Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
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Q-U-BosporusPlanum-PCF-LXTT4.jpgFeatures of Bosporus Planum (Natural Colors; credits for the additional process. and color.: Dr Paolo C. Fienga - Lunexit Team)90 visitenessun commentoMareKromium
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Q-V-Argyre Basin-PIA08067.jpgArgyre Basin53 visiteThis picture (MARCI2-2b) shows a color composite made from the MARCI red, green, and blue bands.
It differs from the MOC wide angle color composite because, to create a color image with MOC data, we synthesize (fake) a green channel by adding the red and blue channels together and dividing by two. The slightly greenish tint of the MARCI image shows that the approximation used for MOC images underestimates the amount of green. Further calibration will be needed before a "true" color image — as it would appear to a human eye looking down from orbit — can be reconstructed from the MARCI data.
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Q-V-Atmosphere.jpgMars' Atmosphere61 visiteAs part of the checkout of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) payload after the 10 March 2006 orbit insertion, the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) acquired a seven band color wide angle view of Mars on 24 March 2006. Illustrated here are some of these test images. Note that the linear banding seen in these images are artifacts resulting from incomplete removal of the detector pixel to pixel variations. Such deviations from ground testing calibration are an important reason for taking checkout images.
In the first figure (MARCI2-2a), three views acquired by MRO MARCI are compared to a color composite of two views acquired about 4 hours later by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC). MRO imaging occurred during the early morning on Mars, while the MGS observations were made at around 2 PM local solar time. The region of Mars imaged by MRO on this day was south of the Valles Marineris and includes the large Argyre Basin, its interior plains, Argyre Planitia, and the mountains that comprise the basin rim, Nereidum Montes to the northwest (middle of images) and Charitum Montes to the southeast (bottom of images).
The ultraviolet (UV) image (260 nm in MARCI2-2a) shows how the planet appears in an ozone absorption band. Relatively darker areas in this band normally will indicate the presence of ozone, and relatively lighter areas will indicate the absence of ozone. Water vapor on Mars is anticorrelated with ozone, meaning that lighter areas can be used to track water vapor. The term "relatively" is used here because Mars itself is very dark in the UV owing to absorption of UV light by iron-bearing minerals, and sunlight is deficient in UV relative to visible light, so in general Mars will always look dark in the UV. A second UV band on MARCI (not shown in the figure above) at a longer wavelength allows these differences to be quantified. The MOC wide angle image shows wispy, light water-ice clouds to the northwest of Argyre in the afternoon, but we cannot as yet correlate these clouds with the UV information (especially because the times of day are different). When in its final mapping orbit, MRO will view the same area as MGS separated by only 1 hour, and such correlations will be much more direct.
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Q-pia08014-01-AEB1-full-reduced1.jpgMartian Southern Highlands (1) - HR60 visitenessun commento
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Q-pia08014-02-AEB1-full-reduced1.jpgMartian Southern Highlands (2) - HR54 visitenessun commento
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Q-pia08014-03-AEB1-full-reduced1.jpgMartian Southern Highlands (3) - HR53 visitenessun commento
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Q-pia08014-04-AEB1-full-reduced1.jpgMartian Southern Highlands (4) - HR67 visitenessun commento
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Q-pia08014-05-AEB1-full-reduced1.jpgMartian Southern Highlands (5) - HR58 visitenessun commento
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Q-pia08014-06-AEB1-full-reduced1.jpgMartian Southern Highlands (6) - HR57 visitenessun commento
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Q-pia08014-07-AEB1-full-reduced1.jpgMartian Southern Highlands (7) - HR55 visitenessun commento
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Q-pia08014-08-AEB1-full-reduced1.jpgMartian Southern Highlands (8) - HR109 visitenessun commento
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R-JusChasma-PIA08789.jpgJus Chasma53 visiteThe high resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured its first image of Mars in the mapping orbit, demonstrating the full resolution capability, on Sept. 29, 2006. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) acquired this image at 8:16 AM (Pacific Time), and parts of the image became available to the HiRISE team at 1:30 PM. With the spacecraft at an altitude of 280 kilometers (174 miles), the image scale is 29.7 centimeters per pixel (about 12 inches per pixel).
This sub-image covers a small portion of the floor of Ius Chasma, one branch of the giant Valles Marineris system of canyons. The image illustrates a variety of processes that have shaped the Martian surface. There are bedrock exposures of layered materials, which could be sedimentary rocks deposited in water or from the air. Some of the bedrock has been faulted and folded, perhaps the result of large-scale forces in the crust or from a giant landslide. The darker unit of material at right includes many rocks. The image resolves rocks as small as small as 90 centimeters (3 feet) in diameter. At bottom right are a few dunes or ridges of windblown sand. If a person was located on this part of Mars, he or she would just barely be visible in this image.
Image TRA_000823_1720 was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft on September 29, 2006. Shown here is a small portion of the full image. The full image is centered at minus 7.8 degrees latitude, 279.5 degrees East longitude. The image is oriented such that north is to the top. The range to the target site was 297 kilometers (185.6 miles). At this distance the image scale is 29.7 centimeters per pixel (with one-by-one binning) so objects about 89 centimeters (35 inches) across are resolved. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 3:30 PM and the scene is illuminated from the west with a solar incidence angle of 59.7 degrees, thus the sun was about 30.3 degrees above the horizon. At an Ls of 113.6 degrees, the season on Mars is Northern Summer/Southern Winter.
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