NASA's new Mars picture

The US space agency NASA has recently pieced together a panoramic view from the camera on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, calling it the "next best thing to being" on the Red Planet.

A full-circle scene combining 817 images taken by the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. The US space agency NASA is calling it the "next best thing to being" on the Red Planet. 

 

A TextureCam analysis of a Mars image is able to distinguish rocks from soil.

 A Martian dust devil roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) high was captured winding its way along the Amazonis Planitia region of northern Mars on March 14, 2012 by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

 This image mosaic taken by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's panoramic camera shows a new slice of martian real estate southwest of the rover's landing site. The landscape shows little variation in local topography, though a narrow peak only seven to eight kilometres away is visible on the horizon. A circular depression, similar to the one dubbed Sleepy Hollow, can be seen in the foreground. Compared to the Viking and Pathfinder landing sites, the terrain at Gusev Crater, Spirit's landing site, is flat and speckled with a sparse array of rocks. The picture was released by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California Janaury 10, 2004. 

 A view of Eberswalde crater containing a rare case of a martian delta, with well preserved channels which fed the lake in the crater, located in the southern highlands of Mars, seen in this handout photograph acquired by Mars Express at approximately 25S / 326E during orbit 7208 on August 15, 2009 and released September 2, 2011. The delta deposits and channels together provide a clear indication of liquid surface water during the early history of Mars. The images have a ground resolution of about 22 m per pixel. Reuters 

 A close-up of the sunset on Sol 24 as seen by the Imager for Mars Pathfinder was released by the Jet Propulsion Labratory August 27. The red sky in the background and the blue around the Sun are approximately as they would appear to the human eye but the color of the Sun itself is not correct -- the Sun was overexposed in each of the 3 color images that were used to make the picture. The true color of the Sun itself may be near white or slightly bluish.

 

Mars' Victoria Crater at Meridiani Planum is seen in this image taken by NASA's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera in this picture released October 6, 2006. NASA officials gave conflicting views during a meeting of space scientists on December 13, 2006, on whether the construction of a moon base will mark a great leap in planning for a manned mission to Mars or prove a wasteful diversion of funds. 

 A portion of the west rim of Endeavour crater sweeps southward in this color view from NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity released by NASA August 10, 2011. This crater has a diameter of about 14 miles (22 km). This view combines exposures taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) of the rover's work on Mars August 6, 2011. Opportunity arrived at the rim during its next drive on August 9, 2011. Endeavour crater has been the rover team's destination for Opportunity since the rover finished exploring Victoria crater in August 2008. Endeavour offers access to older geological deposits than any Opportunity has seen before. The lighter-toned rocks closer to the rover in this view are similar to the rocks Opportunity has driven over for most of the mission. However, the darker-toned and rougher rocks just beyond that might be a different type for Opportunity to investigate. The ground in the foreground is covered with iron-rich spherules, nicknamed "blueberries," which Opportunity has observed frequently since the first days after landing. They are about 0.2 inch (5 millimeters) or more in diameter. 

 A handout of the European Space Agency ESA shows a visualisation of Mars, created from spacecraft imagery. ESA's first mission to the Red Planet is Mars Express. It comprises an orbiter carrying seven scientific instruments to probe the planet's atmosphere, structure and geology, including a search for evidence of hidden water. The main spacecraft will also release the UK's small Beagle 2 lander to gather and test rock and soil samples on the surface. British space probe Beagle 2 failed to broadcast a signal on December 25, 2003, to confirm it had landed on Mars, but scientists said they were waiting for a second contact opportunity later on Thursday.

 In this image released January 19, 2005, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover "Opportunity": has found an iron meteorite on Mars, the first meteorite of any type ever identified on another planet. The pitted, basketball-size object is mostly made of iron and nickel. This composite combines images taken through the panoramic camera's 600-nanometer (red), 530-nanometer (green), and 480-nanometer (blue) filters.

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's Surface Stereo Imager shows two trenches dug by Phoenix's Robotic Arm in this image taken June 8, 2008, the 14th Martian day after landing. Soil from the right trench, informally called "Baby Bear," was delivered to Phoenix's Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA, on June 6, 2008. Picture taken June 8, 2008.

 

A cliff, up to 4,000 m high, located in the eastern part of Echus Chasma, one of the largest water source regions on Mars, is seen in this image taken by the High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESAís Mars Express and made available July 14, 2008. Echus Chasma is the source region of Kasei Valles which extends 3,000 km to the north.

 

The High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA?s Mars Express has returned images of Echus Chasma in this image made available on July 14, 2008. Echus Chasma is an approximately 100 km long and 10 km wide incision in the Lunae Planum high plateau north of Valles Marineris, the ?Grand Canyon? of Mars.

 One of the first colour images from the Phoenix Mars Lander shows the surface of Mars after the Phoenix Mars Lander spacecraft landed successfully in the first-ever touchdown near Mars' north pole 

 An artist's conception shows what NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed, vast Martian glaciers of water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris at much lower latitudes than any ice previously identified on the Red Planet. Scientists analyzed data from the spacecraft's ground-penetrating radar and report in the November 21, 2008 issue of the journal Science that buried glaciers extend for dozens of miles from edges of mountains or cliffs.

Expedition vows to learn fate of missing US aviator

The leader of a south Pacific expedition to solve a 75-year-old mystery over Amelia Earhart's disappearance vowed to leave no stone unturned Tuesday, shortly before setting sail from Hawaii.

 

Richard Gillespie, head of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) mission, said they would use technology not previously available to try to learn the fate of the pioneering aviatrix.
"We are demonstrating the newest methods to sift fact from myth -- skills everyone can use these days when we are bombarded by information not knowing what is true," he told AFP.
The expedition is heading to Nikumaroro island in Kiribati to try to establish whether Earhart survived the apparent crash of her twin-engine Lockheed Electra aircraft.
Gillespie believes the 39-year-old may have after her July 2, 1937 disappearance because of a series of clues -- including radio transmissions from the area, reportedly including a call for help, received at the time.
"Today, with computer software able to recreate the electromagnetic environment of 1937, we can do an analysis of the radio signals that were dismissed by authorities back then," Gillespie said.
"We find we are left with one of two possibilities: either she was on land in the Phoenix Islands group for six days sending radio distress messages -- or there was a hoaxer in that area who could transmit on that frequency, mimic her voice, knew personal details about her, and knew far enough in advance that he could set all these things up."
Earhart, 39, was flying with navigator Fred Noonan during the final stage of an ambitious round-the-world flight along the equator at the time that her plane disappeared.
The holder of several aeronautical records -- including the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air -- Earhart had set off from New Guinea to refuel at Howland Island for a final long-distance hop to California.
In what turned out to be her final radio message, she declared she was unable to find Howland and that fuel was running low.
Several search-and-rescue missions ordered by then-president Franklin Roosevelt turned up no trace of Earhart or Noonan, who were eventually presumed dead at sea.
Conspiracy theories flourished, including one contending that Earhart was held by Japanese imperial forces as a spy. Another claimed she completed her flight, but changed her identity and settled in New Jersey.
Aircraft debris reportedly was found by island residents in subsequent years, but the TIGHAR research team is operating on the hypothesis that the aircraft landed safely on the reef and remained there for several days before being washed over the edge by rising tides and surf.
TIGHAR suspects that Earhart and Noonan reached Gardner Island -- at the time a British possession and now known as Nikumaroro -- and managed to survive for an unknown period of time.
The uninhabited coral atoll is a mere 3.7 miles (six kilometers) long by 1.2 miles (two kilometers) wide, and is about 300 miles (480 kilometers) southeast of Howland Island.
Gillespie told AFP that if debris is found, it will not be gathered, but will be photographed and its location carefully documented for a future expedition.
The expedition ship and a crew of about 20 scientists will spent 10 days on both the island and an underwater reef slope at its west end.

Technology on board includes a multi-beam sonar to map the ocean floor and a remote-controlled device similar to one that found the black boxes from the Rio-to-Paris Air France flight that crashed into the South Atlantic in 2009.
The search team is accompanied by a three-person camera crew who will film the expedition for a planned television special later this year.