| SPACE DAILY | SPACE WAR | TERRA DAILY | MARS DAILY | SPACE MART | SPACE TRAVEL | GPS DAILY | ENERGY DAILY |
 |
Taking advantage of extra solar energy collected during the day, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit settled in for an evening of stargazing, photographing the two moons of Mars as they crossed the night sky. "It is incredibly cool to be running an observatory on another planet," said planetary scientist Jim Bell of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., lead scientist for the panoramic cameras on Spirit and Opportunity. This time-lapse composite, acquired the evening of Spirit's martian sol 585 (Aug. 26, 2005) from a perch atop "Husband Hill" in Gusev Crater, shows Phobos, the brighter moon, on the right, and Deimos, the dimmer moon, on the left. Tiny streaks mark the trails of background stars moving across the sky or the impact of cosmic rays lighting up random groups of pixels in the image. Scientists will use images of the two moons to better map their orbital positions, learn more about their composition, and monitor the presence of nighttime clouds or haze. Spirit took the five images that make up this composite using the panoramic camera's broadband filter, which was designed specifically for acquiring images under low-light conditions. The Night Sky On Mars Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 16, 2005 Taking advantage of extra solar energy collected during the day, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit settled in for an evening of stargazing, photographing the two moons of Mars as they crossed the night sky. This time-lapse composite, acquired the evening of Spirit's martian sol 590 (Aug. 30, 2005) from a perch atop "Husband Hill" in Gusev Crater, shows Phobos, the brighter moon, on the left, and Deimos, the dimmer moon, on the right.
Scientists will use images of the two moons to better map their orbital positions, learn more about their composition, and monitor the presence of nighttime clouds or haze. Spirit took the six images that make up this composite using Spirit's panoramic camera with the camera's broadband filter, which was designed specifically for acquiring images under low-light conditions. Related Links SpaceDaily Mars Rovers at JPL Mars Rovers at Cornell Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express 
A Tale Of Two Rovers
Gerroa, Australia (SPX) Sep 07, 2005Six hundred sols later, Spirit is still alive and - three weeks behind it - so is Opportunity. At less than a million dollars a day, these two rovers are among NASA's most successful missions since Apollo. And now you can read how they did it in a newly released book by the mission's PI Steve Squyres. |
|
