Mars horizon captured in new picture:

Scientists acquired a uncommon take a look at the curving Martian panorama thanks to pictures captured by NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter, the house company introduced Tuesday. 

NASA revealed a number of new panoramic pictures of clouds and dirt in Mars’ skies and one in all its two tiny moons taken by the spacecraft final Might. They have been captured by the Odyssey’s digicam, referred to as the Thermal Emission Imaging System, or THEMIS.

The uncommon pictures have been taken from an altitude of about 250 miles, the identical altitude at which the Worldwide Area Station flies above Earth, in keeping with NASA. 

“If there have been astronauts in orbit over Mars, that is the attitude they might have,” mentioned Jonathon Hill, the operations lead of THEMIS. “No Mars spacecraft has ever had this sort of view earlier than.”

The Odyssey, which accomplished its twenty second 12 months orbiting Mars final month, is predicted to take comparable footage sooner or later to try to seize the Martian environment in several seasons, NASA mentioned. 

In its newest effort, THEMIS captured pictures of Mars’ little moon, Phobos, that has supplied perception into the composition and bodily properties of the moon, in keeping with NASA. 

The pictures will contribute to additional research that may assist decide if Phobos is a captured asteroid or an historical chunk of Mars that was blasted off the floor by an affect, NASA mentioned. 

“We acquired a special angle and lighting situations of Phobos than we’re used to,” Hill mentioned. “That makes it a novel a part of our Phobos dataset.”