NASA MRO Image: Rolling Boulder on Mars Leaves Visible Trail

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spotted the trail from an oblong boulder (bottom right) that rolled down a slope on the Red Planet. 

The image was taken on July 3, 2014.

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

The agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) currently orbiting the Red Planet has spotted the trail left behind after a tall boulder tumbled down a Martian slope.

The Mars rock's misshapen prints are clearly visible in the spacecraft's view from orbit.

While NASA unveiled the MRO spacecraft's black and white view of the rocky road on Wednesday (Aug. 13), the image was actually captured on July 3.

By looking at the large rock's shadow, scientists at NASA have calculated that the boulder is about 20 feet tall (6 meters) and 11.5 feet wide (3.5 m).

The SUV-sized boulder ended its roll pointed straight up on its axis, according to NASA officials.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped this view, showing the the trail left by a rolling boulder that tumbled down the side of a slope, on July 3, 2014. 

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

"The boulder's trail down the slope is about one-third of a mile (about 500 meters) long," NASA officials wrote in an image description.

"The trail has an odd repeating pattern, suggesting the boulder could not roll straight due to its shape."

Scientists used MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, (HiRISE), camera to take the Mars boulder photo.

The space agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launched to space in 2005 and has been orbiting the Red Planet in 2006.

The spacecraft has beamed back some amazing images of the Martian surface including pictures of the Spirit rover and Viking landers. NASA's probe has also witnessed dust devils and avalanches from its place in orbit.

In October, MRO will also have a chance to monitor Mars' close brush with a comet set to fly by the Red Planet.

NASA has started to adjust the orbits of spacecraft at Mars to prepare them for their encounter with Comet Siding Spring and ensure that they will be safe from any ill effects that could be caused by the comet.

"MRO will monitor Mars' atmosphere for possible temperature increases and cloud formation, as well as changes in electron density at high altitudes," NASA officials said in a statement.

"The MRO team also plans to study gases in the comet's coma. Along with other MRO observations, the team anticipates this event will yield detailed views of the comet’s nucleus and potentially reveal its rotation rate and surface features."

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover: Leaving Landing 'Safe Zone'

This image taken on June 27, 2014 by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on the rover's landing-ellipse boundary, which is superimposed on the image. 

The ellipse measures approximately 4 miles wide by 12 miles long.

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

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has entered a new realm on the Red Planet.

The 1-ton Curiosity rover has now cruised out of its landing ellipse, the area, about 4 miles wide by 12 miles long (7 by 20 kilometers), regarded as safe ground for its August 2012 touchdown within Mars' huge Gale Crater, NASA officials said.

Indeed, a photo taken by the space agency's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on June 27 shows Curiosity right on this boundary, which encloses a region of relatively flat and smooth terrain.



Curiosity landed with the aid of a rocket-powered sky crane, which lowered the six-wheeled robot down softly on cables before flying off to crash-land intentionally a safe distance away.

This system, which had never been used before at Mars, allowed Curiosity to land with much more precision than previous Red Planet missions had been able to achieve.

For example, NASA's twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers landed inside an ellipse measuring 93 miles by 12 miles (150 by 20 km) in January 2004, and the ellipse for the agency's two Viking landers, which touched down on Mars in 1976, spanned 174 miles by 62 miles (280 by 100 km).

Curiosity's $2.5 billion mission, officially known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), seeks to determine if Mars has ever been capable of supporting microbial life.

The rover team has already achieved this goal, announcing last year that an area near Curiosity's landing site called Yellowknife Bay was a habitable lake-and-stream system billions of years ago.

ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM): Leaves Earth orbit for MARS

The ISRO Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), informally called Mangalyaan. Credit: Wikipedia

India's Mars orbiter mission left Earth's sphere of influence early Sunday after performing a maneuver to put it on its way to orbit the red planet.

The spacecraft fired its main engine for more than 20 minutes to reach the correct velocity to leave the Earth's orbit, the Bangalore-based Indian Space Research Organization said.

"The Earth orbiting phase of the spacecraft ended. The spacecraft is now on a course to encounter Mars after a journey of about 10 months around the sun," the statement said.

ISRO said that all systems on board the spacecraft are performing normally.

India launched its first spacecraft bound for Mars on Nov. 5, a complex mission that it hopes will demonstrate and advance technologies for space travel.

The 1,350-kilogram (3,000-pound) orbiter Mangalyaan, which means "Mars craft" in Hindi, must travel 780 million kilometers (485 million miles) over 300 days to reach an orbit around Mars next September.

If the mission is successful, India will become only the fourth space program to visit the red planet after the Soviet Union, the United States and Europe.

ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano prepares to leave ISS - Video

Watch the Soyuz return flight from the International Space Station of ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and commander Fyodor Yurchikhin: live coverage starts Sunday 20:30 CET, courtesy NASA TV.

ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano has run over 30 experiments on the International Space Station, helped to dock three spaceships, kept his cool during two spacewalks and entertained us with his blogs and pictures of Earth from above – and now it is time for him to come home.

After almost six months on the orbital complex, Luca will return home in a Soyuz spacecraft together with NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and cosmonaut commander Fyodor Yurchikhin during the night of Sunday–Monday.