Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: Spotlight


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Spotlight on Mars

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20-Dec-2007

Alignment on December 24, 2007

This is a special day that happens only every 26 months when Earth is exactly between the Sun and Mars. Find out more about opposition and experiment with Mars and Earth in their orbits.

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03-Dec-2007

Frosty Martian Dunes Entice Earthbound Observers

This color image shows two nearly vertical swaths of wavy, white, ice-covered dunes bearing horizontal dark streaks and round dark spots. Between the dunes is a smooth, reddish-pink, rippled surface.

Conspicuous dark streaks atop icy dunes on Mars allure scientists and non-scientists, yet their origin remains a mystery. Perhaps they are small avalanches or patches of sand covered by a thin veneer of ice. Perhaps they formed when cold gas jets of evaporating ice spewed dust onto the surface.

Imagine being able to point a camera at such features from 60 million miles away! Students in Budapest, Hungary effectively did that, selecting this site for observation from orbit through a program that invites the public to help NASA select targets for imaging on Mars.

Explore the HiRISE Web site >>
Read about the classroom program >>

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18-Oct-2007

Lava 'Leaps Out' in 3-D!

Dazzled by the beauty of the strange features in the Athabasca Valles channel system on Mars, geologist Windy Jaeger pondered their origin. In a new paper, she concludes that lava filled the channel system to the brim and then drained away leaving a thin coating of hard lava rock to preserve the underlying landscape. Other unique features indicating that massive lava flows once filled the channels are hydrovolcanic cones that formed when water met lava and boiled explosively, leaving behind small, conical and ring-shaped features visible in and around the dune field (upper left).

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29-Aug-2007

Rockin' Radar Rolls

This is a set of two images, with the ‘before’ image on top and the ’after’ image on the bottom. The pair is meant to highlight how rolling the spacecraft will allow scientists a clearer view of more layering at Mars’ poles. The background of the image shows an eye chart like the ones used by eye doctors to test vision. Both radar images are black and white. The top image shows a vague, white radar reading that represents rock layering. The bottom image is much stronger, showing multiple rock layers.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft engineers are considering rolling the spacecraft to allow scientists a better view of polar rock layering.

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20-Jul-2007

Mars Rovers Battle Severe Dust Storm

Whopper dust storms on Mars are whipping up potential problems for the twin Mars rovers, Opportunity and Spirit. Opportunity in particular is getting less power from the sun because it's blocked by a dusty haze. To conserve Opportunity's power supply, engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have told the rover to conduct only essential operations. Once the storm subsides, the plan is to have Opportunity descend into Victoria Crater, which could be a site of intriguing science discoveries.

Huge dust storms whip around Mars every 5 to 6 years. Scientists hope the rovers will weather this latest storm, and in fact, that they will learn a lot about Martian dust storms from observations made by the rovers, by NASA's orbiting Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and by the European Mars Express spacecraft.

Related Images and Animations:
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter | Mars Exploration Rovers

Related Videos
MARCI Images

11-Jul-2007

MRO Instrument Site Monitors Orbiter's Track

This image is a screen shot taken from the computer program that allows viewers to 'ride along' with the CRISM camera aboard MRO. Each section is numbered to indicate that different data is available in these separate quadrants. The quadrant on the top left shows an orange-brown surface map of Mars and a solid black line that represents where the camera is aiming on the planet. The bottom left quadrant is a graph showing circles that represent Earth and Mars and their relation to our Sun. Next to that is the window where viewers 'see' what the CRISM instrument is 'seeing.' The entire right side of the image contains data such as the instrument's target location and the spacecraft's altitude.

CRISM View is a first-of-its-kind opportunity to watch Mars through the "eyes" of the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) - as if you were riding along with it on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter!

The team operating the mineral-mapping camera (CRISM) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter offers Web users a simulated view, in real time, of what part of Mars the instrument is seeing as it orbits the planet. The viewer is based on the application that team members use to monitor their instrument.

See http://crism.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/articles/060707.php.

28-Jun-2007

Overlooking Opportunity

In this black and white image, Victoria Crater takes up most of the middle and left side of the frame. The crater is large and its rim is scalloped and made up of a series of inlets. In the middle of the crater is a field of bright, wavy dunes. Around the crater are the tracks of the Opportunity rover. They are bright, thin lines that are etched into the martian surface surrounding the crater.

As engineers and scientists anticipate the Opportunity rover's long-awaited descent into "Victoria Crater," they have a bird's-eye view thanks to the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Opportunity's tracks decorate the edge of Victoria Crater like a constellation in our night sky. These tracks represent nearly a year's worth of investigation to characterize the massive depression before deciding whether or not to enter.

Plans are to take a dip into the crater around the second week of July and then proceed down, if driving conditions are favorable.

17-May-2007

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Making Quick Work of its Science Goals

This is a group of images. The image on the left is the largest of the three and is a black and white image of a large crater on Mars. In the right, center of this image is a small black box representing the area that is detailed in the two smaller images on the right. The two images to the right of the black and white image are the same size and they both represent the same area. In the tope image, the dunes represented appear blue and orange. In the bottom image, the dunes appear almost entirely orange-colored, with only hints of blue.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is an overachiever! About six months into its science-gathering phase and the orbiter has already returned 11 Terabits of data – that’s enough to fill over 2,000 CDs!

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04-May-2007

Rock Layers Exposed by Wind

This black-and-white orbital image shows elongate, teardrop-shaped layers of rock stacked atop each other and viewed from above. To the left and right, the layers drop off as sharp cliffs to sandier surfaces below.

Erosion has exposed light-toned, layered rocks on the northern rim of Hellas Basin, the largest impact crater on Mars. Details in the layering seen in this image from the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment reveal variations in brightness that may indicate differing mineralogies.

More at UofA...

16-Feb-2007

100 Days of Operations for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

2 images, the left side is a HiRISE image and the right is a CRISM image.

The CRISM and HiRISE instruments have given the orbiter's science team and the public much to celebrate as they show us Mars in unprecedented detail.

Less than a year since Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrived at Mars and less than four months since its science phase began, instruments aboard the spacecraft are not just sending back stunning images, but making good on the promise to advance our fundamental knowledge of our neighboring planet.

CRISM has looked at recently-formed craters that NASA's champion Mars Global Surveyor mission had imaged over its amazing 10-year journey around Mars. The powerful spectrometer allows scientists to better characterize these impact sites as well as identify specific minerals in and around them. The instrument is also examining areas in the northern plains where NASA's Phoenix scout mission is set to land in May of 2008. It is vital to understand this extremely hostile environment before landing spacecraft there.

Meanwhile, on another part of the instrument deck, the HiRISE camera has been producing images with unprecedented resolution and clarity. Select images have revealed what scientists call "haloes." They believe these are the effects of liquid or gas that flowed through underground rocks on ancient Mars. Since we recognize water as a fundamental part of life as we know it on Earth, any detection of liquid - ancient or recent - on Mars could indicate conditions ripe for microbial life.

HiRISE: Press Release | Images

CRISM: Press Release | Images

11-Jan-2007

MRO Pinpoints Pathfinder

This image is a close-up of the area in the vicinity of the Pathfinder landing site.

Using the high-resolution camera, visual clues such as peaks and craters seen in earlier images, and old-fashioned detective skills, scientists were able to identify the 1997 Pathfinder mission within a vast landscape of seemingly homogenous Martian terrain.