Click on image for animation
A laser beam from the Canadian-built lidar instrument on NASA's Phoenix
Mars Lander can be seen in this contrast-enhanced sequence of 10 images
taken by Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager on July 26, 2008, during early
Martian morning hours of the mission's 61st Martian day after landing.
The view is almost straight up and includes about 1.5 kilometer (about 1
mile) of the length of the beam. The camera, from its position close to
the lidar on the lander deck, took the images through a green filter
centered on light with wavelength 532 nanometers, the same wavelength of
the laser beam. The movie has been artificially colored to to
approximately match the color that would be seen looking through this
filter on Mars. Contrast is enhanced to make the beam more visible.
The lidar beam can be seen extending from the lower right to the upper
right, near the zenith, as it reflects off particles suspended in the
atmosphere. Particles that scatter the beam directly into the camera can
be seen to produce brief sparkles of light. In the background, dust can be
seen drifting across the sky pushed by winds aloft.
The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf
of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin
Space Systems, Denver.