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The Mars Color Imager (MARCI) is a wide-angle, relatively low-resolution camera built for Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. MARCI views the surface of Mars in five visible and two ultraviolet bands. Each day, MARCI collects about 84 images and produces a global map with pixel resolutions of 1 to 10 km (0.62 to 6.21 mi).
The THEMIS instrument, before being mounted onto Mars Odyssey. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) is a camera on board the 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter. It images Mars in the visible and infrared parts of the electromagnetic spectrum in order to determine the thermal properties of the surface and to refine the distribution of minerals on the surface of Mars as determined by the Thermal ...
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun.The surface of Mars is orange-red because it is covered in iron(III) oxide dust, giving it the nickname "the Red Planet". [22] [23] Mars is among the brightest objects in Earth's sky, and its high-contrast albedo features have made it a common subject for telescope viewing.
These images helped to calibrate the camera and prepare it for taking pictures of Mars. On March 10, 2006, MRO achieved Martian orbit and primed HiRISE to acquire some initial images of Mars. [ 2 ] The instrument had two opportunities to take pictures of Mars (the first was on March 24, 2006) before MRO entered aerobraking, during which time ...
Mars has an axial tilt of 25.19°, quite close to the value of 23.44° for Earth, and thus Mars has seasons of spring, summer, autumn, winter as Earth does.As on Earth, the southern and northern hemispheres have summer and winter at opposing times.
The RMI is primarily used to obtain close-up images of targets sampled by ChemCam, but it can also be used to gather high-resolution images of distant outcrops and landscapes. [7] The RMI has a higher spatial resolution than the mastcam M100 camera, which is a color camera also capable of imaging nearby objects or distant geologic features. [7]
Earth-based telescopes equipped with charge-coupled devices can produce useful images of Mars, allowing for regular monitoring of the planet's weather during oppositions. [ 93 ] X-ray emission from Mars was first observed by astronomers in 2001 using the Chandra X-ray Observatory , and in 2003 it was shown to have two components.
Mars has seasonal variations in the abundances of water vapor, water ice clouds and hazes, and atmospheric dust. During southern summer, when Mars is closest to the Sun (at perihelion), solar heating can raise massive dust storms. Regional dust storms - ones having a 1000-kilometer scale - show surprising repeatability Mars-year to Mars-year.