Categories: Earth Observation

Mars Express Says Goodbye to the Earth and Moon

Image credit: ESA

Now well on its way to the Red Planet, the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft took a farewell image of the Earth and Moon. The photo was snapped on July 3 when the spacecraft was 8 million kilometres away from the Earth. The picture was taken as part of a series of tests the ESA is doing to make sure the Mars Express’ cameras and instruments are working properly. Once it reaches Mars in late December, the spacecraft will be able to resolve objects on the surface of Mars as small as 2 metres.

A unique view of our home planet and its natural satellite ? the Moon – is one of the first data sets coming from ESA’s Mars Express.

?It is very good news for the mission,? says ESA’s Mars Express Project Scientist, Agustin Chicarro. These and other data, such as those recording the major constituents of Earth as seen from space, are the actual proof that the instruments on board Mars Express, launched 2 June 2003, are working perfectly.

The routine check-outs of Mars Express’s instruments and of the Beagle-2 lander, performed during the last weeks, have been very successful. “As in all space missions little problems have arisen, but they have been carefully evaluated and solved. Mars Express continues on its way to Mars performing beautifully”, comments Chicarro.

The views of the Earth/Moon system were taken on 3 July 2003 by Mars Express’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC), when the spacecraft was 8 million kilometres from Earth. The image taken shows true colours; the Pacific Ocean appears in blue, and the clouds near the Equator and in mid to northern latitudes in white to light grey. The image was processed by the Instrument Team at the Institute of Planetary Research of DLR, Berlin (Germany). It was built by combining a super resolution black and white HRSC snap-shot image of the Earth and the Moon with colour information obtained by the blue, green, and red sensors of the instrument.

?The pictures and the information provided by the data prove the camera is working very well. They provide a good indication of what to expect once the spacecraft is in its orbit around Mars, at altitudes of only 250-300 kilometres: very high resolution images with brilliant true colour and in 3D,? says the Principal Investigator of the HRSC, Gerhard Neukum, of the Freie Universit?t of Berlin (Germany). This camera will be able to distinguish details of up to 2 metres on the Martian surface.

Another striking demonstration of Mars Express’s instruments high performance are the data taken by the OMEGA spectrometer. Once at Mars, this instrument will provide the best map of the molecular and mineralogical composition of the whole planet, with 5% of the planetary surface in high resolution. Minerals and other compounds such as water will be charted as never before. As the Red Planet is still too far away, the OMEGA team devised an ingenious test for their instrument: to detect the Earth?s surface components.

As expected, OMEGA made a direct and unambiguous detection of major and minor constituents of the Earth?s atmosphere, such as molecular oxygen, water and carbon dioxide, ozone and methane, among other molecules. “The sensitivity demonstrated by OMEGA on these Earth spectra should reveal really minute amounts of water in both Martian surface materials and atmosphere,” says the Principal Investigator of OMEGA, Jean Pierre Bibring , from the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Orsay, France.

The experts will carry on testing Mars Express?s instruments up till the arrival to the Red Planet, next December. The scientists agree on the fact that these instruments will enormously increase our understanding of the morphology and topography of the Martian surface, of the geological structures and processes – active now and in the past, and eventually of Mars?s geological evolution. With such tools, Mars Express is also able to address the important ?water? question, namely how much water there is today and how much there was in the past. Ultimately, this will also tell us whether Mars had environmental conditions that could favour the evolution of life.

Original Source: ESA News Release

Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast with Dr. Pamela Gay. Here's a link to my Mastodon account.

Recent Posts

Astronomers Find a Black Hole Tipped Over on its Side

Almost every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole churning away at its core. In…

3 minutes ago

NASA is Developing Solutions for Lunar Housekeeping’s Biggest Problem: Dust!

Through the Artemis Program, NASA will send the first astronauts to the Moon since the…

16 hours ago

Where’s the Most Promising Place to Find Martian Life?

New research suggests that our best hopes for finding existing life on Mars isn’t on…

17 hours ago

Can Entangled Particles Communicate Faster than Light?

Entanglement is perhaps one of the most confusing aspects of quantum mechanics. On its surface,…

2 days ago

IceCube Just Spent 10 Years Searching for Dark Matter

Neutrinos are tricky little blighters that are hard to observe. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory in…

2 days ago

Star Devouring Black Hole Spotted by Astronomers

A team of astronomers have detected a surprisingly fast and bright burst of energy from…

2 days ago