NASA’s Odyssey Orbiter has captured a unique image of the horizon on Mars. This is the view that astronauts would observe if they ever set foot on the Red Planet. The image took scientists three months to plan and capture.
This image reveals the rugged surface of Mars as well as a thin atmosphere above the horizon. The Odyssey Orbiter has been continuously orbiting Mars since 2001, capturing the image using the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS).
“If astronauts were in orbit around Mars, this is what they would see. No spacecraft has had such a view of Mars before,” said Jonathon Hill, a space exploration expert at Arizona State University.
This image took scientists three months to plan and capture. (Photo: NASA).
However, the colors in this image differ from what astronauts would see because it uses infrared radiation. The photo was taken at an altitude of 402 kilometers above the Martian surface, roughly the same distance from Earth to the International Space Station (ISS). Capturing this image was more challenging than taking a picture of the Earth’s horizon from the ISS.
Normally, THEMIS is pointed directly at the Martian surface, so it cannot observe anything beyond the ground below. To enable this tool to observe the horizon, scientists had to rotate Odyssey more than 90 degrees. This was not the first time they had maneuvered the spacecraft, but this rotation posed more challenges than previous attempts.
Rotating Odyssey was risky because the solar panels need to consistently face the Sun to maintain power and prevent the sensors from overheating. Scientists had to plan meticulously to capture the image smoothly. They expressed satisfaction with the image captured by Odyssey but intend to repeat the process in the future to see if they can produce an even better image.
