Mars Photo of the Day - Apr 10 2012

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Today's Image of Mars shows a potential 2018 landing site for the joint ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Rover. This candidate site is in Cerberus Palus, but it is one of many potential landing sites for the ExoMars rover.

The original HiRISE image has no caption yet, so this will direct to other potential landing sites for the ExoMars rover.

NASA was recently forced to back out of its obligation to provide material support for the mission worth more than $2 Billion. Russia's Roscosmos recently agreed to take over the portion of mission abandoned by NASA, quelling fears that most or all of the ExoMars missions would have to be scrapped.

While Roscosmos has agreed to increase their participation in the joint Mars mission, they have yet to formalize the agreement and cement out the specifics. The ESA and Roscosmos plan to finalize the agreement at some point in November. The important things for now is that the mission is still on schedule to launch the Trace Gas Orbiter in 2016 and the rover in 2018!

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Mars Photo of the Day - Feb 27 2012

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Today's Image of Mars comes from HiRISE and shows part of Cerberus Palus that is broken up and blocky. What you see was likely once a flat surface that broke apart; just under the surface was probably a freezing mudflow. The pieces of that flat surface began flowing apart on top of slushy material. When the slushy material eventually froze it would have expanded and forced its way up between broken, drifting pieces, pushing them even farther apart.

Cerberus Palus is 480km across and located in the Elysium quadrangle of Mars. Clicking on this image will take you to a similar image showcased by Mars Travel, since the original HiRISE image does not currently have a caption.

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