mercredi 22 avril 2015

Mars Orbiter Views Curiosity Rover in 'Artist's Drive'












NASA - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) patch.

April 22, 2015


Image above: Mars image from the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona.

A view from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on April 8, 2015, catches sight of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover passing through a valley called "Artist's Drive" on the lower slope of Mount Sharp.

The image from the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera shows the rover's position after a drive of about 75 feet (23 meters) during the 949th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars.

The location of the rover, with its shadow extending toward the right, is indicated with an inscribed rectangle. North is toward the top. The view covers an area about 550 yards (500 meters) across. 


Image above: Unannotated version of Mars image from the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona.

Curiosity used a route through Artist's Drive on its way toward higher layers on Mount Sharp after examining exposures of the mountain's basal geological unit at "Pahrump Hills."  The rover's "Logan Pass" science destination is at the bottom left of this image. A wider map of the area is at: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19390

This image is an excerpt from HiRISE observation ESP_040770_1755. Other image products from this observation are available at: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_040770_1755

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project and Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

For more information about Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), visit: http://mars.nasa.gov/mro/

Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/JPL/Guy Webster.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch