planet Mars

Image of the Day…. Images of MARS sent by India”s MOM …

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Mars and its atmosphere, seen by MOM spacecraft

Two early images from India’s MOM spacecraft. One shows an edge of Mars, with the planet’s tenuous atmosphere above. The other shows the whole planet. Beautiful!

India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) captured this image of the

The world applauded India last week as its maiden interplanetary spacecraft – the Mars Orbiter Mission, or MOM – achieved orbit around the Red Planet. Here are some of the first images transmitted from MOM. At top, a gorgeous shot of the limb, or edge, of Mars with the tenuous Martian atmosphere silhouetted against the blackness of space. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India’s space agency, released this image on September 25, 2014, about a day after MOM arrived.

ISRO announced that MOM successfully entered into an orbit around planet Mars on September 24, 2014 at 7:30 a.m. India Standard Time (02:00 UTC; 20:00 EDT in the U.S. on September 23). MOM carries five instrument suite whose mission is to study the surface and atmosphere of Mars with a particular emphasis on measuring the methane in the Martian atmosphere: a key indicator of microbial life.

Image via Mars Orbiter Mission

Above is another beauty from MOM, acquired on September 28, 2014.

The Schiaparelli Basin (460 kilometers / 286 miles wide) is visible just below right, of dead center. To the left is the Meridiani Terra with Meridiani Planum where NASA’s Opportunity rover is still operating almost flawlessly after 10 years on Mars.

Oxia Palus is clearly visible as is Chryse Planitia where the Viking 1 lander touched down in July 1976 and also the Ares Vallis, where the Mars Pathfinder successfully landed in July 1997.

Syrtis Major is visible towards the right limb.

Bottom line: Here are some early images from India’s MOM spacecraft. One shows the limb of Mars, with its tenuous atmosphere above. The other shows the whole planet, with a dust storm visible in the planet’s northern hemisphere. Beautiful!

SOURCE:::: earth sky news

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MARS MAVEN OF NASA….

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Mars MAVEN spacecraft’s first observations

MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars. It entered orbit around Mars on September 21, 2014.

MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars. It entered orbit around Mars on September 22, 2014. This composite image represents the first observations returned from the craft. Image via NASA

NASA said yesterday (September 24, 2014) that MAVEN – aka the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft – has now obtained its first observations of the extended upper atmosphere surrounding our neighboring planet Mars.

MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars. Its Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument obtained these false-color images eight hours after the successful completion of Mars orbit insertion by the spacecraft at 10:24 p.m. EDT Sunday, September 21, after a 10-month journey.

The image shows the planet from an altitude of 36,500 km in three ultraviolet wavelength bands. Blue shows the ultraviolet light from the sun scattered from atomic hydrogen gas in an extended cloud that goes to thousands of kilometers above the planet’s surface. Green shows a different wavelength of ultraviolet light that is primarily sunlight reflected off of atomic oxygen, showing the smaller oxygen cloud. Red shows ultraviolet sunlight reflected from the planet’s surface; the bright spot in the lower right is light reflected either from polar ice or clouds.

The oxygen gas is held close to the planet by Mars’ gravity, while lighter hydrogen gas is present to higher altitudes and extends past the edges of the image. These gases derive from the breakdown of water and carbon dioxide in Mars’ atmosphere. Over the course of its one-Earth-year primary science mission, MAVEN observations like these will be used to determine the loss rate of hydrogen and oxygen from the Martian atmosphere. These observations will allow us to determine the amount of water that has escaped from the planet over time.

Bottom line: First observations from the Mars MAVEN spacecraft, which is dedicated to exploring Mars’ tenuous upper atmosphere.

Via NASA

SOURCE:::: earth sky news

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