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The Red Planet's low gravity and lack of magnetic field makes its outermost atmosphere an easy target to be swept away by the solar wind, but new evidence from ESA's #MarsExpress spacecraft shows that the Sun's radiation may play a surprising role in its escape. #Mars
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#MarsExpress has been orbiting the Red Planet for 12 years. While its controllers know the spacecraft inside out, additional valuable insights may well be hidden within the mounds of telemetry the mission generates – inspiring the first of ESA’s new data mining competitions, open to all.
“The goal of this Mars Express Power Challenge is to predict Mars Express’s thermal power consumption during the martian year ahead, based on its past telemetry,” explains Joerg Mueller, a Young Graduate Trainee in ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team.
“Our intended audience for the competition is the international data mining and machine learning community – whether students, research groups or companies”.
Read on for more about the challenge, the opportunity, and the timeline.
“The goal of this Mars Express Power Challenge is to predict Mars Express’s thermal power consumption during the martian year ahead, based on its past telemetry,” explains Joerg Mueller, a Young Graduate Trainee in ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team.
“Our intended audience for the competition is the international data mining and machine learning community – whether students, research groups or companies”.
Read on for more about the challenge, the opportunity, and the timeline.
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Mars Express was launched in 2003 with a simple, low-resolution camera to provide visual confirmation that its Beagle 2 lander had separated. Once that was done, the camera was switched off, and the craft got on with its main mission using its ‘real’ scientific instruments .
In 2007, ESA’s flight controllers switched it back on to see if it could still be used, possibly for education or science outreach, without interfering with routine operations or the mission’s prime science investigations.
It still worked well, and the camera's unique vantage point meant it could, for example, capture crescent images of Mars impossible from Earth. Its wide field of view provides global images of the Red Planet, a capability available on only one other Mars craft, India’s orbiter.
Source & further reading:
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/Mars_Webcam_goes_pro
#esa #space #science #marsexpress
In 2007, ESA’s flight controllers switched it back on to see if it could still be used, possibly for education or science outreach, without interfering with routine operations or the mission’s prime science investigations.
It still worked well, and the camera's unique vantage point meant it could, for example, capture crescent images of Mars impossible from Earth. Its wide field of view provides global images of the Red Planet, a capability available on only one other Mars craft, India’s orbiter.
Source & further reading:
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/Mars_Webcam_goes_pro
#esa #space #science #marsexpress
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Mawrth Valley on Mars | ESA Mars Express
Traces of water in one of the biggest valleys on Mars
July 7, 2016: With a length of 600 kilometers and a depth of up to two kilometers, Mawrth Vallis is one of the biggest valleys on Mars and a possible landing site for the ESA ExoMars and NASA Mars 2020 missions. It is entrenched in the Arabia Terra highland, which is more than four billion years old, and ends in the great Chryse Planitia lowland region.
This image covers an area of around 330,000 square kilometers on the transition from the southern highland of Mars to the northern lowland of Mars. Mawrth Vallis is located in the center of the image. North is at the top in the image. The image shows a bird’s eye view of the region—the perspective from which the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board the European Mars Express spacecraft has been observing the surface of Mars since 2004. It creates image strips that are around 200 to 500 kilometers wide and several hundred to thousands of kilometers long (depending on the altitude of Mars Express). This view of the region around Mawrth Vallis was made possible using a mosaic of nine individual HRSC images. The camera is operated by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR).
This was once a potentially habitable place...
Light and dark deposits can be seen in and around the Mawrth Vallis outflow valley. The light deposits are layered and are one of the biggest occurrences of clay minerals (sheet silicates) on Mars. In many places, these clays are covered with a layer of dark rock. The almost black deposits in this region are remains of ancient volcanic ash that have piled up into imposing dunes in many places (primarily in impact craters). Investigations using the OMEGA instrument on Mars Express have led to a better understanding of the clay minerals, which may be rich in either iron and magnesium or aluminium. The differing composition of the clay minerals indicates different ages and levels of erosion. Deposits containing sulphates have also been found on the valley floor of Mawrth Vallis, which in turn point to another formation environment.
Sheet silicates on Mars are a clear indication of the effect of liquid water on the surface. Furthermore, they point to neutral environmental conditions—another sign that habitable (life-supporting) conditions may have once been predominant here on Mars. The water that once flowed through the Mawrth valley was probably present on the surface until approximately 3.6 billion years ago. It is even possible that traces of life persist in the clay deposits, protected from radiation and erosion by the dark, superposing layer. For this reason, astrobiologists are very interested in this Martian region.
Mawrth Vallis is one of four possible landing sites for the ExoMars mission, which is due to launch in 2020 and will place a European rover and a Russian scientific platform on the surface of Mars. A borer on the rover is expected to take rock samples from the subsurface and analyse them. Other suggested landing sites for the ExoMars mission are Oxia Planum, Aram Dorsum, and Hypanis Vallis.
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
Release Date: July 7, 2016
+European Space Agency, ESA
+DLR, German Aerospace Center
+Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)
+NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
#ESA #Space #Mars #Astronomy #Science #Mawrth #Valley
#MawrthVallis #Water #Clays #ArabiaTerra #ChrysePlanitia
#Spacecraft #Orbiter #MarsExpress #HRSC #Camera #Planet #RedPlanet #JourneyToMars #Martian #Europe #DLR #Deutschland
Traces of water in one of the biggest valleys on Mars
July 7, 2016: With a length of 600 kilometers and a depth of up to two kilometers, Mawrth Vallis is one of the biggest valleys on Mars and a possible landing site for the ESA ExoMars and NASA Mars 2020 missions. It is entrenched in the Arabia Terra highland, which is more than four billion years old, and ends in the great Chryse Planitia lowland region.
This image covers an area of around 330,000 square kilometers on the transition from the southern highland of Mars to the northern lowland of Mars. Mawrth Vallis is located in the center of the image. North is at the top in the image. The image shows a bird’s eye view of the region—the perspective from which the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board the European Mars Express spacecraft has been observing the surface of Mars since 2004. It creates image strips that are around 200 to 500 kilometers wide and several hundred to thousands of kilometers long (depending on the altitude of Mars Express). This view of the region around Mawrth Vallis was made possible using a mosaic of nine individual HRSC images. The camera is operated by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR).
This was once a potentially habitable place...
Light and dark deposits can be seen in and around the Mawrth Vallis outflow valley. The light deposits are layered and are one of the biggest occurrences of clay minerals (sheet silicates) on Mars. In many places, these clays are covered with a layer of dark rock. The almost black deposits in this region are remains of ancient volcanic ash that have piled up into imposing dunes in many places (primarily in impact craters). Investigations using the OMEGA instrument on Mars Express have led to a better understanding of the clay minerals, which may be rich in either iron and magnesium or aluminium. The differing composition of the clay minerals indicates different ages and levels of erosion. Deposits containing sulphates have also been found on the valley floor of Mawrth Vallis, which in turn point to another formation environment.
Sheet silicates on Mars are a clear indication of the effect of liquid water on the surface. Furthermore, they point to neutral environmental conditions—another sign that habitable (life-supporting) conditions may have once been predominant here on Mars. The water that once flowed through the Mawrth valley was probably present on the surface until approximately 3.6 billion years ago. It is even possible that traces of life persist in the clay deposits, protected from radiation and erosion by the dark, superposing layer. For this reason, astrobiologists are very interested in this Martian region.
Mawrth Vallis is one of four possible landing sites for the ExoMars mission, which is due to launch in 2020 and will place a European rover and a Russian scientific platform on the surface of Mars. A borer on the rover is expected to take rock samples from the subsurface and analyse them. Other suggested landing sites for the ExoMars mission are Oxia Planum, Aram Dorsum, and Hypanis Vallis.
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
Release Date: July 7, 2016
+European Space Agency, ESA
+DLR, German Aerospace Center
+Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)
+NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
#ESA #Space #Mars #Astronomy #Science #Mawrth #Valley
#MawrthVallis #Water #Clays #ArabiaTerra #ChrysePlanitia
#Spacecraft #Orbiter #MarsExpress #HRSC #Camera #Planet #RedPlanet #JourneyToMars #Martian #Europe #DLR #Deutschland
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#MarsExpress monthly image drop is a little upside down:
Which way is up in space? Planets are usually shown with the north pole at the top and the south pole at the bottom. In this remarkable image taken by ESA’s Mars Express, the Red Planet is seen with north at the bottom, and the equator at the top.
The image was taken on 19 June for calibrating the high-resolution stereo camera, while Mars Express was flying from north to south.
Read more: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Mars_upside_down
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Which way is up in space? Planets are usually shown with the north pole at the top and the south pole at the bottom. In this remarkable image taken by ESA’s Mars Express, the Red Planet is seen with north at the bottom, and the equator at the top.
The image was taken on 19 June for calibrating the high-resolution stereo camera, while Mars Express was flying from north to south.
Read more: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Mars_upside_down
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
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Mars: Clouds over Candor Chasma | ESA Mars Express
Mars Express HRSC (High Resolution Stereo Camera) image of cirrus clouds drifting over Candor Chasma, a branch of the Valles Marineris canyon system. This image is heavily processed to deal with parallax effects caused by the motion of Mars Express during the imaging sequence. It is approximately true color.
This image was taken during Mars Express' 8,406th orbit of Mars, July 28, 2010.
Image Credit: ESA/DLR/F.U. Berlin/Justin Cowart
Release Date: April 22, 2017
+European Space Agency, ESA
+DLR, German Aerospace Center
#ESA #Mars #Astronomy #Science #Space #Atmosphere #Clouds #CandorChasma #VallesMarineris #Canyons #MarsExpress #Spacecraft #RedPlanet #DLR #Germany #Deutschland #HRSC #Camera #Geoscience #Europe #STEM #Education
Mars Express HRSC (High Resolution Stereo Camera) image of cirrus clouds drifting over Candor Chasma, a branch of the Valles Marineris canyon system. This image is heavily processed to deal with parallax effects caused by the motion of Mars Express during the imaging sequence. It is approximately true color.
This image was taken during Mars Express' 8,406th orbit of Mars, July 28, 2010.
Image Credit: ESA/DLR/F.U. Berlin/Justin Cowart
Release Date: April 22, 2017
+European Space Agency, ESA
+DLR, German Aerospace Center
#ESA #Mars #Astronomy #Science #Space #Atmosphere #Clouds #CandorChasma #VallesMarineris #Canyons #MarsExpress #Spacecraft #RedPlanet #DLR #Germany #Deutschland #HRSC #Camera #Geoscience #Europe #STEM #Education
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Mars: Chryse Planitia & Western Arabia Terra | ESA Mars Express
Mars Express view of Chryse Planitia and western Arabia Terra on February 23, 2015. This image was made from a two color (blue-green) observation of hazes in the atmosphere.
A seasonal dust cloud drifts above the southern edge of Chryse Planitia. Small local dust storms contributing to this dust cloud can be seen to its left. Meanwhile, the skies over western Arabia Terra and Margaritifer Terra were relatively dust-free.
This image was taken during Mars Express' 15,144th orbit of Mars.
Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/J. Cowart, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Release Date: July 15, 2017
+European Space Agency, ESA
+DLR, German Aerospace Center
#ESA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Mars #Planet #ChrysePlanitia
#ArabiaTerra #MargaritiferTerra #Atmosphere #Spacecraft #Orbiter #MarsExpress #HRSC #Camera #RedPlanet #JourneyToMars #Europe #DLR #Deutschland #STEM #Education
Mars Express view of Chryse Planitia and western Arabia Terra on February 23, 2015. This image was made from a two color (blue-green) observation of hazes in the atmosphere.
A seasonal dust cloud drifts above the southern edge of Chryse Planitia. Small local dust storms contributing to this dust cloud can be seen to its left. Meanwhile, the skies over western Arabia Terra and Margaritifer Terra were relatively dust-free.
This image was taken during Mars Express' 15,144th orbit of Mars.
Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/J. Cowart, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Release Date: July 15, 2017
+European Space Agency, ESA
+DLR, German Aerospace Center
#ESA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Mars #Planet #ChrysePlanitia
#ArabiaTerra #MargaritiferTerra #Atmosphere #Spacecraft #Orbiter #MarsExpress #HRSC #Camera #RedPlanet #JourneyToMars #Europe #DLR #Deutschland #STEM #Education
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Mars: Borealis Planitia | ESA Mars Express
Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) image of the Martian north polar region. This image captures the north polar cap, a bank of stratocumulus over Borealis Planitia and the highlands of Tempe Terra (left).
This image was taken during Mars Express' 14,125th orbit of Mars on May 2, 2014.
Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/J. Cowart, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Release Date: July 15, 2017
+European Space Agency, ESA
+DLR, German Aerospace Center
#ESA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Mars #Planet #Polar #Cap #North #Borealis #Planitia #TempeTerra #Atmosphere #Clouds #Stratocumulus #Spacecraft #Orbiter #MarsExpress #HRSC #Camera #RedPlanet #JourneyToMars #Europe #DLR #Deutschland #STEM #Education
Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) image of the Martian north polar region. This image captures the north polar cap, a bank of stratocumulus over Borealis Planitia and the highlands of Tempe Terra (left).
This image was taken during Mars Express' 14,125th orbit of Mars on May 2, 2014.
Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/J. Cowart, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Release Date: July 15, 2017
+European Space Agency, ESA
+DLR, German Aerospace Center
#ESA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Mars #Planet #Polar #Cap #North #Borealis #Planitia #TempeTerra #Atmosphere #Clouds #Stratocumulus #Spacecraft #Orbiter #MarsExpress #HRSC #Camera #RedPlanet #JourneyToMars #Europe #DLR #Deutschland #STEM #Education
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