Spectacular image of mourning Mars. The best image so far not taken from a spacecraft orbiting Mars but from around Earth; The Odyssey spacecraft performed a maneuver this week in preparation for its arrival on Mars in a few months
The Hubble Space Telescope managed to capture the best images of Mars ever taken near Earth, while a NASA spacecraft makes its way to the Red Planet.
The Earth-orbiting telescope focused on the planet during its closest approach in a decade, capturing sharp details of the ice clouds, dust storms and landforms that dominate Mars.
Dust storms are raging in many places on the planet. One of them extended over the polar dome, and another storm was adjacent to it.
Hubble has photographed Mars before, but never in such detail. Bodies smaller than 16 kilometers wide can be distinguished in the last photograph.
Another storm occurred near the Las Vegas Crater in the Southern Hemisphere (bottom right of the photo).
Hubble scientists released the image on Thursday, an image taken on June 26 when Mars was at its closest distance - 68 million km - from Earth.
Astronomers are particularly interested in the weather conditions on Mars. The US and the Europeans are planning three landings on Mars in the next two and a half years.
Meanwhile, the NASA spacecraft is approaching the red planet - Odyssey to Mars 2001, which was launched in April, this week made an adjustment in its orbit in preparation for its expected arrival in October in orbit around Mars.
The maneuver marked the completion of the spacecraft's routing phase," said Odyssey director David Spencer. The $300 million spacecraft will be the first to reach Mars since two spacecraft disappeared near Mars in 1999.
The spacecraft, designed to measure radiation levels on Mars and examine the mineralogical signatures of water, may help scientists plan a manned mission to Mars and test whether life has ever existed on Mars.
The flight engineers have been testing all the instruments on Odyssey for the past few weeks. "All scientific instruments have been tested and are working well." Spender said in a statement.
Now editors in charge of the mission at JPL, to brake the spacecraft in the upper atmosphere of Mars, before the spacecraft will enter into orbit.
Odyssey is now 35 million kilometers from Earth, and it travels at a speed of 96 thousand km/h relative to the Sun.
