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| Europe goes to Mars About Mars Express About Mars Meet the team Multimedia VideoTalkMars Express imagesMars Express videosHRSC videosAnimation in 11 languagesDownload wallpapersDownload screensavers3D Flash 'model'Make a modelServices Comments
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Welcome to Mars
| Taking advantage of Mars's closest approach to Earth in eight years, astronomers using NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope took the then sharpest views of the Red Planet in 1999. The telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 snapped this image Mars when it was only 87 million kilometres from Earth. From this distance the telescope could see features as small as 19 kilometres wide. If you were travelling with Mars Express, this is the view you might have a few days before arrival at a distance of several thousand kilometres.
This image is centred on the dark feature known as Syrtis Major, first seen by the astronomer Christian Huygens in the 17th century. Clearly visible are the icy north and south poles, and along the right limb, late afternoon clouds have formed around the volcano Elysium.
Quote: Five days before entering final orbit, Mars Express will be on a collision course with the planet.
- John Reddy
Credits: NASA | |  |  | |
| | | | | Valley networks, like these photographed by NASA’s Viking mission, suggest that rivers once flowed on Mars.
Credits: NASA | | | | |
| | | | | The Beagle 2 lander, to be carried on ESA's Mars Express, is equipped with a suite of instruments designed to look for evidence of life on Mars.
The Soyuz/Fregat lifts off on 2 June 2003 with ESA's Mars Express. Europe's first mission to the Red Planet leaves Earth
when the
positions of the two planets make for
the shortest possible route, a condition
that occurs once every twenty-six
months. The intrepid spacecraft will
start its six-month journey from the
Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan onboard a Russian
Soyuz/Fregat launcher.
Credits: ESA 2001. Illustration by Medialab. | | | | |
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| | Looking at Mars  More about... Mars Express overviewRelated articles Mars Express instrumentsThe search for lifeChances of life are linked to waterWater on early Mars?Related links Rickard Lundin's web site
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