Friday, January 22, 2010

There's a webcam orbiting Mars!


The European Space Agency has a probe orbiting Mars called The Mars Express. It's job is to:
  • image the entire surface at high resolution (10 metres/pixel) and selected areas at super resolution (2 metres/pixel);
  • produce a map of the mineral composition of the surface at 100 metre resolution;
  • map the composition of the atmosphere and determine its global circulation;
  • determine the structure of the sub-surface to a depth of a few kilometres;
  • determine the effect of the atmosphere on the surface;
  • determine the interaction of the atmosphere with the solar wind.
Then there is this camera that was on board to watch the deployment of a lander. That was it's sole purpose. Thing is, it still works. The science team has little or no use for it. But it's still taking pictures and the ESA releases sets of these every few days. But they are raw pictures. Several amateurs, like myself, take these images and process them to bring out the detail. Like I did here.

Anyway, here's the link to my images on the ESA website.

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