> ScienceNASA is celebrating its Odyssey orbiter which has completed 1 lakh orbits of Mars.
According to NASA, the 23-year-old orbiter has taken 1.4 million images and has relayed support for six other Mars missions.
Image: NASA/JPLAs part of the celebrations, NASA has shared a remarkable image of the Olympus Mons, the solar system's largest volcano.
The latest subject of its imagery is the Olympus Mons whose base sprawls across 600 kilometers and is 27 kilometers high.
ALSO SEE: Mars Gets Walloped By Space Rocks Way More Than Scientists ThoughtThe Olympus Mons.
> Science
NASA is celebrating its Odyssey orbiter which has completed 1 lakh orbits of Mars. The spacecraft achieved the milestone on June 30 as the agency's longest running mission on the red planet.
Launched in 2001, the Orbiter is named after Arthur C. Clarke's novel '2001: A Space Odyssey' and has made invaluable contribution in exploring Mars.
According to NASA, the 23-year-old orbiter has taken 1.4 million images and has relayed support for six other Mars missions.
Olympus Mons photographed by Odyssey. Image: NASA/JPL
As part of the celebrations, NASA has shared a remarkable image of the Olympus Mons, the solar system's largest volcano. Apart from mapping minerals and surface ice, Odyssey has also been photographing the topography and identifying landing sites for future missions.
The latest subject of its imagery is the Olympus Mons whose base sprawls across 600 kilometers and is 27 kilometers high. This new picture is special because it was taken from the planet's horizon.
"Normally we see Olympus Mons in narrow strips from above, but by turning the spacecraft toward the horizon we can see in a single image how large it looms over the landscape,” said Jeffrey Plaut, Odyssey’s project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which manages the spacecraft.
Interestingly, these views are what astronauts would get from the Martian orbit. Scientists say it will also help in learning more about clouds and airborne dust at Mars and thus decode the Martian atmosphere.
ALSO SEE: Mars Gets Walloped By Space Rocks Way More Than Scientists Thought
The Olympus Mons. Image: NASA
As one can see, the picture features bands of colours and the blue among those hints at the atmospheric dust during early fall. The purple layer is likely a mixture of red dust with water-ice clouds and the blue-green band is water-ice clouds.
According to NASA, the horizon imaging experiment began before 2008 and it has played an important role in gathering data for landing missions.
"It takes careful monitoring to keep a mission going this long while maintaining a historical timeline of scientific planning and execution,” said, Joseph Hunt, Odyssey’s project manager of JPL. "We’re looking forward to collecting more great science in the years ahead."
ALSO SEE: NASA Is Bringing Air From Mars Along With Rocks; Here's Why
(Image: NASA)
