ESA
MEX Spacecraft OperationsVMC video - submission by Hannes Griebel
Hannes Griebel, Mars Express operations and mission planning engineer, has sent us his own versions of the VMC video, which he's reworked into several formats. Thanks, Hannes! And remember: we'd be delighted to receive similar efforts from anyone who would like to try their hand at generating a video (or any other production) from the raw image set of 27 May (here and here). Artistic, scientific, interpretative, whatever: take a look and give it a try. We'll republish the best submissions right here in the blog.
Clik on 'Full story' for more details and to view all versions of Hannes' work. -- Daniel
Hannes writes:
The movie starts at the apoapsis of the orbit (the point furthest away from the planet) over Tharsis. The morning terminator (the night-day-transition line) lies just over Pavonis Mons, the second of the three massive shield volcanoes that are known as Tharsis Montes. North of it lies Ascreus Mons, and south of it, just coming into the morning light, is Arsia Mons.
Click here to view full-size version of this video.
Video 001
The fourth shield volcano, lying further to the north-west of Tharsis, is the biggest mountain in the solar system: Olympus Mons. As we move inward toward the night side, you can catch a hint of Olympus Mons' massive size as it disappears behind the horizon: It noticeably bulges outward from the planetary disk.
Another noteworthy feature is the giant canyon system known as Valles Marineris, which can be seen as a dark streak towards the East of Tharsis. Don't miss the haze or dust cloud moving in an easterly direction just south of Phoenicis Lacus (west of V. Marineris)!
It is currently summer in the northern hemisphere of Mars, so the South Pole is not visible. Like the Earth, Mars has an axial tilt that causes seasons; Mars Express is in a nearly polar orbit, meaning that we pass over the poles during every orbit.
As we move further south and closer to the planet, we can see a white patch passing by: This is Argyre Planitia, a giant impact basin at high southern latitudes that is currently covered in a wintery frost of carbon dioxide.
The periapsis, or the point of the orbit which lies closest to the planet, is on the night side. Shortly after, we fly over the evening terminator at close range. Because the velocity of the satellite is so high, we can just barely glimpse some craters before we come out over the beautiful North Pole. We fly over Olympia Planitia and as we move away from the planet, we can see the Elysium Montes (Hecates Tholus to the north, Elysium Mons in the middle and Albor Tholus to the south) rotating into the morning sun.
Shortly before we reach the next apoapsis of our orbit, we can see a black shadow moving across the image from top to bottom: This is Phobos, the innermost of Mars's two small moons.
Ground track map
The context map shows the ground track of the orbit (orbit number 8194) in red starting at the triangle marked "Apo 8194" and the yellow line marks the track of the subsolar point (the point over which the Sun is directly in the zenith). Credits: MAPPS v.6.4 / ESA
About these videos (scroll down)
Scroll down to view notes on the different versions.
-- Hannes Griebel
Mars Express
Space Operations and Mission Planning
Additional versions
Click here to view full-size version of this video.
Video 002
In this version, the orientation is shown as Mars Express 'saw' Mars: North is to the right, South to the left and the Mars-Sun orbital plane coincides with the image vertical. Also, this movie combines two images taken with the camera's two different exposure settings in a high dynamic range (HDR)-processed version, where each of the 600 frames was processed to show highlights from both exposure settings. Since twice the number of pictures was available, this version has a higher resolution as well as a smoother motion.
Click here to view full-size version of this video.
Video 003
In this version, the orientation has been rotated so that the satellite-Mars orbital plane coincides with the image vertical, so we see the view moving down and up in the image. Also, this movie combines two images taken with the camera's two different exposure settings in a high dynamic range (HDR)-processed version, where each of the 600 frames was processed to show highlights from both exposure settings. Since twice the number of pictures was available, this version has a higher resolution as well as a smoother motion.
