Emily Lakdawalla • May 27, 2008
HiRISE images of the Phoenix landing site
Here are some of today's images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, showing Phoenix sitting squarely on the surface. (The coordinates of that spot I now know to be 68.218830N 234.250778E, using the IAU 2000 Areocentric coordinate system -- thanks, Tim!) Thanks to some helpers at unmannedspaceflight.com I can also point you to a "before" image of the Phoenix landing site, centered squarely enough on it that its narrow little bit of color data sweeps right across. What that meant is that I could put together this little blink animation showing the northern plains before and after the Phoenix landing. Fun! I did my best to match the "before" and "after" color levels, but it's not a very good job, I'm afraid.
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