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Gale Crater
This view of Gale crater reveals where the Mars Science Laboratory will land in August 2012. The crater is 154 kilometers (96 miles) in diameter and contains a layered mountain rising about 5 kilometers (3 miles) above the crater floor. The landing ellipse (yellow) contains a very dense and brightly colored rock type unlike any previously studied on Mars. NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft captured the image.
Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/UA
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Fourth Moon
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting Pluto. Temporarily designated P4, the new moon was uncovered during a search for rings around the icy dwarf planet. The presence of the moon was confirmed in this Hubble image taken on July 3, 2011. With an estimated diameter of 13 to 34 kilometers (8 to 21 miles), P4 is the smallest moon discovered around Pluto. Charon, the largest moon, is 1,043 kilometers (648 miles) across, while Nix and Hydra are in the range of 32 to 113 kilometers (20 to 70 miles) in diameter.
Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, and M. Showalter (SETI institute) |
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LRO Spies Apollo 17 Landing Site
Launched in 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been orbiting the Moon for over two years. One of its seven scientific instruments is the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), which can image features less than a meter in size. LROC will help locate future landing sites and map the Moon’s surface in detail. In September 2011, LROC captured the sharpest image ever taken from space of the Apollo 17 landing site. The mission’s lunar module Challenger touched down in December 1972. Astronaut foot trails and tracks left by the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) are visible. Geophone Rock is a 12-foot-high boulder named after the geophone instruments laid out from the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP).
Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University |
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