[ad_1]
Out of This World: NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter was launched in 2001 and has simply accomplished its twenty second 12 months of shut Martian observations. With the spacecraft nonetheless going sturdy, scientists right here on Earth are discovering much more methods to use its capabilities.
Mars Odyssey was just lately employed to seize never-before-seen pictures of the Purple Planet’s environment, offering scientists – and the general public – with a shocking, new view of Mars’ curving horizon. The spacecraft took the images from an altitude of round 400 kilometers, which is similar altitude the place the Worldwide House Station (ISS) orbits our Pale Blue Dot.
NASA scientists used the infrared digital camera aboard Odyssey often called Thermal Emission Imaging System or THEMIS. The digital camera’s sensitivity to heat permits NASA to map ice, rock, sand, and mud formations, together with temperature modifications, however it’s normally restricted to floor observations.
THEMIS is put in in a set place on the Orbiter, subsequently it normally factors straight down at Mars’ floor. To get a brand new view of the Martian environment, NASA engineers on the JPL needed to work along with Lockheed Martin House – the corporate that constructed Odyssey – to organize a brand new plan for the spacecraft.
THEMIS cannot pivot, NASA explains, subsequently the complete Orbiter wanted to regulate its place. The spacecraft was rotated virtually 90 levels, ensuring that the Solar was nonetheless offering vitality to its photo voltaic panels with out damaging different delicate tools. Due to the deliberate rotation, the Orbiter briefly pointed its antenna away from Earth inflicting a communication blackout for a number of hours through the statement section.
The panoramic pictures captured by Odyssey present Mars’ curving floor, with the hazy layers of clouds and mud composing the planet’s skinny environment extending in each course. The brand new view shouldn’t be solely beautiful for house lovers, however it’s going to additionally assist NASA scientists achieve new insights into Mars’ environment.
Whereas Odyssey was tilted from its ordinary place associated to Mars floor, the US house company additionally took new pictures of Phobos. The minuscule Martian satellite tv for pc, which measures simply 26 km throughout, was captured below a special angle and lighting situations which might present new information about its composition and bodily properties. Such information might assist lastly settle the controversy over Phobos’ origin, because the moon was both captured by Mars gravity or ejected from the floor following an enormous planetary impression.
[ad_2]
Source
