![]() CM is the longitude of the planet's central meridian. Each is a composite of frames taken through red, green, and blue filters. Note that as used here, "north," "south," "east," and "west" refer to directions on the sky, not directions on the surface of the red planet itself, where Martian longitude increases to the west.Įd Grafton of Houston, Texas, used an SBIG ST-6 CCD camera and Celestron 14-inch telescope for some of the last apparition's best images of Mars. The Martian longitude scale appears along the south edge of the map in the direct and mirror-reversed views. "Mirror reversed" puts north up and west to the left, matching the view in most catadioptric (mirror-lens) and refractor telescopes used with a star diagonal in the Northern Hemisphere. "Inverted view," the default, puts south up and west to the left. "Direct view" puts celestial north up and celestial east to the left. ![]() This means features away from the red circle will appear foreshortened on the real, spherical Mars as seen in your telescope.īelow the time buttons and the map are three buttons you can use to change the orientation of the map to match the view in your telescope. The map is rectangular remember to mentally wrap it onto the side of a globe. A red circle indicates the area of the planet's surface pointed directly toward Earth. The central-meridian (CM) longitude is shown at the top, and major bright and dark features are labeled for easy identification. When the routine opens, south is up, matching the inverted view seen in a Newtonian reflector in the Northern Hemisphere. When changing the time manually, enter the Universal Time that corresponds to the local time when you will be observing.Īt upper right is a map of Mars, based on computer graphics by planetary cartographer Ralph Aeschliman, showing the planet's main albedo features (dark and light markings). Our Mars Profiler uses Universal Time (UT, essentially the same as Greenwich Mean Time), and beneath the time buttons it shows what we think is the offset between UT and your local time, based on your computer's current settings. Change the date and time and click the Recalculate button to see results for another time, or click on the buttons in the next row to step backward or forward in increments of 1 day or 1 hour. At upper left is the date and time when the routine opens, it is initialized to the present time, as determined from your computer's clock. ![]() Most recently, the orbiter returned stunning images of what winter looks like on Mars.The display has four parts. The orbiter searches for evidence of water, ice and complex terrain and scouts future landing sites for other missions. The spacecraft and its suite of instruments help NASA scientists study the Martian atmosphere, weather and climate, and how they change over time. The orbiter circles Mars every 112 minutes, flying from about 160 miles (255 kilometers) above the south pole to 200 miles (320 kilometers) over the north pole. The powerful camera was designed to capture detailed images of the Martian surface, including features as small as 3 feet (1 meter). The HiRISE camera has been taking images of Mars since 2006, when the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter began circling the red planet. NASA images showcase eerie beauty of winter on MarsĪnd last March, the Curiosity rover spotted a rock formation that resembled a flower on Mars. The frost here is a mixture of carbon dioxide ice and water ice and will disappear in a few months when spring arrives. Winter frost covers the colder, north-facing half of each dune (but not the warmer south-facing half). Sand dunes are moving across this landscape from top left to bottom right. This picture was taken far north of the equator just two days after the winter solstice when the Sun was just a few degrees above the horizon. Sometimes though, we would like to know what's going on in the dim wintertime areas. Usually, HiRISE takes pictures of well-illuminated terrain where there is plenty of light to produce clear images.
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