* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Mars Reconnaissance orbiter

Blobrana · L

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter resumed observing Mars with its science instruments on Sept. 18, recovering from an unplanned reboot of its computer three days earlier.
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Blobrana · L

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter put itself into a precautionary standby mode after experiencing a spontaneous computer reboot on Sept. 15. The mission's ground team has begun restoring the spacecraft to full operations.
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Five years ago, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched in search of evidence that water persisted on the surface of Mars over a prolonged period of time. Previous Mars missions indicated that, at some point in the Red Planet's history, water flowed across its surface. Throughout the years, MRO has continued to analyse minerals, look for water, trace the distribution of dust in the atmosphere and monitor Martian weather.

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Six hundred recent observations of the Mars landscape from an orbiting telescopic camera include scenes of sinuous gullies, geometrical ridges and steep cliffs. Each of the 600 newly released observations from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter covers an area of several square miles on Mars and reveals details as small as desks.

The HiRISE images taken from April 5 to May 6, 2010, are now available on NASA's Planetary Data System

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New images for 5 May 2010

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HICLIP: Sounds of Saturn (480x272; 16MB)

Geezer Gullies at Tempe Terra (ESP_017015_2245) The gullies appear cut by long fractures that criss-cross the crater's walls.	Viscous Flow in Protonilus Mensae (ESP_017024_2230) Similar features are observed on terrestrial glaciers, but Martian examples are not as bright as many on Earth.	Star Dunes in Crater in Tyrrhena Terra (ESP_017036_1665) An amazing aspect of Mars that is captured in many HiRISE images is geologic diversity within a small area.
Icy Northern Dunes (ESP_017043_2640) Like Earth, Mars has seasonal polar caps that grow in the winter and retreat in the spring.	Pits along Fractures in Crater Floor Material (ESP_017103_2255) The association of the pits with the fractures suggests that the pits were formed by removal of material deep within the fractures.	Collapse! (ESP_017171_2190) This crater may have been filled with ice, then covered by sediments or lava.
Intra-Crater Structure in NW Hellas Basin (ESP_017196_1455) There is evidence elsewhere that the ground here is ice-rich.	Big Impact-Triggered Dust Avalanche (ESP_017229_2110) Slope streaks are common on Mars but this one is unusually wide and it began from an unusual source area.	Megabreccia in the Central Uplift of Stokes Crater (ESP_017257_2360) Megabreccia, consisting of very large fragments of pre-existing bedrock, is created by energetic processes.
Deformed Craters and Polygons in Utopia Planitia (ESP_017260_2225) Some features suggest that water ice is close to the surface.	Knobs near Reull Vallis (ESP_017286_1430) The crater floor and ejecta are blanketed with an ice-rich mantle that is common throughout the Martian mid-latitudes.	Light-Toned Rocks inside a Crater (ESP_017292_1680) These rocks were likely brought up by the process that created the crater.

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Blobrana · L

New images for 10 March 2010

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At the Summit of Arsia Mons Volcano (PSP_002157_1715) Like the other major shield volcanoes on Mars, Arsia Mons has a caldera at its summit.	Northern Hemisphere Gullies with Layers (PSP_001528_2210) Deeper incision typically involves more water and/or more flow events.	Candidate Landing Site in Possible Salt Playa (ESP_016288_1745) Salt deposits occur in playas on Earth, and imply the past presence of water and a habitable (but not necessarily inhabited) environment.
Cerberus Fossae East of the Head of Athabasca Valles (ESP_016216_1900) With a closer examination of this observation, one can see many boulder tracks, some with ripples and some without ripples.	A Burst of Spring (ESP_016032_2600) In the spring the sublimation of the ice (going directly from ice to gas) causes a host of uniquely Martian phenomena.

Blobrana · L

NASA Mars Orbiter Speeds Past Data Milestone

NASA's newest Mars orbiter, completing its fourth year at the Red Planet next week, has just passed a data-volume milestone unimaginable a generation ago and still difficult to fathom: 100 terabits.
That 100 trillion bits of information is more data than in 35 hours of uncompressed high-definition video. It's also more than three times the amount of data from all other deep-space missions combined -- not just the ones to Mars, but every mission that has flown past the orbit of Earth's moon.
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New images for 3 March 2010

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Craters on an Ice-Rich Débris Apron (PSP_007832_1385) The fact that this apron is rich in water ice is a clue to what is happening in this region.	Northern Meridiani Etched Terrain and Hematite Plains Contact (PSP_002324_1815) The lower etched terrain in part of this image is flat with low albedo and covered in dunes.	Gullies and... Gullies? in Terra Sirenum (PSP_001697_1390) The characteristics of the numerous gully systems here are astonishingly diverse.
Dunes and Inverted Craters in Arabia Terra (ESP_016459_1830) The sand is dark because it was probably derived from basalt, a black volcanic rock that is common on Mars.	Monitoring of Polar Avalanche Region (ESP_016292_2640) Comparison of this new image with the one taken in 2008 will give an indication of activity over the last Martian year.