ESA MISSION UPDATE
30 July 2008
Mars Express closed in on the intriguing martian moon Phobos at 6:49 CEST on 23 July, flying past at 3 km/s, only 93 km from the moon. The ESA spacecraft’s fly-bys of the moon have returned its most detailed full-disc images ever, also in 3-D, using the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board.
Phobos is what scientists call a ‘small irregular body’. Measuring 27 km × 22 km × 19 km, it is one of the least reflective objects in the Solar System, thought to be a capture-asteroid or a remnant of the material that formed the planets.
The best images of Phobos ever
The HRSC images, which are still under processing, form a bounty for scientists studying Phobos. They are a result of observations carried out over several close fly-bys of the martian moon, performed over the past three weeks. At their best, the pictures have a resolution of 3.7 m/pixel and are taken in five channels (in the stereo channel) for images in 3-D and (in the photometric channels) to perform analyses of the physical properties of the surface.
Continue reading ‘Mars Express Photographs Universe’s Largest Known Potato; Best Images Ever of Hideously Misshapen Moon’
ESA PRESS RELEASE
ESA’s Mars Express radar sounder, MARSIS, has looked beneath the martian surface and opened up the third dimension for planetary exploration. The technique’s success is prompting scientists to think of all the other places in the Solar System where they would like to use radar sounders.
No matter how accurate a camera is, it can only map a planet’s surface. To retrieve information about the underground realm, planetary scientists in the past would have thought it necessary to land on the surface and start digging.
But that would only be good for a single spot on a large planet and the first few decimetres of the surface. To get the global picture of the subsurface they need a radar sounder, such as the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS), to find the best spots for the future landers to go and dig.
MARSIS is built to map the distribution of liquid and solid water in the upper portions of martian crust. If reservoirs of water are detected, it will help us understand the hydrological, geological, climatic and possibly biological evolution of Mars. The radar experiment works because every time a radar wave crosses a boundary between different substances, it generates an echo that the orbiter detects.
Continue reading ‘ESA Breaks on Through to the “Third Dimension” on Mars’
