Mars Photo of the Day - Mar 20 2012

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Today's Image of Mars shows frost in Utopia Planitia, as taken by the southwest facing Viking 2 lander on May 18 1979, approximately one Martian year (687 days) after the lander first imaged frost at the same spot. This thin layer of water-ice frost on Mars is thought to be only a couple thousandth's of a centimeter thick.

But how did the water-ice frost form? Scientists believe that dust particles throughout the Martian atmosphere pick up water particles , then when it gets cold enough for carbon dioxide to solidify some of it attaches to the dust and falls onto the surface.

Mars Photo of the Day - Jan 13 2012

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Today we're going to take a look at 15 different images of Mars taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera. These images show the parachute and backshell of the six successful Mars Landers: Viking I, Viking 2, Mars Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, and Phoenix. 

It is easy to spot these landers and their associated hardware because we know exactly where they landed. We still haven't been able to find the failed landers, Mars 2, Mars 3, Mars 6, Beagle 2, and Mars Polar Lander, despite extensive searching. Finding the failed landers is much harder because we don't know where they land and we have to guess according to their last known positions as they approached Mars.

When trying to identify a lander the easiest things to identify are the parachute and the large protective backshell. As you can see from most the of the below images, the parachute is the easiest thing to see. The lander itself is relatively small and hard to see. All but one (Mars 2) of the lost landers are believed to have deployed their parachute so they should theoretically be visible if in an area imaged by HiRISE.

Clicking on this image will take you to the original article from the Planetary Society about finding Mars landers.

See All Mars Photo of the Day Posts!