2023-06-08 00:38:23
To celebrate the Mars Express Orbiter’s 20th anniversary, the European Space Agency broadcast the first-ever live broadcast of Mars, in a historic hour-long event on Friday, June 3. The recently released animation shows a quick version of how the live stream should look.
During the live broadcast, the images would appear regarding once every 50 seconds, since the orbiter was on board The Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) captured the images from Mars orbit. Unfortunately, there is a noticeable gap in the middle, the result of rain at the European Space Agency’s ground station in Cebreros, Spain, disrupting the orbiter’s telemetry. Engineers are still trying to recover the lost images, says the European Space Agency press release.
The experiment revealed some interesting features of Mars, including atmospheric phenomena.
“March is now approaching the Southern Winter,” VMC member Jorge Hernandez Bernal explained in the same press release. The southern polar cap is visible in these images, near the polar night, while the Arsia Mons volcano is on the left side of the planet. Orographic clouds are also common during this season and form when the atmosphere moves over mountains and volcanic slopes.
Bernal added that on the right side of the video, a different cloud was seen near the polar cap. The team conducted an in-depth study of these high-altitude clouds at dusk using the VMC, revealing that they are prevalent in this particular region of the planet during this season.
Achieving this feat proved to be an important task, as the VMC needed to see the planet at the same time that the probe’s antenna was constantly facing Earth in order to instantly broadcast data back home. Typically, the observations are stored on board the spacecraft and sent in batches to Earth, which can take hours or even days.
“Usually, spacecraft instruments cannot be pointed at Mars and the communications antenna on Earth at the same time,” James Godfrey, president of space operations for Mars Express, said in the press release. “But a few weeks ago, when we were looking for anniversary celebration ideas, we realized thisMr. Dr that Mars would pass through the VMC’s line of sight while communications were passing by and the idea was born.
This isn’t the most exciting visual image of Mars we’ve ever seen, but this experience makes us feel like we’re closing the gap between Earth and the Red Planet more and more.
For more spaceflights in your life, stay tuned Twitter And a custom bookmark for Gizmodo Spaceflight page.
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