Justin DuJardin |O_o| |x_X| |-_-| |o_O|

Holy Mars Orbiter, Batman!

In August  of 2005 NASA launched the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter,  In March of 2006 it arrived at Mars and began to study the terrain and atmosphere in great detail.  Over the last 4 years the MRO has gathered more data on Mars than the sum of all other missions to Mars combined[2].

Today let’s take a look at some of the amazing pictures it has returned.  All of the amazing detail of the images you see on this page are provided by HiRISE which is one of 6 instruments carried on-board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter…

High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (link)

HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona Tucson and has the most powerful telescopic camera ever flown to another planet at its disposal.  As of October 8th, 2009 the HiRISE project has released into the public domain almost 1.2million images, totaling just under 38Terabytes of data[3].

Dust Devils (wiki)

Another interesting thing to come out of HiRISE are pictures like you see below in which dust devils on the Martian surface leave dark trails in their wake.  It’s as if the dust devils are using Mars like a massive etch-a-sketch board.  If you click here, you can see a dust devil on the surface taken by one of the rovers.

Near Surface Ice (blog)

There have been numerous pictures of Ice on the surface of mars, but recently people working at HiRISE have published findings that show evidence of ice being exposed and melting away just a few feet beneath the surface of the planet.   Not only that, but the locations of the craters having exposed ice are not in close proximity to the polar areas.

You can read the full blog entry about it here.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Details

For those studious readers out there, the MRO carries a payload of six instruments to help achieve it’s stated goals of gaining a better overall understanding of Mars in general, and identifying potential landing locations for future missions.

High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment

Photographs the surface of mars in extreme detail.   It is expected to cover about 1 percent of the surface during it’s experiment lifetime.

Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars

Provides spectral information to help identify patches of water-related minerals.

Context Camera

Takes wider-swath pictures to provide context for smaller images taken by other instruments.

Mars Climate Sounder

Tracks variations in water vapor, dust, and temperature in the atmosphere.

Mars Color Imager

Produces global images of Mars to track changes in the weather and ozone.

Shallow Subsurface Radar

Probes to approximately 1/3 of a mile below the martian surface to extract information about the layers of potential rock/ice/water that may be hidden.

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Pretty cool stuff if you ask me.  If you’re not satisfied with the images presented here, feel free to go digging through the HiRISE website archive of images, but I’d definitely recommend starting with the Scientific Themes section of images.

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References

1. NASA: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission Info – http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/present/2005.html
2. NASA: Mars Exploration Program Historical Log – http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/log/
3. HiRISE Blog: October 2009 PDS Release statistics – http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/HiBlog/2009/10/08/october-2009-pds-release/
4. HiRISE Blog: Water ice exposed! – http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/HiBlog/2009/09/25/water-ice-exposed/
5. NASA: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter : Mission Fact Sheet – http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/newsroom/factsheets/pdfs/MRO-060303.pdf