Every month, the JPL-managed spacecraft dutifully sends back images of the red planet, alongside a handful of fellow Mars-orbiting space crafts. A vast quantity of data, including 1,035 images, has been transmitted back to Earth thanks to the optimal conditions presented by the current Mars opposition. The Sun’s ray the illuminates the surface from the north to the South Pole is enough to boosts the HiRISE camera’s chances of capturing more detailed and clear photographs of Mars.
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The photos were taken in May, when the red planet experienced its equinox – a period during a planet’s orbit when the sun shines directly on its equator, lighting up both its poles.
Luckily for us, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment catalog has a total of over 44,000 images of Mars so far.
The MRO’s images could help map potential landing sites for future landers, notes McEwen, such as the ExoMars demonstration module in a few months, the InSight lander in two years, and the ExoMars and NASA rovers set to launch in 2020. The facility is also monitoring the active processes that the planet’s surface are hosting like slope flows, incoming impact events, and sand dunes, Popular Science reported. Insight Mars lander is just as big as a vehicle. The rover’s mission is to study Mars’s interior. During its stay in space, it is expected to provide information about the planet’s rocky terrains and reveal the core’s inner compositions.
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A report published in Phys informed, “As NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) celebrates four years on the Red Planet Leicester planetary scientist Professor John Bridges recounts the mission’s success and explains what is next for the one-ton nuclear-powered science robot”. The lander is also expected to gather knowledge and technical capabilities just about anything vital in terms of Mars’ surface composition.
