Did you see the first European Mars surface picture?

[MIKE BURN]

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Europe's Mars Express orbiter has sent back its first high-resolution pictures of the planet's surface, capturing in detail part of a huge Martian canyon, the European Space Agency said Monday.



Over the past week, European controllers have focused on calibrating its on-board instruments -- including, in addition to its high-resolution stereo camera, a powerful radar that will search beneath the surface for signs of water or ice that may once have sustained living organisms.



On Monday, they published the camera's spectacular first image, shot from 275 kilometers (170 miles) above the surface and showing a bright-red cross-section of Mars' Valles Marineris -- the planet's "Grand Canyon."



The ESA described the first pictures, shot at a resolution of 12 meters (39 feet) per pixel, as "very promising."



The image, it said, shows "a landscape which has been predominantly shaped by the erosional action of water," with surface features including mountain ranges, valleys and mesas.



Mars Express is set to orbit the planet for at least one Martian year -- almost two Earth years.



The orbiter carries two-thirds of the European Mars mission's experiments, among them instruments that will search for ultraviolet atmosphere.

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[droolymutt]

yep - I saw that earlier today.





Lovely and Amazing, isn't it..?

[MIKE BURN]

Absolutely wild structures, almost organic isn't it?

[droolymutt]

yep - like a part of a living body.. - really.



I wonder if our resident Molecular Biologist has any thoughts on that picture...

[MIKE BURN]

Yes Pris!





Here I have a detail of a structure, which looks like an alien home!

[droolymutt]

It looks like a CAT scan of an Alien's Lung...





lolol.....





But I'm not qualified to say for sure.....

[droolymutt]

We need a Professional opinion on this.





Priscilla?





Can you please explain the molecular subtleties to us?















lolol..........























.

[MIKE BURN]

And this???



In any case, erosion on Mars is very different from the earth!

[droolymutt]

It takes Water, and temperature and light extremes to create such formations.



Therefore, Mars must have had H²O on her surface, at one point.

[bbchris]

WOW! That's an amazing photo!! Thanks for sharing Mike

|Blah Blah|Thinking Out Loud|Jane Eliz||Talk Soup |

[markhewer]

AWESOME Mike! Thanks for sharing these cool photos. It reminds me of something...but I haven't figured out what yet!LOL

Follow your dreams!



http://markhewer.com

[Sterling30sg]

Has North & South Pole solar caps if I remember correctly, it ceratainly had oceans at one time, it may have alot of water still..



We may inhabit it someday, it;ll take at least a few centuries to create a suitable atmosphere but it can be done..



www.drboylan.com/trfmars2.html

[MIKE BURN]

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Europe probe detects Mars water ice



Friday, January 23, 2004 Posted: 7:22 AM EST (1222 GMT)



(CNN) -- The European orbiter Mars Express detected ice at the Red Planet's south pole, mission officials at Darmstadt, Germany, said Friday.



NASA's Mars Odyssey, also an orbiter, confirmed water ice at the north pole, along with dry ice -- frozen carbon dioxide -- in 2002. It picked up signs of hydrogen at the south pole, the first indication that water ice might be found there.



Mars Express confirmed Odyssey's suspicions about the south pole.



"We have already identified water vapor in the atmosphere," scientist Vittorio Formisano said. "We have identified water ice on the soil on the south polar caps."



Mars Express headed off for the fourth planet on June 2 specifically to look for water. It carried with it the European Space Agency's rover, Beagle 2, but that craft was never heard from after its expected Dec. 25 landing.



Express, however, attained its final operational orbit in the last week and has continued its scientific mission. Express made an unsuccessful attempt to contact Beagle 2 earlier this month when it passed near the rover's landing site.

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[bbchris]

The Hellas basin: This picture was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board Mars Express. It is taken from an altitude of 273 km. The area is 100 km across, with a resolution of 12 metres per pixel, and shows a channel (Reull Vallis) once formed by what was probably flowing water.

|Blah Blah|Thinking Out Loud|Jane Eliz||Talk Soup |

[MIKE BURN]

23 January 2004

This picture was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard ESA's Mars Express orbiter, in colour and 3D, in orbit 18 on 15 January 2004 from a height of 273 km. The location is east of the Hellas basin at 41° South and 101° East. The area is 100 km across, with a resolution of 12 m per pixel, and shows a channel (Reull Vallis) once formed by flowing water. The landscape is seen in a vertical view, North is at the top.



Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

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23 January 2004



ESA PR 06-2004. Mars Express, ESA’s first mission to Mars, will reach its final orbit on 28 January. It has already been producing stunning results since its first instrument was switched on, on 5 January. The significance of the first data was emphasised by the scientists at a European press conference today at ESA’s Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt, Germany.



"I did not expect to be able to gather together - just one month after the Mars Orbit Insertion of 25 December – so many happy scientists eager to present their first results", said Professor David Southwood, ESA Director of Science. One of the main targets of the Mars Express mission is to discover the presence of water in one of its chemical states. Through the initial mapping of the South polar cap on 18 January, OMEGA, the combined camera and infrared spectrometer, has already revealed the presence of water ice and carbon dioxide ice.



This information was confirmed by the PFS, a new high-resolution spectrometer of unprecedented accuracy. The first PFS data also show that the carbon oxide distribution is different in the northern and southern hemispheres of Mars.



The MaRS instrument, a sophisticated radio transmitter and receiver, emitted a first signal successfully on 21 January that was received on Earth through a 70- metre antenna in Australia after it was reflected and scattered from the surface of Mars. This new measurement technique allows the detection of the chemical composition of the Mars atmosphere, ionosphere and surface.



ASPERA, a plasma and energetic neutral atoms analyser, is aiming to answer the fundamental question of whether the solar wind erosion led to the present lack of water on Mars. The preliminary results show a difference in the characteristics between the impact of the solar wind area and the measurement made in the tail of Mars. Another exciting experiment was run by the SPICAM instrument (an ultraviolet and infrared spectrometer) during the first star occultation ever made at Mars. It has simultaneously measured the distribution of the ozone and water vapour, which has never been done before, revealing that there is more water vapour where there is less ozone.



ESA also presented astonishing pictures produced with the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). They represent the outcome of 1.87 million km2 of Martian surface coverage, and about 100 gigabytes of processed data. This camera was also able to make the longest swath (up to 4000 km) and largest area in combination with high resolution ever taken in the exploration of the Solar System.



This made it possible to create an impressive picture 24 metres long by 1.3 metres high, which was carried through the conference room at the end of the press event by a group of 10-year-old children.



Mrs Edelgard Bulmahn, German Minister for Research and Education, who is also chair of the ESA Council at Ministerial level, said at the press conference: "Europe can be proud of this mission: Mars Express is an enormous success for the European Space Programme."

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