Here's an even more detailed view of Perseverance's landing area, this one made with the same @HiRISE data (ESP_046060_1985) but run through the HiView software to pull original JP2 resolution. Also colored; the entire area shown is about 300 meters across. #Mars2020
Sorry everyone, I was a little off in the maps I posted last night of @NASAPersevere's landing spot. Based on the location marked here mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/missi… it's actually about 20 meters west of where I originally estimated, in the blue circle. Mea culpa.
So more accurately, Perseverance landed *here.* (May 2016 HiRISE image ESP_046060_1985 crop, uncolored, scale noted at top right.) #Mars2020
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This is the first high-definition color image (uncalibrated, screenshot) of Perseverance's landing site, taken after the dust cover was removed. #Mars2020
Another color image from a different camera shows the ground near the rover's wheel. #Mars2020
Mission scientists are already working to figure out if the rocks seen in the foreground are volcanic or sedimentary in origin.
Colorized versions of the screen captures of @NASAPersevere's first images after its successful landing on Mars #CountdownToMars
I've got some Mars color presets in Photoshop to make greyscale images into something sort of like natural lighting, so I just applied them here to the screen shots.
That little cross thing in the first picture near the top was a cursor on the screen where the image was displayed in JPL mission control.
Jezero Crater, the future home of #Perseverance, is about 28 miles (45 km) across. There's an obvious river delta formation inside its western rim, and that's where the rover is going.
Here's a close-up of part of the fascinating landscape within the target #Perseverance landing and exploration area in Jezero, captured by the @HiRISE camera aboard NASA's MRO in July 2014. (Colored cropped and original map-projected monochrome versions.)
When you look up at the Moon (today is a full Moon, like the one here from Nov. 29) you can think about the comparative sizes of the moons on Mars, which are much smaller but orbit much closer. These are how Phobos and Deimos would look from Mars' surface, compared to our Moon.
Earth's Moon is 2,158 miles / 3,473 km wide and around 238,000 miles / 383,000 km away.
Phobos is only 16.7 miles / 27 km wide but also only 3,721 miles / 5,989 km away from Mars.
Deimos is 15 km / 9.3 miles at its widest and orbits Mars 14,580 / 23,460 km away.
Here are all of them in one image. (I used this NASA Photojournal article for the reference photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/beta/catalog/P…) Obviously lighting angles are different here on each and it's not an accurate representation of comparative brightnesses.
There's an estimated 10% chance that two large pieces of orbiting space debris could collide tomorrow night at an altitude of 615 miles and a relative velocity of 32,883 mph.
Cool 3D rendering of the Milky Way galaxy by @StefanPWinc showing the curve of the galactic plane and dust using data from GAIA (ht @runnymonkey)
The galaxy our Sun and solar system resides within is a barred spiral galaxy about 105,700 light-years across. Its plane is not a perfectly flat disk though; astronomers have found that it has a warped shape. earthsky.org/space/milky-wa…
From Earth the Milky Way is a hazy band of stars with dark clouds of dust stretching across the sky, best visible from dark locations. We can't see the spiral shape because we're inside one of the arms, looking into the plane of it.