[meteorite-list] New Views Show Old NASA Mars Landers

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2012 16:16:41 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <201202090016.q190GfJN027202_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-037

New Views Show Old NASA Mars Landers
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
February 08, 2012

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recorded a scene on Jan. 29, 2012, that
includes the first color image from orbit showing the three-petal lander
of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit mission. Spirit drove off that
lander platform in January 2004 and spent most of its six-year working
life in a range of hills about two miles to the east.

Another recent image from HiRISE, taken on Jan. 26, 2012, shows NASA's
Phoenix Mars Lander and its surroundings on far-northern Mars after that
spacecraft's second Martian arctic winter. Phoenix exceeded its planned
mission life in 2008, ending its work as solar energy waned during
approach of its first Mars winter.

The image showing Spirit's lander platform as a small, bright feature
southwest of Bonneville Crater is at
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15038. The new image of
Phoenix is at http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA15039 .

Previous color images from HiRISE have shown the Spirit rover itself,
but all previous HiRISE views of the lander that delivered Spirit were
in black and white.

Although neither Phoenix nor Spirit still send data to Earth, scientific
findings from both missions continue as researchers analyze the wealth
of data from the two. A recent report based on inspection of Martian
soil particles with microscopes on Phoenix concluded that the soil has
experienced very little interaction with liquid water over the past 600
million years or more (see
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_3-2-2012-10-26-2
).

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been examining Mars with six science
instruments since 2006. Now in an extended mission, the orbiter
continues to provide insights into the planet's ancient environments and
how processes such as wind, meteorite impacts and seasonal frosts are
continuing to affect the Martian surface today. This mission has
returned more data about Mars than all other orbital and surface
missions combined.

More than 21,000 images taken by HiRISE are available for viewing on the
instrument team's website: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu . Each
observation by this telescopic camera covers several square miles, or
square kilometers, and can reveal features as small as a desk.

HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson. The instrument
was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. The
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project and the Mars Exploration Rover
Project are managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.,
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL is a division of
the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Lockheed
Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the orbiter. For more information
about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, see www.nasa.gov/mro

The University of Arizona led the Phoenix mission with project
management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin.
International contributions came from the Canadian Space Agency; the
University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and
Aarhus in Denmark; the Max Planck Institute in Germany; the Finnish
Meteorological Institute; and Imperial College of London.

Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

2012-037
Received on Wed 08 Feb 2012 07:16:41 PM PST