Indian Spacecraft Snaps Spectacular Portrait of Mars...

India's first spacecraft to visit Mars has beamed home its greatest photo of the Red Planet yet, a view that reveals the planet from pole to pole. 

The new photo of Mars from India's Mangalyaan probe was unveiled today (Sept. 29) by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It shows Mars as a red globe in space, with the planet's southern ice cap clearly visible, while a huge dust storm blankets part of the northern region. "Something's brewing here!" ISRO officials wrote in a Twitter post for the Mars orbiter. 
 
The Mangalyaan spacecraft used its Mars Colour Camera to capture the amazing photo from a distance of 46,292 miles (74,500 kilometres) above the Red Planet on Sunday (Sept. 28), according to an ISRO photo description. It is the third and best view of Mars from Mangalyaan since the spacecraft arrived in orbit around the planet last week. The Mars Colour Camera is one of five different instruments riding aboard Mangalyaan to study Mars from orbit.

Mangalyaan (the name is Sanskrit for "Mars Craft") is the centrepiece of India's $74 million Mars Orbiter Mission, which launched toward the Red Planet in November 2013 and arrived in orbit on Sept. 24 of this year. The spacecraft arrived at Mars just days after the U.S.-built MAVEN orbiter arrived at the Red Planet on its own mission for NASA. 

India's Mars orbiter circles the Red Planet in a highly elliptical orbit that brings the spacecraft within 227 miles (365 km) of the planet at its closest approach. The orbit reaches out 49,710 miles (80,000 km) at its farthest point. The mission is expected to last between six and 10 months.

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The Indian Space Mission to Mars costs less than £45 million
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1 comment:

  1. M T H4 October 2014 at 06:24

    -What about the millions of Starving people in India?

    -The Indian space program is done for the betterment of the Indian people, with more hi-tech jobs & more money for India - the market for Satellite launch alone is worth billions of dollars, so if India can tap into a small part of this, then that will help feed a whole of a lot more starving people.

    And as they say, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"...

    Shame that our government is not so forward thinking when it comes to technology or investment in the people, infrastructure or country..

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