Mars Report: What Would Mars Look Like if an Astronaut Could Orbit the Planet
| Credit | NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/Lockheed Martin Space |
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NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter captured the first-ever views of Mars that showcase the curving horizon and layers of atmosphere, similar to what an astronaut sees of Earth from the International Space Station. While there are no astronauts yet at Mars, this view gives us a sense of what they might see: The series of panoramic images was taken from an altitude of about 250 miles (400 kilometers), the same altitude at which the space station flies above Earth. These new images, which capture gauzy layers of clouds and dust, will help scientists better understand the Martian atmosphere.
In this Mars Report, learn how engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Lockheed Martin Space, which built Odyssey, had to maneuver the spacecraft to capture these views. Odyssey Deputy Project Scientist Laura Kerber also breaks down the significance of the new images.
The 2001 Mars Odyssey mission is NASA’s longest operating spacecraft at Mars, marking 22 years in orbit in October 2023.
For more information on Odyssey, go to: https://mars.nasa.gov/odyssey
TRANSCRIPT
Laura Kerber/Odyssey Deputy Project Scientist
“Imagine you’re an astronaut in the International Space Station.”
(radio chatter)
Laura Kerber
“But instead of being in orbit around Earth,you’re in orbit around Mars. I work for NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter,and we just took a bunch of new images that show exactly how the planet Mars would look from that exact same perspective.”
“If you were an astronaut, the first thing that would catch your eye are all of these beautiful craters, which, of course, look much different than what you would see on Earth. But the second thing you would see, because you're looking at the planet from an angle, is the structure in these beautiful clouds.”
“And because Mars Odyssey has a heat-vision camera, it can actually tell the difference between different kinds of clouds.”
“On Mars, we have CO2 ice clouds, we have water ice clouds, and we have dust clouds.”
“In order to get these images, we had to do something with the spacecraft that we've never done before. Usually our camera faces straight down for mapping. In the past, we've experimented with rolling the spacecraft out so that we can catch pictures of some of Mars' moons, like Phobos, a potato-shaped, beautiful moon that you might have heard of.”
“But this time we had to do something a little more extreme. We had to rotate the spacecraft all the way to the horizon, and we had to keep it that way for an entire orbit.”
“Odyssey has been going strong for 22 years.”
Voice of Mission Control
“We have ignition and liftoff, carrying NASA on an odyssey back to Mars.”
Laura Kerber
“That makes it the longest-lasting spacecraft that has ever been sent to visit Mars. So what's next for Odyssey? Well, next year we're going to hit 100,000 orbits around Mars.”
“We also have several ongoing science campaigns. One is a rock-mapping campaign that will help us land future missions more safely on the surface. We're also taking advantage of our special dawn-dusk orbit to map clouds, fog, and frost that only exist at certain times a day. And we are also planning our next maneuver to look out at the clouds on the horizon again.”