Mars Photo of the Day - Jan 24 2012

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Today's Image of Mars is from the European Space Agency's Rosetta's flyby of Mars in 2007.  This image was one of many Rosetta images of Mars recently released by the ESA. This spectacular image shows Phobos transiting Mars and the shadow left on the Martian surface by its largest moon, but that isn't all. We can also see Gale Crater, which is the August 2012 landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity. This image also shows Gusev Crater, which was studied by Mars Exploration Rover Spirit and found to have numerous dust devils.

The ESA's Rosetta spacecraft was launched on Mar 2 2004 on a mission to study the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. In 2007 it did a flyby of Mars, which is when it took numerous images of Mars and its largest moon, Phobos. 

Labels for this image come from The Planetary Society. Clicking on the image will take you to the high resolution version. [See the Planetary Society's article on the newly released Rosetta images]

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Mars Photo of the Day - Nov 29 2011

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Today's Image of Mars shows part of El Dorado, located in Gusev Crater, the landing site for Mars Exploration Rover Spirit back in 2004. 

El Dorado is a field of dark, rippled sand that is visible from space as a dark spot on the side of Columbia Hills. The composition of El Dorado results in the low albedo feature seen from orbit. It was determined that El Dorado is a large deposit of dark windblown, "well rounded, well sorted, olivine rich" sand (Lunar Planetary Institure). While the sands of El Dorado are different than those in other parts of Gusev Crater, they are not as different as the image taken from orbit suggested. 

The disparity between the image taken from orbit and the ground image is a result of people interpreting the raw images sent from the orbiter incorrectly. For a full report on this phenomena, please see The Planetary Society's article about Spirit from 2006 where this image is also discussed.

Clicking on this image will take you to the High Resolution Image from NASA. 

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Mars Photo of the Day - Nov 28 2011

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Today's Image of Mars is a compilation of dust devil images from Mars Exploration Rover Spirit as taken in Gusev Crater. These images were taken on Sol 543 of Spirit's mission, which was on July 12 2005. 

Gusev Crater is approximately 166km in diameter and is thought to have formed between three and four billion years ago. The crater was likely home to a lake in the distant Martian past, as Ma'adim Valles drains into it and the ground is rich with sediments that are up to 3000 feet thick. 

Images of dust devil tracks in Gusev Crater were taken from orbit and investigated by Mars Rover Spirit. There is speculation that Spirit lasted so long on Mars because dust devils helped clean its solar panels. 

Clicking this image will take you to the original, slightly larger version of this from NASA.

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