Lookin' Good, Mars! ExoMars' First High-Res Photos Are Incredible
Source: Space.com
Behold! The European Space Agency's new Mars orbiter just sent back its first high-resolution images of the Red Planet, and the view is amazing.
These first images allowed ESA to test the camera's color- and stereo-imaging capabilities, which would allow CaSSIS to build 3D maps of the Martian surface using measurements with sound waves.
Though the color-imaging equipment was functioning as planned, the first photos appear black and white. That's because the areas photographed are dusty ― volcanic without much color to be seen. "We will have to wait a little until something colorful passes under the spacecraft," Thomas said.
TGO will spend nine to 12 months "aerobraking," or slowing down to round out its elliptical orbit. Eventually, the orbiter will circle the planet at a constant altitude of about 250 miles (400 km). Its primary science mission is scheduled to begin by the end of 2017. Then TGO will begin studying gases in the Martian atmosphere.
Read more: http://www.space.com/34843-exomars-cassis-first-mars-photos.html
First images from ExoMars mission
almost like being there, almost
livetohike
(22,084 posts)justhanginon
(3,287 posts)Baclava
(12,047 posts)meanwhile, Curiosity keeps on chugging
http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/mars-rover-curiosity-mission-updates/
christx30
(6,241 posts)but I don't think it would work due to the time delay on communications between Earth and Mars. It takes between 13 and 24 minutes for a signal go between the two planets. Too big of a gap to run any kind of aircraft.
Even with a rover, this kind of delay can cause trouble.
Try this: Look at your living room and plan a trip to the kitchen. Close your eyes, and walk a few steps. Then open your eyes, look at where you are and the path you need to take, and adjust for any new obstacles in your path, then close your eyes and walk. That's pretty much how the Curiosity team describes moving around the Martian surface. It's slow paced and dangerous.
But I'd love to see what kind of video it'd come up with. If it could survive the dust storms.
Baclava
(12,047 posts)yeah - I want to see what's down there
christx30
(6,241 posts)Are you watching Mars on National Geographic? It's at once a documentary that takes place in 2016 with information about Mars with scientists and Elon Musk talking about it, and a scripted drama in 2033, following the first team that lands on Mars, and everything that they go through. It's gorgeously shot. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Baclava
(12,047 posts)good plan! away from the radiation on the surface
they can't be much different from the lava tubes on earth
olddad56
(5,732 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,219 posts)Baclava
(12,047 posts)Baclava
(12,047 posts)mountain grammy
(26,573 posts)And thanks for posting
Liberalagogo
(1,770 posts)of a bed spread at the:
eppur_se_muova
(36,227 posts)How is a probe orbiting in the vaccuum of space going to transmit or receive sound waves ??
petronius
(26,581 posts)Baclava
(12,047 posts)CASSIS - COLOUR AND STEREO SURFACE IMAGING SYSTEM
http://exploration.esa.int/mars/48523-trace-gas-orbiter-instruments/?fbodylongid=2210
christx30
(6,241 posts)But the atmosphere is very thin, so it doesn't slow the craft down. Maybe it's just thick enough for sound waves.
Thor_MN
(11,843 posts)and lack of an editor of any sort.
kebob
(499 posts)Baclava
(12,047 posts)Frozen beneath a region of cracked and pitted plains on Mars lies about as much water as what's in Lake Superior, largest of the Great Lakes, researchers using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have determined.
Scientists examined part of Mars' Utopia Planitia region, in the mid-northern latitudes, with the orbiter's ground-penetrating Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument. Analyses of data from more than 600 overhead passes with the onboard radar instrument reveal a deposit more extensive in area than the state of New Mexico. The deposit ranges in thickness from about 260 feet (80 meters) to about 560 feet (170 meters), with a composition that's 50 to 85 percent water ice, mixed with dust or larger rocky particles.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6680