Space Topics: Mars
The Year in Pictures: 2005
Mars Orbiters Cooperate to Deliver Context Maps to Spirit
Credit: NASA / JPL / Arizona State University, ESA / DLR / FU Berlin (G. Neukum)
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September. Two Mars orbiting spacecraft worked together to acquire
this beautifully colored image of the interior of Gusev Crater, the landing
site of the Mars Exploration
Rover Spirit. The THEMIS instrument on Mars
Odyssey acquired a grayscale image of the area during the daytime at a
resolution of 18 meters per pixel. The HRSC instrument on Mars
Express acquired color information
at a lower resolution of 50 meters per pixel. The color data was merged with
the grayscale detail to create this view.
Detail view of Spirit landing site from Mars Odyssey and Mars Express
Credit: NASA / JPL / Arizona State University, ESA / DLR / FU Berlin
(G. Neukum) |
Spirit landed to the west of the
hills at the center of the image and drove into the northernmost set of hills.
The entire region that Spirit has explored is within the dark gray smudges
in the center of the picture, which are mostly the relatively dust-free tracks
of dust devils, though some also represent deposits of unusually dark soil. Spirit
has observed a lot of dust devil activity within Gusev, and the Mars orbiters
continuously acquire new images of the area to provide a broader context to
the surface investigations being performed by the rovers.
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