Superb Full-Globe View of Mars from Indian orbiter

[True Blue Door]

[img][/img]

This is one of the best full-globe images of Mars ever taken. And it's important to note that it's an actual photograph of Mars as an entire planet, not a mosaic of closer images taken over time. So it's that entire world captured in a given moment - about what you'd see out the window of a spaceship.

Note the dust storms in the Northern hemisphere. If you right click and select "View Image" and then magnify, you can see the faint wisp of the atmosphere on the limb.

[Autumn]

1. OMG simply stunning. Amazing what a country that doesn't spend all their money waging war can do

Rec

[True Blue Door]

3. We spend billions of dollars on Mars exploration.

But sometimes the US Mars program loses sight of how important naturalistic imagery is. The probes are overwhelmingly just designed to take images of scientific relevance rather than inspiring "celestial portraiture."

So, mostly black and white images of sand dunes and craters, pretty much. But NASA archives are wide open, so feel free to comb them:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/targetFamily/Mars

[obxhead]

10. When compared to the trillions we spend on war

The pennies we put into space exploration is pathetic.

[True Blue Door]

12. True. But it remains the largest space budget of any country.

But I'd definitely support any level of higher funding. Literally. Ask me to vote for putting half the Pentagon budget into space exploration, I'm totally with that.

[MisterP]

13. we just sent a Mars orbiter and it's there *right now*;

AND we've had full-globe pictures of Mars since the 90s!

[Autumn]

17. Yeah, but just imagine where we would be if we didn't spend money on war.

We could go farther.

[MisterP]

18. we're going to Pluto

[True Blue Door]

25. I think the point being made is just that we should spend a lot more money on space

than we do, and a lot less money on worthless destruction.

[True Blue Door]

21. Mosaics, mostly. NASA doesn't spend much time on portraiture.

Most of the photogenic full-globe images were from when Mars was still new to NASA. Now they're mostly about the closeups and the surface shots.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. " All of us are standing in the gutter, some of us are looking at the stars " ' The Pretenders '

Cool, Thanks .

[riqster]

4. Link to source?

Thanks!

[True Blue Door]

5. Sure:

http://spaceref.com/mars/indias-mars-orbiter-image-of-martian-dust-storms.html

[riqster]

6. Thanks! Gonna bookmark it.

[alfredo]

7. Beautiful. On the Mac it is "open image in new tab."

[SheilaT]

8. My son the budding astrophysicist sent

me this two days ago: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/09241109-maven-returns-first-images-of-mars.html

I had no idea we also had something out there looking at Mars.

[True Blue Door]

9. There are several current Mars orbiters.

But NASA has been doing it for so long they kind of lose touch with the wonder, and mostly just take scientific pictures.

[SheilaT]

16. SEVERAL Mars orbiters??

I had no idea! And budding astrophysicist son didn't tell me that!

In his defense, he's currently doing research on galaxy colliding, some something as close as Mars may not be as much on his radar as some other things.

[True Blue Door]

22. The currently operational Mars orbiters (in addition to Mangalyaan) are:

Mars Odyssey (USA - arrived Oct. 2001)
Mars Express (Europe - arrived Dec. 2003)
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (USA - arrived March 2006)
MAVEN (USA - arrived Sept. 2014)

They also act as communications relays for the two currently operating surface rovers.

[TheVisitor]

11. Hey

It looks kind of like a giant lopsided Australia is in the middle there

[True Blue Door]

15. The Western part is called Arabia Terra. The Eastern, Terra Sabaea.

[samsingh]

14. kick

[bloomington-lib]

19. I thought the white was ice and not dust storms. I was under the impression Mars didn't have storms

or really any wind.

[True Blue Door]

23. It has a very thin atmosphere, but it has some very fine-grained, lightweight dust

that is periodically kicked up by even the thinnest of winds. Every few years there's a global dust storm that covers most of the planet. If you were there, you wouldn't see or feel any of the dust because it's so fine, but the sky would just become very dark. Some surface images of a local dust storm:

[img][img]

And there are ice caps at the poles, but they're very sharply delineated when not obscured by dust:

[img][/img]

[ret5hd]

20. "... faint wisp of the atmosphere on the limb."

I don't know what you mean.

[True Blue Door]

24. The edge of the planet. In the high-res magnification you can see

a wispy membrane just above the edge of the planet. That's the atmosphere.