NASA MAVEN: Probe Snaps 1st Red Planet Images

The first observations of Mars' upper atmosphere made by NASA's MAVEN probe, which reached the Red Planet on Sept. 21, 2014.

Credit: Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado; NASA

NASA's MAVEN spacecraft isn't wasting any time at Mars.

MAVEN sent home its first images of Mars' upper atmosphere early Monday morning (Sept. 22), just eight hours after entering orbit around the Red Planet.

The false-colour images, which NASA released Wednesday (Sept. 24), were captured by MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IVS) instrument when the probe was 22,680 miles (36,500 kilometers) above the surface of Mars, agency officials said.

"Blue shows the ultraviolet light from the sun scattered from atomic hydrogen gas in an extended cloud that goes to thousands of kilometers above the planet’s surface," NASA officials wrote in an online description of the image.

"Green shows a different wavelength of ultraviolet light that is primarily sunlight reflected off of atomic oxygen, showing the smaller oxygen cloud," they added.

"Red shows ultraviolet sunlight reflected from the planet’s surface; the bright spot in the lower right is light reflected either from polar ice or clouds."



The $671 million MAVEN mission is NASA's first effort to study the Red Planet's upper atmosphere.

MAVEN will use its three onboard instrument suites to measure the rate of gas escape into space, in an attempt to better understand why Mars lost most of its atmosphere over the eons.

NB: The planet's air was relatively thick in the ancient past but is now just 1 percent as dense as that of Earth.

MAVEN's observations should shed light on how and why Mars transitioned from a warm and wet world billions of years ago to the cold, dry planet we know today, mission scientists have said.

The spacecraft is now in a commissioning phase, during which mission team members will lower MAVEN to its final orbit and check out its science gear.

The probe's one-year science mission is scheduled to start in early November.

TechDemoSat-1 in orbit Snaps Soyuz Launch Companion - video

Video taken in-orbit on 8 July 2014 using an inspection camera on-board the TechDemoSat-1 satellite starting about 30 seconds after separation from the launcher.

At 6 seconds the Sun appears at the top of the frame as a very bright white flare, before the rotation of the satellite reveals a view of Earth below, of the Pacific Ocean south of French Polynesia.

At 25 seconds, the Fregat upper stage of the Soyuz-2 launch vehicle appears as a gold object passing left to right at a distance of approx 60 metres.

At 34 seconds a white dot crosses the frame left to right, this is almost certainly one of the other satellites that shared the ride into orbit with TechDemoSat-1.

The inspection camera which took the video footage is there to monitoring the behaviour of key mechanics, including the Antenna Pointing Mechanism which is in view for the duration of this video.

Bonnie but Rugged: Canadian Astronaut Hadfield snaps Scotland from ISS

"Bonnie but Rugged!" Loch Lomond and the Clyde estuary in view here.

Cmdr Hadfield: "The ruggedness of Scotland evident in the snowy hills and lochs north of the Firth of Clyde." 

First Minister Alex Salmond tweeted the astronaut saying he was impressed with his photography. 

Cmdr Hadfield responded by saying he hoped to visit Scotland when he was "back on earth". 

The "Whiskey Islands" - The Isle of Skye photographed by Cmdr Hadfield - he described them as "a stirring landscape". 

The islands of Canna, Rum, Eigg, and Muck are visible to the south of Skye, as well as the mainland from Loch Torridon down to Loch Nevis. Cmdr Hadfield said: 

"Edinburgh to Dundee, with the big Tay and Forth bridges visible. 

NASA Deep Impact Probe Snaps Photos of Comet ISON

The comet that may put on a spectacular light show during a November date with the Sun, was observed by the Deep Impact mission. The spacecraft has also had close fly-bys of comet's Tempel 1 and Hartley 2 and scientific observations of Garradd.

CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD (Tony Farnham)

A NASA spacecraft has captured its first photos of comet ISON, an icy wanderer that some scientists say could dazzle as a "comet of the century" when it swings through the inner solar system later this year.

The photos were taken by NASA's Deep Impact probe and reveal comet ISON as a bright, dusty ball moving against a star-filled background. The spacecraft snapped the pictures on Jan. 17 and Jan. 18 from a distance of about 493 million miles (793 million kilometers).

Comet ISON has been the focus of much anticipation among scientists and stargazers because of its potential to put on a spectacular display in late November, when it makes its closest approach to the sun.

Some forecasts predict the comet could shine brighter than the full moon. As of mid-January, the comet's tail was more than 40,000 miles (64,400 km).

Some projections state that comet ISON, which is officially designated comet C/20012 S1 (ISON), could shine extremely bright in the nighttime sky, possibly even rivaling the full moon.

Whether the comet will meet expectations or fizzle out remains to be seen, but it has already become a target for NASA and amateur astronomers.

"This is the fourth comet on which we have performed science observations and the farthest point from Earth from which we've tried to transmit data on a comet," Deep Impact project manager Tim Larson, of the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement Tuesday (Feb. 5) "The distance limits our bandwidth, so it's a little like communicating through a modem after being used to DSL. But we're going to coordinate our science collection and playback so we maximize our return on this potentially spectacular comet."

NASA Shuttle Endeavour Crew snaps ISS

With the Earth in the background, the International Space Station is seen in this image photographed by an STS-130 crew member from aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour

Picture: REUTERS / NASA

Cassini snaps Prometheus

Prometheus is one of Saturn's innermost moons.

Looking for all intents and purposes like a celestial egg after a session in Saturn's skillet, Prometheus displayed its pockmarked, irregular surface for NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Jan. 27, 2010.

It orbits the gas-giant at a distance of 139,353 kilometers (85,590 miles) and is 86 kilometers (53 miles) across at its widest point.

The porous, icy-bodied world was originally discovered by images taken by Voyager 1 back in 1980.

You could say this latest "egg-cellent" view has the Cassini science team licking their chops at the thought of future Prometheus images.

This raw, unprocessed image of Prometheus [pro-MEE-thee-us] , taken in visible light, was obtained by Cassini's narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 36,000 kilometers (23,000 miles).