We are here (deux)

Terra and Luna, from Mars. From the same HiRISE camera that took photos of Phoenix on Mars’ surface. This time, looking back on us.

A bigger photo is over there. From the mission Website:

At the time the image was taken, Earth was 142 million kilometers (88 million miles) from Mars, giving the HiRISE image a scale of 142 kilometers (88 miles) per pixel, an Earth diameter of about 90 pixels and a moon diameter of 24 pixels. The phase angle is 98 degrees, which means that less than half of the disk of the Earth and the disk of the moon have direct illumination. We could image Earth and moon at full disk illumination only when they are on the opposite side of the sun from Mars, but then the range would be much greater and the image would show less detail.

Even better

Even better than the last post, this one. It puts the Phoenix and parachute image in a bit of context. In this case, Heimdall Crater

To understand what’s going on, look at the box at the bottom left. It’s the magnified portion from the middle left part of the crater. On the larger photo, all you see is a speck of white, but that’s Phoenix

Click on the image to see it in full resolution.

It looks like Phoenix is headed for Heimdall, but really, it’s 20 km in front (towards the camera) of it. For a sense of scale, Hiemdall itself is ten km across, and the lander is 12 km above the surface. It just looks like it’s falling into the crater.

A little thing called parallax.

Soft landings

This is an amazing photograph.  Take a moment and look – really look – at it, and try to figure out what you’re seeing.

This is in fact the Phoenix Mars Lander, with parachute fully deployed.  The photo was taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The brightness has been adjusted to make the parachute more obvious (it was bright daylight a landing).  If you look very closely, you can even see the shroud lines connecting the parachute.

The Orbiter is about 310 km above Mars’ surface, and Phoenix is about 12 km in altitude.

Phoenix has landed

The big news of the weekend is that the Mars Phoenix Lander has, in fact, landed. It touched down in the northern hemisphere at about 6pm (Calgary time) on Sunday. All seems well, and all systems are, as they say, a go.

Here’s one of the first images to be sent back from Vastitas Borealis (the Northern Wastelands).

Two special points need to be made about the Phoenix. The first is that this is the first controlled descent landing in a long time (since Viking, in 1976, in fact). All of the recent landings have involved air bag softened collisions with the surface. The second is that this is the northern most landing on Mars, at 68 degrees north latitude.

There are four broad goals to the Phoenix program (including the ever popular “prepare for human landing”), but the main mission is to find water. Previous orbiters have discovered indirect evidence of water, but Phoenix will dig for the frozen stuff with a specially designed “frozen stuff digger tool“.

And of course, the Canadian Space Agency has supplied the Meteorological package (a fancy word for “weather station”).

The latest news can be found here (from the official NASA site).

The latest imagery can be found here.

Sea of red

The Flames are on tonight (note to the rest of the world, who may be finding us for the first time: we are Calgary Flames fans, here), and as I watch, I also surf.

This is an amazing photo. Part of a photo, actually. A very small part of a grand mosaic produced Opportunity, on of the two Mars Rovers.

Yes, this is Mars!

The photo comes to us by way of the Martian Chronicles Blog, to which you should head to see the full image in full resolution.

If I hadn’t said that this was Mars, you might think it was Earth herself. Dunes, just like those found in the Sahara or Namib Deserts, Or even closer to home.

A sea of red. Just like at the Saddledome.