Looking back
Yesterday morning we turned the MRO spacecraft around to see our point of origin – the Earth. We took a special calibration image of the Earth and Moon. HiRISE isn’t the first to take a picture of the Earth from Mars, but we’re hoping ours will be even more detailed. We expect the Earth to be about 90 pixels across its diameter, and the Moon about 24 pixels. So it won’t be a big beautiful clear image like you’re used to looking at from our weekly releases, but we should be able to resolve features like continents!
This diagram simulates of what the inner solar system would look like if it were being viewed from above right now. MRO is looking from Mars (orange) towards Earth (purple). You can see from this geometry that we’ll only see the sunlit part of the Earth and Moon as a crescent. They’ll look somewhat less than half full.
On the technical side, we’ve been working with the spacecraft engineers on this sequence for a while now. Any special activity like this requires a lot of hand-built commands, which have to be carefully reviewed and tested before we send them to MRO. We had to slew away from Mars, towards the Earth. Then we moved HiRISE’s focus mechanism a little, so we’d be in better focus to view the Earth & Moon. The spacecraft then slowly rotated so the Earth would pass through our field of view. Then it rewinded (rewound? 
) & repeated the same thing, so we could take a second image that would be exposed correctly for the Moon, which is much darker. The focus mechanism was moved back to our perfect Mars focus, and then we resumed imaging Mars normally.
Due to the downlink outage I referred to in the previous post, we’ve had to scramble to protect these data. Many thanks to a certain prophetically-named Targeting Specialist for working so hard to cancel (and un-cancel) other images in order to make sure we get these down safely. After all this work, we really want to see the pictures! 
It won’t be for a while, though. We have to wait for the data to be downlinked and processed, which could take several days. Since these image are so different from our regular Mars images, our regular smooth pipelines are useless. Instead, everything has to be done by hand by our diligent downlink team. Fingers crossed until then!
UPDATE: This image has finally been released! http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/earthmoon.php The color processing had to be done by hand, and this just wasn’t as high of a priority as getting more Mars images, improving software, and preparing for our big PDS releases.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Say cheese, Earthlings!
November 3rd, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Earthlings are waiting in patience, starting to get really really curious…
December 22nd, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Still waiting… we all hope for nice Christmas present!
December 26th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Would it be possible for HiRISE to image Phobos & Deimos?
Also next year, Saturn will be at Martian Opposition & asteroid 2007WD5 may impact Mars on 30th January 2008. Could HiRISE image the asteroid, even if it is a close pass?
Andrew Brown.
December 26th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Hi, our fellow MRO instrument, CRISM, recently took a look at Phobos and Deimos. These are technically demanding targets for HiRISE, requiring a lot of time to plan, but I feel it is likely that we’ll participate in a Phobos and/or Deimos observation eventually.
Targets such as the asteroid, small, distant, dim and very fast moving are even more difficult. (We tried to observe the MGS spacecraft shortly after its failure, and even with its very well known orbit, were unable to capture it). So it’s very unlikely that we’ll try to observe the asteroid pass. However, I’m personally not involved in target planning….
December 26th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Thanks GuyMac.
Yes I was aware of the fascinating CRISM observations, something I had suggested a while back. Potential captured Type D asteroids. I certainly expected type C, but Type D are even more primitive & Phobos & Deimos
appear to have much more in common with the asteroids in the far outer part of the Asteroid Belt, than anything in the inner solar system also appear to have far more in common with some of Jupiter’s very outermost moons like Sinope, Pasiphae, Erinome & Autonoe.
This is a very interesting development indeed, quite unexpected when MRO was launched.
Also on Sunday 18th May 2008, the planet Saturn reaches opposition as seen from Mars. Could HiRISE take a peek? I remeber & thank the HiRISE team for the Jupiter observation back in January, part as a HiRISE test, but also a support observation with New Horizons.
I do not know if this is the right place, but was there any luck in finding out what happened to the Mars Polar Lander. I understand HiRISE was to look at the most likely part of the landing ellipse, back in May.
We heard about the Beagle 2 mystery deepening, after your excellent images of the landing site failed to find anything of Beagle 2, BUT we did get to see theintended landing site in incredible detail, so not a wasted set of observations at all.
I have heard suggestions that Beagle 2 missed Mars altogether & is now in Heliocentric orbit, because the seperation from Mars Express may not have been as accurate as first thought.
The fact that the HiRISE failed to find any sign of Beagle 2, does seem to increase that possibilty, mind you I suppose searching the entire landing ellipse was out of the question.
P.S, I will say this though, I love your site & what MRO & what you are all doing. Please keep up the excellent work.
This probably will not be the last time you will hear from me.
Andrew Brown.
February 24th, 2008 at 10:27 am
To me it is necessary to find
March 4th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
I like the Earth & Moon from Mars orbit very much. Well worth waiting for it to be released (was aware of the observation being made).
If possible, please try the Saturn oppostion as seen from Mars on Sunday 18th May 2008 with HiRISE. Should be quite a sight with HiRISE. Keep up the good work please.
Yes I agree also, it is necessary to find the Mars Polar Lander. Hopefully we’ll find out more about what went wrong.
Andrew Brown.