New images from NASA’s Mars Odyssey Orbiter reveal what Mars will look like when viewed from above. Mission scientists recently returned Odyssey on a full orbit toward the Martian horizon, capturing new images of the Red Planet and revealing the deep craters and diverse cloud structures that astronauts orbiting Mars would expect to see.This is what Mars looks like from its orbit
“If you were an astronaut, the first thing that would catch your eye, of course, would be all these beautiful craters that look much different than what you’d see on Earth,” a video released by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says. It is also stated that the second thing to be seen in the video will be the cloud structures visible when looking at the planet from a certain angle.
The new panoramic images were taken from an altitude of approximately 400 kilometers; This altitude is the same altitude at which the International Space Station flies above Earth. NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter was launched in 2001 and has just completed its 22nd year of near-Mars observations. While the spacecraft is still running strong, scientists on Earth are finding new ways to exploit its capabilities. Meanwhile, the orbiter will reach 100,000 orbitals next year and perform a variety of missions.One of these missions will be a rock mapping study that will help us land spacecraft and, in the future, humans, more safely on the surface of Mars. Studies are also being carried out to map clouds, fog and frost that only exist at certain times of the day. To study these structures, NASA is planning a maneuvering mission for Odyssey.
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