Tag Archives: MEX

HRSC: Mars upside down

Posted on December 14, 2017 by rburnham

Which way is up in space? Planets are usually shown with the north pole at the top and the south pole at the bottom. In this remarkable image taken by ESA’s Mars Express, the Red Planet is seen with north … Continue reading →

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Mars atmosphere well protected from solar wind

Posted on December 14, 2017 by rburnham

Despite the absence of a global Earth-like magnetic dipole, the Martian atmosphere is well protected from the effects of the solar wind on ion escape from the planet. New research shows this using measurements from the Swedish particle instrument ASPERA-3 … Continue reading →

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HRSC: Fracture swarms on Mars

Posted on November 16, 2017 by rburnham

These striking features on Mars were caused by the planet’s crust stretching apart in response to ancient volcanic activity. The fractures in the Sirenum Fossae region in the southern hemisphere were imaged by ESA’s Mars Express in March. They extend … Continue reading →

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Mars Express webcam surveys high-altitude clouds

Posted on October 17, 2017 by rburnham

An unprecedented catalogue of more than 21,000 images taken by a webcam on ESA’s Mars Express is proving its worth as a science instrument, providing a global survey of unusual high-altitude cloud features on the Red Planet. The low-resolution camera … Continue reading →

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HRSC: Colorful dunes on wind-swept Mars

Posted on October 16, 2017 by rburnham

Dunes are prominent indicators of prevailing winds, as can be seen on this crater floor on Mars, imaged by ESA’s Mars Express on 16 May. Depressions such as impact craters can act as traps for sediments that have been blown … Continue reading →

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Mars Express: Visual Monitoring Camera goes pro

Posted on September 29, 2017 by rburnham

In the past fortnight, the VMC camera on Mars Express has delivered some of the best images ever, showing the Martian surface in excellent detail, colour and contrast. If you’re a VMCer (and, if you’re reading this, you are!) and … Continue reading →

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Mars Express: Rover craters

Posted on September 22, 2017 by rburnham

In the week of 18 September 2017, the low-resolution webcam on ESA’s Mars Express captured some impressive images from between 3000 km to 5000 km altitude. The image series is being used to calibrate the camera now that it has … Continue reading →

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HRSC: Crashing into martian mud

Posted on September 15, 2017 by rburnham

An impactor smashing into an ice-rich surface gave rise to the complex flow features around this ancient crater on Mars. Impacts of comets and asteroids have shaped the surfaces of rocky planets and moons over the Solar System’s 4.6 billion … Continue reading →

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iMars & PSUP: New tools to explore Mars data

Posted on September 7, 2017 by rburnham

In past decades, spacecraft have sent back huge amounts of complex data about Mars, providing a wealth of information about the planet. More than ever, the scientific community needs a way to sift through, compare, and analyse these data, prompting … Continue reading →

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Does Mars’ bow shock location correlate with atmospheric dust?

Posted on August 23, 2017 by rburnham

A Lancaster University [UK] physicist has led an international study, based on data from ESA’s Mars Express orbiter, which throws new light on the interaction between the planet Mars and supersonic particles in the solar wind. As the energetic particles … Continue reading →

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