NASA’s longest-running Mars mission has despatched again an unprecedented aspect view of a large volcano rising above the Crimson Planet, simply earlier than daybreak.
On Might 2, as daylight crept over the Martian horizon, the Odyssey spacecraft captured Arsia Mons, a towering, long-extinct volcano, puncturing a glowing band of greenish haze within the planet’s higher ambiance.
The 12-mile-high volcano — practically twice the peak of Mauna Loa in Hawaii — punctures a veil of fog, rising like a monument to the planet’s historical previous. The house snapshot is each visually arresting and scientifically enlightening.
“We picked Arsia Mons hoping we’d see the summit poke above the early morning clouds,” stated Jonathon Hill, who leads Odyssey’s digital camera operations at Arizona State College, in a assertion, “and it did not disappoint.”
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Arsia Mons sits on the southern finish of a towering trio of volcanoes known as the Tharsis Montes.
Credit score: NASA / JPL-Caltech
To get this view, Odyssey needed to do one thing it wasn’t initially constructed for. The orbiter, which has been flying round Mars since 2001, often factors its digital camera straight all the way down to map the planet’s floor. However over the previous two years, scientists have begun rotating the spacecraft 90 levels to look towards the horizon. That adjustment permits NASA to check how mud and ice clouds change over the seasons.
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Although the picture continues to be an aerial view, the vantage level is of the horizon, much like how astronauts can see Earth’s horizon 250 miles above the planet on the Worldwide Area Station. From that altitude, Earth doesn’t fill their whole view — there’s sufficient distance and perspective for them to see the planet’s curved edge assembly the blackness of house. Odyssey flies above Mars at about the identical altitude.
Arsia Mons sits on the southern finish of a towering trio of volcanoes known as the Tharsis Montes. The Tharsis area is dwelling to the biggest volcanoes within the photo voltaic system. The shortage of plate tectonics on the Crimson Planet allowed them to develop many instances bigger than these wherever on Earth.
Collectively, they dominate the Martian panorama and are generally coated in clouds, particularly within the early hours. However not simply any clouds — these are manufactured from water ice, a distinct breed than the planet’s extra frequent carbon dioxide clouds. Arsia Mons is the cloudiest of the three.
Scientists have just lately studied a selected, localized cloud formation that happens over the mountain, dubbed the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud. The transient characteristic, streaking 1,100 miles over southern Mars, lasts solely about three hours within the morning throughout spring earlier than vanishing within the heat daylight. It is fashioned by sturdy winds being pressured up the mountainside.
The cloudy cover on show in Odyssey’s new picture, in accordance with NASA, known as the aphelion cloud belt. This widespread seasonal system drapes throughout the planet’s equator when Mars is farthest from the solar.
That is Odyssey’s fourth aspect picture since 2023, and it’s the first to indicate a volcano breaking by way of the clouds.
“We’re seeing some actually vital seasonal variations in these horizon photographs,” stated Michael D. Smith, a NASA planetary scientist, in an announcement. “It’s giving us new clues to how Mars’ ambiance evolves over time.”
