ESA - Mars Express - Light and shadow on the surface of Mars

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Light and shadow on the surface of Mars

17 February 2006

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The HRSC on ESA's Mars Express spacecraft took this image of Phobos's shadow on the surface of Mars during orbit 2345 on 10 November 2005. This is a nadir view (i.e., vertical view).

Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

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This artist's impression shows ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft scanning the fast-moving shadow of the moon Phobos as it moved across the Martian surface.

Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

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An animation of HRSC images taken 10 November 2005, as the shadow of Phobos moves on the surface of Mars. The HRSC has nine line sensors, which cover the surface one after the other due to the movement of the orbiter over the surface.

While the first and forward-looking channel images the ground, the shadow of Phobos is still outside the imaged area (first image in the sequence). Then the HRSC covers the field of view subsequently with the green channel, the panchromatic nadir channel, and the blue channel (second to fourth images in sequence).

The complete imaging time for all channels is only a few minutes. By the time the last channel, another backward-looking panchromatic channel, observes the 41 km-wide field on the ground, the shadow has left the imaged area again.

Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

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This image, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, is one of the highest-resolution pictures so far of the Martian moon Phobos.

The image shows the Mars-facing side of the moon, taken from a distance of less than 200 kilometres with a resolution of about seven metres per pixel during orbit 756, on 22 August 2004.

This colour image was calculated from the three colour channels and the nadir channel on the HRSC. Due to geometric reasons the scale bar is only valid for the centre of the image.

Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

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