.71 feet) are resolved. In total this image is 33.88 kilometers (21.05 miles) or 5,017 pixels wide and 37.18 kilometers (23.10 miles) or 5,636 pixels long. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 07:25 and the scene is illuminated from the upper right with a solar incidence angle of 85.1 degrees, thus the sun was about 4.9 degrees above the horizon. At an Ls of 30 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 ]. 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 |
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