2001 Mars Odyssey: Multimedia


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Orbiter Update

24-Oct-2007

Selecting the Next Off-Road Tour of Mars

This mosaic shows 36 proposed landing sites for NASA's next Mars rover, in the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

Because Earthlings only get one chance every 26 months to send a spacecraft to Mars, it's important to make the most of every opportunity and to get there safely. Scientists and engineers are in the process of selecting five finalists from 36 proposed landing sites for NASA's next Mars rover, in the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

Finding the right landing site is a little like a treasure hunt, using a variety of clues from the Mars Odyssey and other orbiters. The objective is to find a smooth yet firm landing site within reach of interesting places to explore. Mars Odyssey images help scientists differentiate dusty, sandy areas from rocky areas.

Full Image and Caption >>

Explore landing sites at the THEMIS site >>

19-Sep-2007

A Colorful Marriage of Old & Young

At the center of this image is a large crater with rough walls and debris from the impact strewn about. Much of this rougher terrain is colored blue and extends diagonally from bottom left to top right. Smoother lava surfaces colored orange and yellow come in around the crater and ejected material. Smaller craters formed after the impact crater and the lava randomly dot the surface as well.

Primordial and prehistoric come together in a lasting bond of something old, something new, something orange, and something blue. In this false-color image, blue signals cooler sand or dust around an ancient crater, which dates back to a violent time of cataclysmic collisions about 4 billion years ago, shortly after Mars formed. Later, sheets of lava streamed across the surface and lapped against the crater walls. These younger lava rocks "glow" orange and yellow since they retain more heat at night than the sand and dust.

More at the THEMIS Instrument site >>

20-Aug-2007

In Search of Landing Sites on Mars

This color image shows a plateau above high cliff walls spewing aprons of debris into a basin.

Planetary scientists have long been excited about the prospect of one day exploring the "grand canyon" of Mars. Valles Marineris is a chasm vastly larger than Earth's Grand Canyon that also has many layers of rock that serve as windows into the past. A corner of Valles Marineris known as Melas Chasma is one of 36 potential landing sites being considered for the next robotic wanderer to the red planet, the Mars Science Laboratory, to be launched in 2009.

But because Mars exploration is risky, NASA's planetary explorers are very careful about selecting a safe place to land. The proposed site is perched in a basin that rises above the canyon floor as high as a 4,000-foot mountain on Earth. Images such as this one from NASA's Odyssey orbiter help mission planners get a closer look.

20-Jul-2007

THEMIS Monitors Dusty Martian Atmosphere

In this animation, the surface of Mars is shown in gray. At the center and just south is a colorful band that changes in a swirling pattern with time. In the June timeframe, the band is largely blue and green, indicating largely clear skies. As time progresses through July, red increasingly takes over. While the shape of red changes in pattern, it fills most of the equatorial band in which the storm is taking place.

From orbit around Mars, Odyssey is monitoring a gigantic dust storm that is sweeping the planet. In mid-June, the Martian sky was pink with a usual amount of dust. By July, dust in the atmosphere stretched around the planet, in a band near the equator where the two rovers Spirit and Opportunity are hunkered down, waiting out the storm. While all missions are waiting for the dust to settle, this storm has given orbital science teams a terrific opportunity to understand how regional dust storms can go global on Mars.

More at the THEMIS Instrument Site >>

12-Jul-2007

Martian Clays Beckon

This color image shows an overhead view of a meandering channel winding from the lower right edge toward the upper left edge. On either side of the channel are a variety of craters. Near the top, where the channel opens out onto a flatter area, is a crater that is somewhat larger than the others. The bed of the channel and the crater interiors are reddish in color. The reatively flat surface north and south of the large crater is light blue.

Weathered clay deposits sliced by a channel known as Mawrth Vallis, from the Welsh word for Mars, are one of 36 areas under consideration as potential landing sites for the Mars Science Laboratory, scheduled for launch in 2009. NASA's Odyssey orbiter is helping Mars explorers identify safe places to land. Clays, such as those revealed in the Martian highlands by the OMEGA instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, are of interest to scientists because nature requires lots of water to make them and once formed, they readily preserve evidence of life.

The Thermal Emission Imaging System on the Odyssey spacecraft can distinguish loose materials such as dust and sand based on heat retention compared with other materials such as rock outcrops. In this false-color image, loose materials appear blue and green and rock outcrops appear reddish-brown. One potential landing site is the smooth, blue area on the north rim of the crater on the upper left, west of where Mawrth Vallis empties into the vast northern lowlands of the Red Planet aftering winding for 640 kilometers (400 miles) across its surface.

29-Jun-2007

Odyssey Views A Surface Changed by Floods

This color image shows two channels oriented from the lower right to the upper left - a narrow, somewhat meandering channel on the left and a broader channel on the right, the floor of which is replete with boulders and scour marks.

Channels scoured by ancient outbursts of flood waters are seen in this orbital view from Odyssey's Thermal Emission Imaging System. The channels are billions of years old and have likely been affected by multiple processes over time. Here, two channels, Tiu Vallis on the left and Ares Vallis on the right, flow northward from the highlands of the southern hemisphere.

The stark difference between today's cold, dry Mars and the evidence of flood waters in the past tells scientists that the Martian climate has seen great changes. Unraveling the workings of that climate history is one of the major challenges in Mars science.

15-May-2007

Materials Move Downslope on Mars

New images from the Odyssey spacecraft show material moving downslope near the south pole of Mars. This view of dark material arranged in intricate, leaflike patterns on a lighter surface was taken by the Thermal Emission Imaging System.

02-May-2007

Depth-to-Ice Map of a Southern Mars Site Near Melea Planum

Odyssey Provides Detailed View of Ice on Mars

The THEMIS camera has provided scientists with the most detailed view yet of water ice at small scales on the Red Planet. They suggest that when NASA's next Mars mission, the Phoenix Mars Lander, starts digging to icy soil on an arctic plain in 2008, it might find the depth to the ice differs in trenches just a few feet apart.

Press Release

07-Apr-2006

2001 Mars Odyssey Turns 5

This vertical, rectangular, color image taken from orbit shows a sinuous wall of cliffs, reflecting the bright yellow light of the sun, meandering from left to right about two-thirds of the way up from the bottom of the image. The cliffs form the upper wall of a large canyon. Below the cliffs, just above the bottom of the image, is a meandering field of sinuous, black dunes winding from the left to the lower right. Between the dunes are round protrusions rising from a sandy, brown to black canyon floor. Above the cliffs, near the top of the image, are mesas and rugged hills atop a largely flat, sandy, brown plateau.

NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey celebrates five years of exploration, returning spectacular images of features rarely seen on Earth and paving the way for future missions.

14-Oct-2005

'Live' Images from Mars at Camera Web Site

An upgraded Web site offers images from Mars as soon as they are received from the camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter. It also has user-controlled navigation to scroll and zoom within selected images, plus a global map for finding images.

Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) web site

01-Jun-2005

Cover Story in the Journal Geology

$This image taken from 250 miles above Mars shows an area on Mars about 240 miles wide. Hundreds of craters in the image vary in size from a quarter to a small crumb, with the largest crater in the center left. Multiple lines of varying widths and lengths in the upper half of the picture cross diagonally southwest to northeast. Two long fractures extend all the way south, into the bottom half of the image. The image is a colorful map that looks like an abstract art painting, with a full-spectrum of different colors representing different minerals on Mars. A bright magenta area in the shape of a stereotypical house is in the center of the image, tilted to the left, with lime green, yellow, purple and orange smattering the image in the south. Dark blue, darker green, and pink cover most of the northern section.$

Hawaiian volcanoes aren't exotic enough for Vicky Hamilton and Phil Christensen. Together, they used higher resolution data available from Mars Odyssey to make new discoveries about an area adjacent to a major martian volcano. Their research has earned them the cover story for this month's journal Geology.

21-Apr-2005

Odyssey as seen by Mars Global Surveyor

This picture shows the Mars Odyssey orbiter as a bright white, dart-like image centered on a vast, deep black background. Odyssey looks like it is a triangle, turned 90 degrees to the left, with a longer, thin light grey line projecting out about three times the length of the turned triangle.

Mars Global Surveyor snapped pictures of Odyssey as the orbiters flew past each other about 90 kilometers (56 miles) apart!

07-Apr-2005

Happy Anniversary Odyssey!

This image shows the backs of about 20 Odyssey team members in the foreground, nervously and anxiously looking up and shading their eyes at the bright sight of the daytime launch of the 2001 Mars Odyssey Delta II rocket. Against baby-blue clear skies, the rocket is zooming the Odyssey orbiter straight up to outer space. Fire and a 500-foot white plume of smoke shoot down from the tall, thin, dart-shaped rocket, which is centered in the top middle of the picture, a few miles in the distance.

Four years ago on April 7, 2001, the mechanics, scientists, secretaries, and family members of the Odyssey orbiter team said a final farewell to their creation and hello to Mars. Don't miss the video, "An Odyssey of Exploration," for the ground-breaking accomplishments since launch.