Phoenix landing site panorama
Image date: 31 July 2008
Image courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University
This view combines more than 400 images taken during the first several weeks after NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander arrived on an arctic plain on Mars.
The full-circle panorama in approximately true color shows the polygonal patterning of ground at the landing area, similar to patterns in permafrost areas on Earth. The center of the image is the westward part of the scene. Trenches where Phoenix’s robotic arm has been exposing subsurface material are also visible. The spacecraft’s meteorology mast, topped by the telltale wind gauge, extends into the sky portion of the panorama.
Visible near the horizon at full resolution are the backshell and parachute (a bright speck above the right edge of the left solar array, about 300 m distant) and the heat shield and its bounce mark (two end-to-end dark streaks above the center of the left solar array, about 150 m distant).
Phoenix Mars Mission project website
Wikipedia article
The full-circle panorama in approximately true color shows the polygonal patterning of ground at the landing area, similar to patterns in permafrost areas on Earth. The center of the image is the westward part of the scene. Trenches where Phoenix’s robotic arm has been exposing subsurface material are also visible. The spacecraft’s meteorology mast, topped by the telltale wind gauge, extends into the sky portion of the panorama.
Visible near the horizon at full resolution are the backshell and parachute (a bright speck above the right edge of the left solar array, about 300 m distant) and the heat shield and its bounce mark (two end-to-end dark streaks above the center of the left solar array, about 150 m distant).
Phoenix Mars Mission project website
Wikipedia article