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What's that bright red spot between the Lagoon and Trifid Nebulas?
Mars. This gorgeous color deep-sky photograph captured the red planet passing between the two notable nebulas -- cataloged by the 18th century cosmic registrar Charles Messier as M8 and M20. M20 (upper right of center), the Trifid Nebula, presents a striking contrast in red/blue colors and dark dust lanes. Across the bottom right is the expansive, alluring red glow of M8, the Lagoon Nebula. Both nebulae are a few thousand light-years distant. By comparison, temporarily situated between them both, is the dominant "local" celestial beacon Mars. Taken last week, the red planet was only about 10 light-minutes away.

Image Credit & Copyright: Sebastian Voltmer
Text: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)


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Kevin Gill processes NASA data. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mapped out craters on Mars. Gill used the data to create a 3D image of this Martian crater. Wow!


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The Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of "Vera Rubin Ridge" about two weeks before the rover started ascending this steep ridge on lower Mount Sharp. The view combines 13 images taken with the Mastcam's right-eye, telephoto-lens camera, on Aug. 19, 2017, during the 1,790th Martian day (sol) of Curiosity's work on Mars.

It shows details of the sedimentary rocks that make up the "Vera Rubin Ridge" located on the lower slopes of Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons). They're characterized by the presence of hematite, an iron-oxide mineral. Scientists on the mission are using such images to determine the ancient environment these rocks were deposited in.

The panorama has been white-balanced so that the colors of the rock materials resemble how they would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth.

The ridge was informally named in early 2017 in memory of Vera Cooper Rubin (1928-2016), whose astronomical observations provided evidence for the existence of the universe's dark matter.

Mars Exploration Program


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What has the HIRISE camera of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured here? These are polar dunes. The white areas show carbon dioxide frost. The frost has sublimated from the darker areas, i.e., gone from frozen to vapor without melting.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona.


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Here is a gigapan of Gale Crater on Mars, by Curosity with some image processing by Neville Thompson. Wow!


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Here is a map of the Tharsis region of Mars. It straddles the boundary between Mars’ southern highlands and northern lowlands.

And here is a picture of Tharsis region taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera aboard Mars Express last October.


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On 10 June 2006, ESA's Mars Express took this image of mysterious ridges at the mouth of the Tiu Valles channel system on Mars.

Visible in the lower part of the image are remnants of a once 'streamlined' island.

The upper part of the scene covers the mouth of the Tiu Valles nearly in its entire width, approximately 55 km. Its winding, meandering ridges, bound by depressions are eye-catching. The processes that formed these odd structures are unknown. Possibly, during flooding events, water or water-rich surface layers came in contact with lava from the surrounding areas, which then might have led to the formation of these mysterious ridges.


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The Opportunity rover is being menaced by a growing dust storm. The map was produced by the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The blue dot indicates the approximate location of Opportunity. [Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS]

A June 12th report from NASA says that it seemed likely that
Quote
the charge in Opportunity’s batteries has dipped below 24 volts and the rover has entered low power fault mode, a condition where all subsystems, except a mission clock, are turned off. The rover’s mission clock is programmed to wake the computer so it can check power levels.

If the rover’s computer determines that its batteries don't have enough charge, it will again put itself back to sleep. Due to an extreme amount of dust over Perseverance Valley, mission engineers believe it is unlikely the rover has enough sunlight to charge back up for at least the next several days.

The Martian dust storm that has blotted out the sun above Opportunity has continued to intensify. The storm, which was first detected on May 30, now blankets 14-million square miles (35-million square kilometers) of Martian surface -- a quarter of the planet.


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In 2001 Mars was engulfed in a planet-wide dust storm.
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These two Hubble Space Telescope storm watch images from late June and early September offer dramatically contrasting views of the Martian surface. At left, the onset of smaller "seed" storms can be seen near the Hellas basin (lower right edge of Mars) and the northern polar cap. A similar surface view at right, taken over two months later, shows the fully developed extent of the obscuring global storm.

Text: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)

There's another big one brewing now on Mars.

Image Credit: J. Bell (ASU), M. Wolff (Space Science Inst.), Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA), NASA


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Tweet from NASA JPL yesterday:

Red alert.
The dust storm on #Mars now encircles the planet. See the change in light on the surface through @MarsCuriosity’s eyes.


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