03-06-2013 07:32 PM CEST
The journey of Mars Express, from drawing board through launch, to its key science highlights during ten years of operations.
With its suite of seven instruments, Mars Express has studied the subsurface of the Red Planet to the upper atmosphere and beyond to the two tiny moons Phobos and Deimos, providing an in depth analysis of the planet's history and returning stunning 3D images.
With its suite of seven instruments, Mars Express has studied the subsurface of the Red Planet to the upper atmosphere and beyond to the two tiny moons Phobos and Deimos, providing an in depth analysis of the planet's history and returning stunning 3D images.
03-06-2013 07:24 PM CEST
This unique atlas comprises a series of maps showing the distribution and abundance of minerals formed in water, by volcanic activity, and by weathering to create the dust that makes Mars red. Together the maps provide a global context for the dominant geological processes that have defined the planet's history. The maps were built from ten years of data collected by the OMEGA visible and infrared mineralogical mapping spectrometer on Mars Express.
The animation cycles through maps showing: individual sites where a range of minerals that can only be formed in the presence of water were detected; maps of olivine and pyroxene, minerals that tell the story of volcanism and the evolution of the planet's interior; and ferric oxide and dust.
Ferric oxide is a mineral phase of iron, and is present everywhere on the planet: within the bulk crust, lava outflows and the dust oxidised by chemical reactions with the martian atmosphere, causing the surface to 'rust' slowly over billions of years, giving Mars its distinctive red hue.
The map showing hydrated minerals includes detections made by both ESA's Mars Express and by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Copyright: Hydrated mineral map: ESA/CNES/CNRS/IAS/Université Paris-Sud, Orsay; NASA/JPL/JHUAPL; Olivine, pyroxone, ferric dust & dust maps: ESA/CNES/CNRS/IAS/Université Paris-Sud, Orsay Orsay; Video production: ESA
03-06-2013 06:59 PM CEST
This video gives an overview of ESA's underground training course. An abbreviation of Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behaviour and performance Skills, CAVES prepares astronauts to work safely and effectively and solve problems as a multicultural team while exploring uncharted areas using space procedures.
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