Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona - “PSP_003086_2015: Color Image of Nili Fossae Trough, Candidate MSL Landing Site“

[Disclaimer: Richard Leis, Jr. is an Operations Specialist for HiRISE.]

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) team today released a slew of new false color images of the surface of Mars to the public, the culmination of many months of software and automation development. Color products are now expected to be released at regular intervals, matching the previous release rate of black and white images. The images selected are of potential Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) landing sites, the upcoming rover mission planned for launch in 2009. Now that these images have been released, researchers suggesting landing sites for the mission will have new data to work with while developing their proposals.

Creating useful color products from HiRISE data has proven to be a difficult task that has involved many people. Sarah Mattson applied her continuing University of Arizona mathematics education to help develop algorithms for registering and stitching the various color products together, based on manual procedures developed by HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen. Guy McArthur, a software developer for HiRISE, created a series of automated “pipelines” for turning calibrated image products into beautiful final color products. Eric Eliason, HiRISE Operations Center (HiROC) Manager oversaw the software development effort and participated in validation efforts. Operations Specialist Táhirih Motazedian reprocessed MSL image data through calibration, geometry, and the new color pipelines, after also conducting thorough testing of the pipelines, all while managing the HiROC systems resources that are pushed to their limits during such intense reprocessing efforts. Student Validators Alaina de Jong and Bryan Cardwell raced to validate new color products fresh out of the pipelines to ensure they were ready for today’s scheduled public release. Database Manager Rod Heyd ensured the database and procedures for releasing products were updated to handle the new color products. Finally, Website Guru Yisrael Espinoza updated the web backend and public site to include color images in an attractive and user-friendly way.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona - “PSP_004052_2045: Layers Exposed in Crater Near Mawrth Vallis”

The HiRISE camera is currently in orbit around Mars on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The camera is returning the highest resolution images of the surface ever taken from Mars orbit, with images reaching resolutions of nearly 25 centimeters per pixel. This equates to objects about one meter in size on the surface of Mars, since the human eye needs about three or four pixels to pick out an object in an image. The new color images are in enhanced and false color. Everyone knows well that the surface of Mars is a study in red, so choosing color filters that can pull out subtle differences between compositions was a priority when developing the camera. Red, near infrared, and blue-green filters down the center of the instrument’s CCD array create a false color swath in HiRISE images of about 1.2 kilometers in width. The remaining red CCDs create a black and white image 6 kilometers across.

The prospective landing sites targeted by HiRISE include materials like clays, sulfates, and other materials with high water content. MSL is expected to explore just such a location to determine the past and current role of water on Mars and whether or not the environment ever supported microbial life.

More Information

• High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE)
  • October 10, 2007 Color Release of MSL Observations
  • [PDF] “Information for Scientific Users of HiRISE Color Products” By Alfred McEwen and Eric Eliason, October 10, 2007
  • University of Arizona Press Release: “HiRISE Releases Color Images, Movie of Prospective Landing Sites on Mars“
  • HiBlog
• Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
• Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

The HiRISE team has released more of the high resolution “test” images of Mars taken on March 23 and 25, 2006. Incredible detail, color, and a perspective view. Eight images were taken and the rest should be available tomorrow.

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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) performed a flawless engine burn today in a successful bid to enter orbit around Mars. The event, known as Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI), is a risky one for robotic visitors to the Red Planet. Now that MRO is safely in orbit, the spacecraft will soon begin several months of aerobraking to reshape the orbit into a circle approximately 300 km above the martian surface. The primary science phase of the mission will begin in the fall after aerobraking has been completed.

At the University of Arizona, an audience of students, the public, reporters, and other guests watched live NASA TV coverage of the event. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera is one of the instruments on board MRO and is operated by a team at the University of Arizona. HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen and operations team members were on hand for presentations, narration of the television coverage, and answers to audience questions. [Disclosure: Richard Leis is a HiRISE operations team member.]

The risks of any orbital insertion include missing the target altogether or coming in too closely. During MRO MOI, all predicted events occurred on schedule, including the loss of signal from the spacecraft while it passed behind Mars. Reacquisition of the signal from MRO occurred at around 3:15 pm Mountain Standard time, and a few minutes later flight operations at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, USA confirmed that the spacecraft was in the correct initial orbit around Mars. The audience and HiRISE team applauded and cheered the successful conclusion of each major event.

MRO launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA on August 12, 2005. During its 7 month cruise to Mars, instruments on board were turned on and tested in preparation for future science gathering. HiRISE, for example, snapped high resolution images of the moon and stellar clusters. These images are now being used by the operations team to calibration the instrument and develop imaging processing software and procedures.

MRO will remain in its current orbit for about two weeks prior to the start of aerobraking. During that two weeks, some of the operations teams for the various instruments will again turn on their instruments. HiRISE will take nine images of Mars and once again the operations team will use these images for further calibration and testing.

Aerobraking occurs when MRO dips down into the martian atmosphere to create friction that helps slow down the spacecraft and lower its orbit. The process will take from five to seven months depending on the condition of the martian atmosphere on any given day.

After aerobraking, MRO will into a transition orbit during which time the instrument teams will complete their preparations for the primary science phase of the mission. Know as PSP, this phase of the mission will last for two years while scientific data is gathered.

The HiRISE camera is the largest such device ever sent outside the Earth’s orbit. The camera will capture high resolution images of the martian surface, up to 20,000 by 60,000 pixels in size. These images are so huge that they will not fit full size on a regular computer monitor. Only a display array of 20 by 60 monitors would have enough pixels available to show one full-sized HiRISE image. Because of this, recent compression and delivery technology known as JPEG2000 is being used to allow the scientific community and the public to browse through these images over the internet.

At its best setting, HiRISE will be able to see objects roughly one meter (approximately one yard) in size. Meanwhile, two other cameras will take lower resolution images but provide more coverage of the planet. Together, these cameras should reveal a different Mars than shown by previous orbiters, simply because so much more detail and wider coverage will become available than ever before. In fact, so much data will be obtained during the course of the mission that it will dwarf what many previous missions have obtained, combined.

MRO is also equipped with a sounding radar called SHARAD (Shallow Radar) which will return the highest resolution data of the martian subsurface. In recent years, previous spacecraft have detected the presence of water deposits beneath the surface of Mars. SHARAD will attempt to better quantify the amount of water present and in what form – ice or liquid – it exists.

Scientists hope to learn where the water believed to have existed on early Mars went, in what form it exists today, and if water might still flow on the surface (as appears to be the case with gullies discovered by previous spacecraft.) They also hope to learn more about the martian atmosphere and surface history. The information obtained could help determine whether or not Mars has ever been hospitable to life and which locations are best to search for fossil or current lifeforms.

More Information

• Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
• The view from MRO.
• HiRISE
  • HiRISE Presentation (Powerpoint file)
  • Mars Mania II - Saturday, April 08, 2006 at the University of Arizona campus

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is scheduled for Mars Orbital Insertion (MOI) on Friday, March 10, 2009. Confirmation of success should arrive around 3:15 pm MST. Below is a link to a presentation I gave one of my classes today about the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on board MRO, the highest resolution camera every sent on a planetary science mission. [Disclosure: Richard Leis is a HiRISE operations team member.] All of the spacecraft primary science mission cameras are shut down and will not be turned on until after orbital capture, but I have also included a link to a webpage that updates every 5 minutes a simulation of how Mars would look if you were riding along on MRO. Mars is getting close!

• HiRISE Presentation(Powerpoint file) attached to this article
• The view from MRO.

(Disclosure: Richard Leis is an operations team member located at the University of Arizona for NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE.))

Although the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) are less than two months away, spacecraft already in orbit around Mars continue to send back breathtaking images of the surface. Case in point is the image to the left taken by Mars Global Surveyor’s (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) of outcrops in Becquerel Crater. These outcrops are believed to be sedimentary layers and perhaps evidence for a lake in the crater in the distant past. Sediments carried into the lake by water channels settled out over time to create distinct layers. The number of discrete layers present in this image suggest that surface water played a role in shaping the martian surface for a significant period of time. While today Mars is a frigid desert, it may have been a much more hospitable and wet planet in its early history.

HiRISE will up the ante in scientific discovery on Mars by providing unprecedented resolution from orbit. The HiRISE science team will continue, among other priorities, to observe surface layering as evidence for water processes on ancient Mars. The orbital efforts of NASA’s MRO, MGS, and Mars Odyssey, ESA’s Mars Express, and periodic rover missions on the ground, represent the most exhaustive exploration of another planetary body.

MOC pictures of the day can be found on the Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) website. MSSS also provided the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) and Context Imager (CTX) on board MRO. If all of these acronyms are giving you a headache, you are not alone: science team members experience the same symptoms. The list on the right under “More Information” provides full names for select spacecraft and instruments, their acronyms, and links to team websites.

More Information

• Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) Picture of the Day
• Mars Global Surveyor (MGS)
  • Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
• Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
  • High Resolution Imagine Science Experiment (HiRISE)
• Mars Odyssey
• Mars Express
• Mars Exploration Rovers (MER)
• Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)

Humanity improves the vision it turns on the universe in two ways: seeing farther than before and resolving greater detail. 2005 was a year of much more detail, of blurry bodies resolving into dynamic worlds and undiscovered objects in our own backyard suddenly coming into view. Augmented by robotic surrogates, adaptive optics, new remote sensing capabilities, and intelligent data-mining agents, here are the discoveries made or announced in 2005 that transformed our view of our solar system.

Spirit and Opportunity on Mars

Never before have robots on the surface of another world traveled so far or functioned for so long. Despite signs of old age, the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity continue to explore Mars.

Spirit climbed a mountain, observed dust devils, and returned panoramas of Gusev Crater from its high vantage point. Opportunity spotted a meteorite, survived getting stuck in a dune, and returned images of a variety of outcrops on its way to new craters for exploration.

The 10th Planet

It was not a hoax, a conspiracy theory, or pseudoscience, but a soap opera of events that led to the announcement earlier this year of the tenth planet in our solar system, 2003 UB313. After being scooped by another team on an transneptunian object slightly smaller than Pluto, Michael E. Brown of the California Institute of Technology, Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory, and David Rabinowitz of Yale University were forced to confirm that discovery and then announce one of their own: Planet X.

The planetary body larger than Pluto and much further away from the sun was actually discovered during a reanalysis of data from October 21, 2003. Dr. Brown and his team then went back through even older observations to see if the object had shown up before but simply been missed. Sure enough, they came across an observation of 2003 UB313 made in 1989.

The story did not end there. Allegations of fraud were made against the other team, who may have used Dr. Brown’s own work as their own. Meanwhile, the debate over the definition of “planet” was reignited, with Dr. Brown strongly defending the use of that label for his discovery. For many planetary scientists, Pluto is not a planet, but simply a large member of the Kuiper Belt, a region of small objects outside the orbit of Neptune. Dr. Brown and others argue that Pluto should retain its classification as a planet simply for cultural reasons. And if Pluto remains a planet, then any object discovered to be larger than Pluto and orbiting the Sun should also be classified as a planet. Thus, Dr. Brown concluded, 2003 UB313 must be considered the 10th planet.

2003 UB313 has a surface of methane ice, just like Pluto. With the recent discovery of a companion moon scientists hope to nail down the mass and size of both objects. A decision over the classification of 2003 UB313 is still forthcoming.

The Plumes of Enceladus

A tiny moon orbiting Saturn in the frigid outer solar system should be silent and long dead. Most of Saturn’s moons are in fact just that. A series of discoveries by the Cassini spacecraft in 2005 limited this to a generalization forever by returning spectacular images of ice plumes erupting from the surface of Enceladus. The mystery, of course, is where the energy comes from to drive this activity. There is heat inside of Enceladus, heat that makes the tiger stripes near its south pole warmer than the rest of the moon, heat that causes material to vaporize or erupt from this region, resulting in kilometers-high plumes that help support a tentative but oxygen-rich local atmosphere and provide the material to constantly replenish one of Saturn’s rings.

Pulling Back the Shroud of Titan

Cassini provided humans their first glimpse of the surface of Titan late last year. The view left scientists scratching their heads. Then, on January 14, 2005 ESA’s Huygens probe descended through the thick orange smog of Titan’s atmosphere to reveal terrains that were surprisingly Earth-like, with river channels and shore lines suggesting large volumes of liquid at work. When Huygens landed it continued capturing images from the surface, including an orange-hued view of its surroundings.

Not only does the surface of Titan show the signs of active reworking by liquid, but the atmosphere is full of methane, a relatively unstable gas that would not show up in the atmosphere if it were not constantly replenished. What Huygens did not provide was images of standing liquid on the surface, long suspected as the methane reservoir. After Huygens landed it began to settle into the soil and recorded a rise of methane, presumably liquid methane that was vaporized by the heat of entry. The pebbles surrounding the landing site were well-rounded, a sign of fluvial processes here on the Earth. The highlands, where the channels start, were light, while the channel beds and sea-like lowlands were stained dark. This comes from hydrocarbons that snow from the atmosphere and are carried downstream.

Where, then, is the liquid? Huygens had stopped broadcasting from the surface of Titan, but Cassini continues to encounter Titan, with the capability to pry beneath the thick atmosphere by using various remote sensing wavelengths including radar. During one flyby, Cassini captured an image of what appears to be a lake. During another, a volcano. Persistent methane clouds have been detected.

Scientists hypothesize that Huygens landed during a dry season, or perhaps during low tide. Titan might experience monsoonal seasons with periodic torrential liquid methane rains followed by little activity. The surface is obviously quite young, but many more observations by Cassini will be necessary before scientists feel confident in their understanding of the processes at work.

All but one of Cassini’s moon flybys over the next two and a half years will be of Titan. These flybys will be at altitudes of 2000 kilometers (1300 miles) or lower to provide even more detailed data about the surface of Titan.

Deep Impact

We bombed the hell out of a comet and learned that what we thought we knew about these objects was wrong.

On July 03, 2005 Deep Impact encountered Comet Tempel 1. When the event was over, Comet Tempel 1 had a new crater and a rising plume of debris from colliding with the Deep Impact impactor. The parent probe captured images and other data of the impact that are still be analyzed.

What we learned:

• Comets vary greatly among each other in their surface terrain.
• These surface terrains can be quite complex.
• Some comets are loosely packed, held together by gravity.
• Comets may be compositionally quite complex.

Deep Impact detected the presence of water vapor and carbon dioxide gas after impact, while the Spitzer Space Telescope detected “clays; iron-containing compounds; carbonates, the minerals in seashells; crystallized silicates, such as the green olivine minerals found on beaches and in the gemstone peridot; and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon-containing compounds found in car exhaust and on burnt toast” according to September 07, 2005 press release from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The parent probe continues to function and was placed into a new orbit that will allow mission scientists to return to Comet Tempel 1 or encounter a different comet in a few years.

More Information

• Spirit and Opportunity on Mars
  • Mars Exploration Rovers
• The Tenth Planet
  • Science Paper (PDF) - “DISCOVERY OF A PLANETARY-SIZED OBJECT IN THE SCATTERED KUIPER BELT” M. E. Brown, C. A. Trujillo, and D. L. Rabinowitz
  • NASA Press Release, July 29, 2005 - “Planetary Scientists Discover Tenth Planet“
  • California Institute of Technology, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences - Dr. Michael E. Brown
• The Plumes of Enceladus
  • Cassini-Huygens Website
    • Saturn’s Moons section
    • Enceladus Information
• Pulling Back the Shroud of Titan
  • Cassini-Huygens Website
    • Saturn’s Moons section
    • Titan Information
• Deep Impact
  • Press Release – NASA/JPL-Caltech - “How to Make Comet Soup“
  • Deep Impact - NASA
  • Deep Impact - Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The image above is mostly real. The setting sun and martian landscape were really taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit on its 489th martian day. What is not real in this image is that little rover looking off into the distance.

Spirit, for all its advanced technological capabilities, is not able to take a disembodied image of itself. Oh, yes, Spirit had been in that location just a few days prior to the image being taken. Because of this, special effects artists here on Earth were able to add a photorealistic model of the rover to indicate where it had been.

These synthetic images were created and released to the public just in time for the one martian year anniversary of the landings of Spirit and its twin, Opportunity. The images create a “you are there” virtual presence that pulls the viewer into some of the highlights of Spirit’s activity on Mars. And what a martian year of highlights it has been!

In January 2006 the two rovers will have been on Mars for two Earth years. Since one Mars year is just under two Earth years, the martian anniversary arrives first. The rovers have now experienced all the seasons of Mars. Built to last just three months, both rovers are well into extended missions far from their landing spots. Spirit continues to explore Gusav crater, but instead of from the crater floor where it started, Spirit now travels along the ridge of the Columbia Hills, an uplifted menagerie of rocks indicating a complicated history including the involvement of water.

Meanwhile, half a planet away, Opportunity has traveled to yet another crater, after exploring two other craters, discovering the sedimentary remains of an ancient body of water, and spotting a pristine meteorite in the martian desert sands.

More Information

• Mars Exploration Rovers

The next orbiter mission to Mars was scheduled to launch on Wednesday, August 10, 2005 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA. Launch actually occurred two days later, in a flawless event that resulted in a healthy spacecraft heading to the Red Planet. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) carries with it the highest resolution camera yet sent to Mars, enabling objects down to the size of a meter across to be imaged.

More Information

• Mar Reconnaissance Orbiter
• HiRISE

Standing kilometers tall, roaming the desert in crisscrossing paths, vacuuming or depositing dust, and possibly contributing to albedo (surface light reflection) and climate changes, images of dust devils in motion on Mars have been captured by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. Spirit captured images of gusts and whirlwinds full of dust marching across Gusev Crater toward the rover on May 31, 2005. Scientists then enhanced the contrast in the images and pieced them together in consecutive order to create a movie depicting the violent movement of dust in the thin martian air.

The sand and dust in dust devils can whirl around at greater than 30 meters per second (70 miles per hour). Because the air is thin, even hurricane-speed winds exert little pressure on objects, but over time eolian (wind) erosion has left its mark on the Red Planet. In some areas winds have stripped out weaker rock leaving parallel depressions called yardangs lined up in the direction of the prevalent winds. In others, the eroded sand and dust has been deposited into sand dunes or wide-area dust deposits, effectively burying other landforms.

In a paper entitled “Three decades of Martian surface changes” by Paul E. Geissler from the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, USA suggests that dust devil activity during the summer in mid to high latitudes of Mars may contribute to albedo changes over several years or decades. As dust devils race across the surface they pick up sand and dust, revealing the darker bedrock beneath and decreasing albedo in the region. This darkening, when viewed up close, is caused by overlapping dust devil tracks. In areas where brighter sand and dust are deposited, albedo may increase.

NASA scientists believe dust devils could be potentially dangerous to visiting astronauts and their equipment. Aside from impacts from high-velocity sand and dust, astronauts may need to worry about electrical discharges around dust devils as well. Arcs of electricity between the dust devil and astronauts, vehicles or other equipment could fry unprotected electronics or interfere with communications. The electrostatic charge in individual grains of material may adhere sand and dust to space suits and other equipment. Habitats on Mars will need to take this into account to prevent contamination of living areas from outside particles.

Scientists will continue to collect data about dust devils on Mars and here on the Earth to better understand these dangers and create technological solutions. The data will also help them better understand how dust devils are created, the mechanics behind their motion across surfaces, and how they contribute to climate and other planetary and regional characteristics.

More Information

• NASA/JPL/Texas A&M MER Spirit Press Release, July 08, 2005 - “Images and Animations for July 8, 2005“
• NASA Press Release, July 14, 2005 - “The Devils of Mars“
• Geissler, Paul E. (2005), “Three decades of Martian surface changes,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 110, E02001, doi: 10.1029/2004JE002345.
• Mars Exploration Rover Mission

UPDATE - NASA Responds to Mars Life Rumor - Friday, February 18, 2005 - NASA posted the following press release about media reports of evidence for extant life on Mars:

News reports on February 16, 2005, that NASA scientists from Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., have found strong evidence that life may exist on Mars are incorrect.

NASA does not have any observational data from any current Mars missions that supports this claim. The work by the scientists mentioned in the reports cannot be used to directly infer anything about life on Mars, but may help formulate the strategy for how to search for martian life. Their research concerns extreme environments on Earth as analogs of possible environments on Mars. No research paper has been submitted by them to any scientific journal asserting martian life.

File this under “Rumors”…Space.com is reporting that two scientists from NASA’s Ames Research Center have submitted a paper to the journal Nature detailing possible signatures of current biological activity on Mars. The scientists apparently reached this conclusion after discovering activity on Mars similar to the activity of novel subsurface life forms in extreme conditions near the Rio Tinto river in Spain.

One of the signatures is the presence of methane in the martian atmosphere, independently detected by the ESA orbiter Mars Express and ground-based observatories last year. Another rumor has Vittorio Formisano, one of the lead scientists for the Mars Express mission, announcing next week the detection of other gases in the martian atmosphere that strongly hint at biological activity. The official program for the 1st Mars Express Science Conference appears to confirm this rumor, with a talk entitled “Methane, formaldehyde and water by PFS” to be presented by Formisano on Thursday, February 24, 2005.

In September 2004 the ESA team announced an overlap of water vapor and methane in the atmosphere above Arabia Terra and two other regions on Mars. In the background image the highest concentrations of water vapor are in green.

Even if these rumors are confirmed, the evidence may not be conclusive. The above work is allegedly undergoing peer review prior to release. Other scientists will need to confirm the results and then new missions to Mars will need to be launched to explore areas of interest and search out the potential Martians. The process may take more than a decade, but could lead to one of the most profound discoveries in human history.