first images from mro taken at low science orbit
Wow!. This is just the beginning of what we can expect from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
I've been studying these gullies that occur in Mars' souther hemisphere craters for several years -- mostly in photos taken by Mike Malin's camera, the MOC, onboard Mars Global Surveyor.)
The Mars Orbital Camera is no slouch, with narrow angle capabilities for as high as 1.5 meters per pixel. It's sent us nearly a quarter of a million photos since its arrival in 1997 (and it's still operating well after more than 9 years in orbit,) but the narrow angle photos are grayscale and not quite as detailed as what we can get from MRO's HiRISE camera which does sub-meter resolution and in color.
Good times!
reactions, thoughts, comments, etc.
Good times indeed, and what a remarkable decade is just ahead. We not only get ever better Mars imagery but we're headed toward the launch of two transit-search spacecraft that will provide unprecedented information about planets around other solar systems. COROT and Kepler are in our near future, and some people I talk to are saying that a detection of a terrestrial world around another star may happen within the next ten years. Wow...
Posted by: Paul Gilster | October 17, 2006 2:30 PM