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| Earth and Moon |
This week’s guess the planet image is fairly obviously a
view of the Earth and Moon from a considerable distance away. This image was actually
captured by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This isn’t the
usual purpose of this instrument, as it is usually pointed down towards the
martian surface, producing the highest resolution images of that planet. However
on a few occasions it has been used to image other targets. Let’s take a look
at a few of these images, and consider the advantages of using a mars based
camera.
As well as numerous images of Mars the HiRISE instrument has
been used to image Phobos and Demos the two martian moons, producing amazing
images of those small bodies. Unlike Earth's moon these objects are very small, and so do not have sufficient gravity to become spherical. They look more like irregular asteroids.
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| Deimos |
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| Phobos |
I plan to talk more about Phobos and Deimos in the future, so watch out for these moons in a future guess the planets blog.
The HiRISE camera is effectively the most powerful telescope
to have been sent out of Earth orbit, and can thus produce some amazing
astronomical images on the rare occasions when it is pointed away from Mars. This image of Jupiter and its associated moons was
acquired as a calibration exercise for the camera. NASA reports that the fact
that Mars was so much closer to Jupiter at the time the image was taken means
that it has a similar resolution to a Hubble space telescope image acquired from
Earth orbit would.
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| Jupiter |
This very wide image includes Jupiter and several of the Galilean satellites, check out the link below for higher resolution versions, as I can't include it here at a resolution that does it justice.
Image credits: NASA/JPL/ University of Arizona
The Earth as seen from Mars
image of Jupiter from Mars
Phobos
http://www.uahirise.org/phobos.php
Deimos
http://www.uahirise.org/deimos.php
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