Showing posts with label Mars Express. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mars Express. Show all posts

Sunday, December 23, 2018

Ice deposit in Korolev crater

Water ice deposit in Korolev crater at the northern polar plain on Mars. This recent image is taken by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express orbiter. Korolev crater is 81 kilometers (51 miles) in diameter and naturally traps the cold air in it continuously replenishing the ice deposit with fresh layers of ice. The ice sheet is up to 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) thick and it is estimated the crater holds about 2200 cubic kilometers (530 cubic miles) of water ice.
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Water ice deposit in Korolev crater on Mars

Sunday, October 28, 2018

Elongated cloud on Mars at Arsia Mons

On September 13 European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express orbiter spotted an elongated cloud on Mars near the Arsia Mons - a dormant shield volcano 12 miles high. The cloud stretches for about 930 miles (1500 kilometers) and hasn't dissolved for over a month. That's nothing extraordinary - similar clouds has been spotted on Mars in 2009, 2012 and 2015 at winter season. The giant Martian volcanoes, rising high into the atmosphere, are playing a role into creation of those kind of clouds.

Elongated cloud on Mars at Arsia Mons

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

5 spacecraft currently orbiting Mars

In a recent article "Traffic around Mars gets busy" the NASA/JPL summed up some facts about spacecraft currently orbiting Mars. The most interesting is the provided graphic of their orbits around Mars (together with planet's two natural satellites Phobos & Deimos):

Mars orbiters

So there are 5 active Mars orbiters currently orbiting the planet: