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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday November 30 2016, @12:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the aka-Mars-fart-detector dept.

The European Space Agency's spacecraft orbiting Mars, the Trace Gas Orbiter, has been calibrating its instruments for about a week and the ESA has just released some representative data from these tests.

At closest approach the spacecraft was 235 km from the surface, and flying over the Hebes Chasma region, just north of the Valles Marineris canyon system. These are some of the closest images that will ever be taken of the planet by TGO, given that the spacecraft's final orbit will be at around 400 km altitude.

[...] Although the images are impressively sharp, data collected during this test period will help to improve the camera's onboard software as well as the quality of the images after processing.

"We are extremely happy and proud to see that all the instruments are working so well in the Mars environment, and this first impression gives a fantastic preview of what's to come when we start collecting data for real at the end of next year," says HÃ¥kan Svedhem, ESA's TGO Project Scientist.

"Not only is the spacecraft itself clearly performing well, but I am delighted to see the various teams working together so effectively in order to give us this impressive insight.

The camera may deliver the most easy to grasp data, but the atmosphere and surface composition instruments will be vital in understanding whether and how we might live on Mars.


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  • (Score: 2) by dlb on Wednesday November 30 2016, @05:45PM

    by dlb (4790) on Wednesday November 30 2016, @05:45PM (#435020)
    I've heard of the Valles Marineris canyon system [nasa.gov]. Until the ESA has a chance to download and share enough images to make a nice composit, here's a fun CGI. [youtube.com] made "...by the Solar System Visualization team (SSV) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California."
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