Have you ever ever questioned what it is perhaps prefer to view Mars from the vantage level of a spacecraft in orbit above the Purple Planet?
New photographs from NASA’s Mars Odyssey Orbiter seize what Mars would appear to be when seen from above. Mission scientists not too long ago rotated Odyssey towards the Martian horizon for one full orbit to seize the brand new imagery of the Purple Planet, revealing deep craters and various cloud buildings as astronauts orbiting Mars would count on to see them.
“Should you have been an astronaut, the very first thing that might catch your eye are all of those lovely craters, which, in fact, look a lot completely different than what you’ll see on Earth,” Laura Kerber, deputy venture scientist for the Odyssey mission, stated in a video from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “However the second factor you’ll see, since you’re trying on the planet from an angle, is the construction in these lovely clouds.”
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Whereas the Odyssey orbiter has been maneuvered in numerous methods, that is the primary time the spacecraft has been oriented on this means — usually its digital camera hangs straight down towards the Martian floor for mapping.
“This time, we needed to do one thing somewhat extra excessive,” Kerber defined within the video.
From this special approach, Odyssey documented the planet’s curving horizon, cratered floor and atmospheric layers, together with various clouds starting from carbon dioxide ice clouds to water ice clouds and mud clouds. The orbiter is supplied with a warmth imaginative and prescient digital camera — known as Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) — which identifies the completely different sorts of clouds current in Mars’ ambiance, in line with the video.
The brand new panoramic photographs have been taken from an altitude of about 250 miles (400 kilometers), which is similar altitude at which the Worldwide Area Station flies above Earth.
Launched in April 2001, Odyssey is the longest operating spacecraft at Mars. The orbiter will hit 100,000 orbits subsequent 12 months and is present process a number of science initiatives.
“One is a rock-mapping marketing campaign that may assist us land future missions extra safely on the floor [of Mars],” Kerber defined within the video. “We’re additionally benefiting from our particular dawn-dusk orbit to map clouds, fog, and frost that solely exist at sure occasions a day. And we’re additionally planning our subsequent maneuver to look out on the clouds on the horizon once more.”
